recent articles and news

A village resident sued the Village of Saybrook, its President and her neighbor claiming the Village violated the Open Meetings Act and improperly granted a special use permit to her neighbor.  The appellate court upheld Krumpe’s position that the Village and its President were properly dismissed from the lawsuit.  The court affirmed the well-established principle that when a violation of the Open Meetings Act has occurred, a municipality is not prevented from calling a subsequent meeting and correcting the prior deficiency.  Furthermore, the appellate court held Krumpe’s clients did not violate the law in issuing a special use permit to plaintiff’s neighbor. 

 The appellate court decision can be found here 

Jeffrey Krumpe successfully defended a municipality against claims made pursuant to the Illinois Antitrust Act.  The appellate court held the municipality immune.  The appellate court also sanctioned Krumpe’s opponent for bringing an appeal in violation of Supreme Court Rule 375 and for violating Supreme Court Rule 137.

The appellate court opinion can be read here.

JEFFREY E. KRUMPE CO-AUTHORED (WITH WILLIAM MCKENNA) 

The chapter is attached here.

I recently participated in a successful appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, which solidified the mechanic’s lien rights of architects, engineers, and surveyors. Agreeing with my client, a unanimous Supreme Court held that those design professionals who perform any service for the purpose of improving real property (even when actual construction does not proceed) are entitled to assert a mechanics lien.  

Read the entire opinion in Christopher Burke Engineering v. Harkens here. 

Following successful foreclosure of a commercial mortgage owned by Fannie Mae, Jeffrey Krumpe, succeeded in having the trial court dismiss various claims made by the defaulting borrower.  The Appellate Court affirmed this dismissal in Kimbrell v. Wells Fargo. 

 Read the Appellate Court’s opinion in Kimbrell v. Wells Fargo here. 

I represented the Bank in a farm Chapter 11 case, where Debtors obtained crop input financing by agreeing to sell future farm receipts to finance company, contrary to interest of Bank with prior perfected security interest in crops and proceeds, and where the Bank and the finance company claimed a competing interest in certain crop proceeds, Court determined on the facts at trial that Bank had not “authorized the disposition free of” its security interest under U.C.C. 9-315(a)(1), so that the Bank retained its lien on Debtors’ crops and proceeds notwithstanding alleged sale to finance company. Court also determined that the evidence did not support finance company’s alternative theory of Equitable Subordination under Bankruptcy Code section 510(c), finding that Bank did not exert excessive control over Debtors’ business, and thus was not an insider, and took no inequitable action with an intent to harm the finance company. 

The court’s opinion can be found here: 

In connection with National Celebrate Pro Bono week, the 10th Judicial Circuit has awarded the 2016 Pro Bono Service Award to me.  I have accepted cases from Prairie State Legal Services since 1995.  In that time I have handled 25 cases and provided more than 420 hours of free legal services to clients.  Over the years, I have successfully represented numerous clients with unlawful garnishments,  divorces, lien foreclosures and fraud cases.