On May 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit provided important guidance on fundamental issues of justiciability and injury. The court’s decision resolving a dispute between a baseball magazine vendor and the city of Chicago serves as a good reminder about the rules governing a corporation’s ability to recover damages sustained during the pendency of litigation. See Left Field Media v. City of Chicago, No. 19-2904 (7th Cir. May 15, 2020).
Four years ago, the Seventh Circuit first addressed the dispute between Left Field Media and the Chicago when Left Field Media appealed the denial of its motion for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the city from enforcing certain ordinances against the company. Left Field Media publishes a magazine called Chicago Baseball and uses peddlers to sell the publication on the sidewalks outside Wrigley Field before Cubs games. One of the challenged city ordinances prohibited peddling on the public ways without a peddler’s license. That ordinance contained an exception for the sale of newspapers, but not other printed media.
