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ehabilitation in Indiana and had obtained an antisuit injunction from an
Indiana court. The appellate court found that the State of Indiana could not
and did not acquire personal jurisdiction over the plaintiff in this case, given
that she had no contacts with Indiana. In addition, the court held that there
is no constitutional compulsion on Illinois courts to give full faith and credit
or extend comity to foreign antisuit injunctions.
People v. Chicago Lloyds, 391 Ill. 492, 63 N.E.2d 479 (1945) reversed, Morris v.
Jones, 329 U.S. 545, rehearing denied, 330 U.S. 854. The court held that the full
faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution is not authority for placing the
foreign creditor who obtained a judgment in a better position in Illinois than
such a creditor would be in Missouri.
Republic Ins. Co. v. Maleski, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14153 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 30,
1994). Respondents, the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, moved to
dismiss Republic's petition to confirm an arbitration award, and argued that
Republic, was collaterally estopped from denying that the plan of
rehabilitation gives the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court exclusive
jurisdiction to rule on the arbitration award. The court held that both the
Pennsylvania state courts and state statutes made clear that a lower state
court did not have exclusive jurisdiction over pending proceedings "by or
against an estate in rehabilitation." Therefore, the petitioner could deny
that the plan of rehabilitation required that lower state court to rule on the
arbitration award as it related to the rehabilitation plan. The court also ruled
that there were insufficient grounds for Burford or Colorado River
abstention.
The court held that Burford abstention failed to apply to the case at bar
because the state did not have a specialized proceeding for the evaluation of
claims by or against an estate in rehabilitation. The court noted that of the
two types of Burford abstention, the second type has two essential
elements. First, a state must offer a forum in which to litigate the claims.
Second, the forum has to be a specialized proceeding. Without Burford
abstention, the court addressed whether Colorado River abstention applied.
Because the case at bar had parallel suits in both the federal and state
forums, the analysis could balance whether factors favored or disfavored a
stay in the proceeding. After weighing ten factors including assumed
jurisdiction, forum convenience, piecemeal litigation, order of jurisdiction,
protection of rights, progress of proceedings, concurrent jurisdiction,
availability of removal, and vexatious or contrived nature of the federal
claim, the court held that the balance did not support abstention.
Schacht v. Cadillac Ins. Co., 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11606 (N.D. Ill. 1991). The
Illinois Director of Insurance filed a complaint against an insolvent insurer,
alleging that it made illegal transfers of funds from other insolvent insurers
in violation of Section 204(3) of the Illinois Insurance Code. The court first
rejected Cadillac's argument that the court should abstain from asserting its
jurisdiction under the Burford abstention doctrine. Although the transfers
were made from two Illinois insolvent insurers, now in conservation
proceedings, in Illinois to a Michigan insolvent insurer, in liquidation
proceedings in Michigan, the federal court's exercise of jurisdiction would
not interfere with the state liquidation courts' equitable distribution powers.
With respect to the Director's voidable preference claim, the court held that
the fact that the first conservation complaint was dismissed by agreed order
(although a second complaint was filed) did not affect the classification of
the transfer as a voidable preference, since that transfer occurred within
two years of the filing of the complaint. § 204(3) of the Illinois Insurance
Code imposes liability for preferential transfers of assets upon those who