Two Illinois Supreme Court Matters. One Decided. One Pending.

Illinois Supreme Court · Decided

First Midwest Bank v. Cobo, 2018 IL 123038

James DiChristofano was one of the counsel of record for the appellees in First Midwest Bank v. Cobo, the unanimous Illinois Supreme Court decision that settled how Illinois' single-refiling rule applies to foreclosure and mortgage-collection cases.

The matter began down the hall. Jim DiChristofano shares office space with attorney Arthur C. Czaja, who represented the borrowers. When the bank's repeat suit was set for trial, Czaja brought DiChristofano in to try it. DiChristofano prepared to conduct the trial as the team's trial lawyer, alongside Arthur and his father, Stanley Czaja Sr., a long-respected veteran of the Illinois bar. Stanley was the steady hand of the preparation, working to move the case from Arthur's command of the file into trial-ready form, and the three of them spent the better part of a week building it for trial. By the trial date, the defense was ready, with the facts, the law, and the evidence lined up and Jim DiChristofano prepared to put the bank to its proof.

The bank chose not to proceed. On the day of trial, in court, its counsel took a voluntary dismissal rather than try the case, then refiled it yet again, and that decision is precisely what later ran headlong into Illinois' single-refiling rule.

Before the Illinois Supreme Court, DiChristofano and Arthur Czaja represented the appellees together, with Arthur presenting the oral argument. The Court held that a breach-of-promissory-note suit asserts the same cause of action as an earlier foreclosure complaint that sought a deficiency judgment on the same note, so the bank's third suit over the same 2011 default was an impermissible refiling barred by section 13-217 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The Court affirmed the appellate court and vacated the judgment that had been entered against the borrowers.

Stanley Czaja Sr. passed away in May of 2018, months before the case reached the Illinois Supreme Court that September. He would have been proud of his work preparing Jim DiChristofano for trial, and prouder still to watch his youngest son, Arthur Czaja, argue before Illinois' highest court. First Midwest Bank v. Cobo is now settled Illinois law on the single-refiling rule, cited by courts and practitioners across the state.

Counsel of record for appellees: James DiChristofano, of DiChristofano & Associates LLC, and Arthur C. Czaja, both of Niles. First Midwest Bank v. Cobo, 2018 IL 123038.

Illinois Supreme Court · Pending

Chicago Title Land Trust Co. v. Watkin, 2025 IL App (1st) 241354, IL Supreme Court Docket No. 132383

Jim DiChristofano is counsel of record for the plaintiff-appellant before the Illinois Supreme Court in Chicago Title Land Trust Co. v. Watkin, 2025 IL App (1st) 241354, a matter currently pending. Oral arguments were held on May 20, 2026 in Springfield before the Illinois Supreme Court. That matter has not yet been decided.

The case carries real-world consequences for every individual and entity that owns property in Illinois. At its core is a question with statewide reach: whether a mortgage lien is extinguished by operation of law once the statute of limitations on the underlying promissory note has run. Jim DiChristofano argues that the appellate court's ruling opens the door to absurd results, allowing a mortgage or other lien to cloud a person's property for as long as twenty years even when the underlying note is unenforceable, has been paid off, has been discharged, or is otherwise barred. The appeal turns on the interplay of three sections of the Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/13-206, 13-115, and 13-116, and asks the Court to confirm the long-standing common-law principle that the note is the principal obligation and the mortgage merely an incident to it. The matter draws directly on the Court's reasoning in First Midwest Bank v. Cobo, connecting it to the same body of foreclosure and mortgage law Jim DiChristofano helped shape.

U.S. House of Representatives · Congressional Hearing

Jim DiChristofano Goes to Washington, D.C.

In the depths of the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis, James DiChristofano took on one of the most high-profile foreclosure fights in Chicago: the defense of Mr. Beef on Orleans, the legendary River North Italian beef institution later made famous nationwide as the inspiration for the FX series "The Bear."

Midwest Bank, which had taken roughly $85 million in federal TARP bailout funds, moved to foreclose, then refused to extend or refinance the loans. The case became a flashpoint. It drew sustained local and national media coverage as small business owners across the country watched a beloved Chicago institution get squeezed by a bank that taxpayers had just rescued.

Jim DiChristofano took the fight all the way to Washington. He worked directly with the office of Congressman Luis Gutierrez, shaping the statement and marshaling the facts, and on March 4, 2009 DiChristofano flew to Washington, D.C. and walked his client into a hearing of the United States House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. There, on Capitol Hill, he engaged directly with members of Congress, including Congressman Gutierrez and Congressman Danny Davis, as his client laid out for the subcommittee exactly what the credit crunch was doing to Main Street.

Then James DiChristofano won it. Under relentless time pressure and a glare of publicity, Jim fought the foreclosure, went toe to toe with the bank, and tracked down new financing when the doors kept closing. He secured a refinancing through Plaza Bank that ended the foreclosure and saved Mr. Beef, the affiliated restaurant Natalino's, and their owners, keeping the businesses alive and the people behind them on their feet.

Source: Statement of Joseph Zucchero, Owner, TARP Oversight: Is TARP Working for Main Street?: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit of the H. Comm. on Financial Services, 111th Cong. 16, Serial No. 111-9 (Mar. 4, 2009). View the official hearing record →