Former judge Richard Posner defeats $170,000 wage case

Reuters

20-05-2025

May 19 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner has defeated a lawsuit by an Indiana man who alleged he was owed $170,000 for working at a short-lived center for self-represented litigants founded by the prominent jurist.
U.S. District Judge Theresa Springmann in Hammond, Indiana, on Monday concluded that Brian Vukadinovich's alleged oral employment agreement with the ex-judge was unenforceable and that he waited too long to sue Posner for unjust enrichment.
The ruling marked a victory for the retired 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge.
"I will definitely appeal this corrupt ruling," Vukadinovich said in a statement. He said any appeal should be heard by a court other than the 7th Circuit, saying judges on it have a "major conflict of interest" precluding them from hearing it.
Posner, who was appointed to the appeals court in 1981 by Republican President Ronald Reagan, abruptly announced his retirement from the bench in September 2017 at age 78.
In a lawsuit filed in 2022, Vukadinovich said he was recruited by Posner to help run his Posner Center of Justice for Pro Se's after representing himself without a lawyer in a lawsuit.
Posner founded the center in mid-2018. Vukadinovich, a former high school shop teacher, said he came to know the judge by successfully taking his employer to trial for firing him and winning a $204,000 verdict.
Vukadinovich said Posner agreed in 2018 to pay him $120,000 annually for serving as the center's co-executive director and personally guaranteed his salary regardless of the center's financial condition, yet ultimately failed to pay him $170,000.
Posner's lawyers have previously said the judge has a confirmed Alzheimer's diagnosis and had no legal capacity to enter an agreement to pay Vukadinovich. They moved to dismiss the case on other grounds, though.
In Monday's ruling, Springman said that Vukadinovich's claim for breach of contract was barred by Indiana law, under which an oral agreement could only be enforced if its terms could be fully performed within a year.
"Here, the Plaintiff does not dispute that because the payment for the Plaintiff's salary was due in a lump sum after the first year of employment, it could not be performed in a year," she said.
The judge said Vukadinovich also waited past a two-year statute of limitations period to sue Posner in 2022 for unjust enrichment based on services rendered through July 2019.
The case is Vukadinovich v. Posner, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, No. 2:22-cv-00118.
For Vukadinovich: Pro se
For Posner: Steven Molo and Justin Ellis of MoloLamken; and David Beach of Eichhorn & Eichhorn
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