$1 Million Sanction Over Wilmette Condo Lawsuits Ordered By Judge

CHICAGO — A Cook County judge ordered a Wilmette man and his attorney to pay more than $1 million in sanctions amid years of legal wrangling among residents at a lakefront condominium.

Marshall Spiegel, a resident of the condo, and his attorney John Xydakis engaged "simply obscene" and "egregious conduct" by filing a series of frivolous or false lawsuits during a legal battle over the condo association's boards and its rules, according to Circuit Judge Margaret Brennan, who granted four sanctions orders on March 29.

One law firm was awarded over $375,000. An attorney was awarded nearly $361,000. Another was granted more than $174,000, along with almost $98,000 in fees. Another firm was granted $25,000, and the condo association was awarded nearly $28,000 for increased insurance costs. The total amount of sanctions and fees came out to $1,061,671, according to the Cook County Record.

Xydakis, of River Forest, said the ruling was retaliation against him for seeking to disqualify Brennan over a series of private conversations between the judge, her clerk and one of the opposing party's attorneys. He said the judge's phone records he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and the billing records of attorney Eugene Murphy show improper private conversations.

"Judge Brennan will be reported to the Judicial Inquiry Board and will likely be disciplined for this and her outrageous [$1 million sanctions] retaliation," Xydakis told Patch, arguing that her "decision lacks any factual or legal basis and will certainly be appealed, and overturned."

Brennan's order sets a May 1 deadline for payment.

In February 2018, Brennan denied Xydakis' request to file a 99-count, 223-page fifth amended complaint, according to the Record. In her order issuing sanctions, she noted Spiegel had filed a total of seven complaints against "nearly every resident" of the building that "have no basis in law or fact. " She added that the lawsuits demonstrated a "complete disregard for the judicial process."

Spiegel has lived in one of eight condominium units at the building at 1618 Sheridan Road in Wilmette for nearly 25 years, according to a federal complaint he filed with Xydakis in 2016.

For more than 10 years, he was elected secretary on the condo association's three-member board, but a trio of other residents would win seats in 2015, according to his suit. The board then passed a rule forbidding people from leaving personal items at the pool overnight. Spiegel's suit argued that the board members knew he was the only person who used the pool on a daily basis and used an medically necessary orthopedic chair to sit there. He presented letters from a doctor documenting a disability that required the use of the chair and made him unable to lift it. In November 2016, the association began to fine him for violating the rule against leaving his chair at the pool, according to a complaint filed later that month in federal court in Chicago alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act.

According to another federal suit filed by Xydakis on Spiegel's behalf, Corinne and William McClintic purchased a unit in the building and began improperly renting it out while continuing to use the pool. The suit alleged that McClintic "repeatedly spied on Spiegel by peering through his windows and loitering around the common areas." She also made false police reports to Wilmette police, it said, but officers declined to take any action and threatened him with arrest.

The suit also claimed the son-in-law of a resident battered Spiegel at a condo association meeting and had to be pulled off by a security guard. Police refused to charge the man, according to the complaint. The suit alleged the village of Wilmette had been conspiring with McClintic to violate Spiegel's First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The federal complaint was dismissed by a district court in September 2017 and appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found Xydakis and Spiegel failed to state any constitutional or state law claims since McClintic did not conspire with the village or act under color of law.

A partner at one of the law firms representing other condo owners told the ABA Journal that the over $1 million in sanctions could be a record for Cook County, noting he had never seen such a large penalty against a single client and attorney in nearly a half-century of practice.