Taft partner Jonathan Amarilio and associate Paul Coogan secured the dismissal with prejudice of their client from a products liability suit after the Illinois Appellate Court granted their client’s petition for interlocutory appeal. The plaintiff, an Illinois resident, filed suit in Cook County, Illinois, alleging that she suffered brain damage and other injuries after she underwent electroshock therapy (ECT) as a treatment for her depression. Taft’s client, Elektrika, Inc., is a New York corporation that supplies and assembles certain component parts for the ECT device used in plaintiff’s treatment, which it sells and ships exclusively to the device manufacturer in Florida.

Despite the absence of meaningful contacts with Illinois, the trial court denied Elektrika’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Amarilio and Coogan filed a petition for interlocutory appeal in the Illinois Appellate Court, arguing that the trial court improperly relied on immaterial and outdated contacts as the basis for jurisdiction. Rather than attempt to defend the trial court’s order in the Appellate Court, the plaintiff offered to voluntarily dismiss Elektrika from the case with prejudice.

Amarilio is a co-chair of Taft’s appellate practice. He has extensive experience appearing before state and federal appellate courts, primarily the Illinois Appellate Court, the Illinois Supreme Court, and the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. 

Coogan represents clients on both sides of the bar in state and federal appellate courts. He is experienced in drafting appellate briefs on behalf of both appellants and appellees, filing and responding to petitions for leave to appeal, and drafting post-trial motions on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants.