Carroll v. Merrill Lynch, No. 12-1076 (7th Cir. October 16, 2012)
Late in the evening on Thanksgiving Day 2005, plaintiff called her co-worker at home and started yelling profanities. The co-worker’s wife picked up another phone on the line and, becoming alarmed at the threatening nature of the conversation, began recording the call.
Plaintiff sued under the Illinois eavesdropping statute, 720 ILCS 5/14. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the recording was covered under the “fear of crime” exception to the statute. The lower court granted the motion for summary judgment and plaintiff sought review with the Seventh Circuit. On appeal, the court affirmed the award of summary judgment.
The Illinois eavesdropping statute prohibits recording a conversation unless all parties consent to the recording. But that general rule is subject to a bunch of exceptions, such as recordings made:
under reasonable suspicion that another party to the conversation is committing, is about to commit, or has committed a criminal offense against the person or a member of his or her immediate household, and there is reason to believe that evidence of the criminal offense may be obtained by the recording
In this case, the court held that the wife had both a subjective and objective belief that the plaintiff would, at minimum, vandalize their home. Since plaintiff introduced no evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact on the question of the wife’s asserted fear of a crime being committed, summary judgment had been properly granted.
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