Sam’s Club Forfeited Tax Arguments, Illinois Supreme Court Hears

The Illinois Supreme Court should skip Sam’s Club’s petition to review a tobacco tax case “to avoid being snookered” by the company’s misrepresentations, Cook County argued.

The county’s Sept. 12 brief comes in response to the company’s arguments that if the justices don’t rein in Cook County’s alleged overreach, the case could “easily be the spark that starts a wildfire” of Illinois municipalities seeking similar windfalls.

For all of Sam’s Club’s “dire portents” about wildfires, “the real danger here would come from a grant, which would telegraph to litigants that the likelihood of review increases the less faithful one is ...