The Suburban Express legal drama may seem to have settled down as students migrated north to the suburbs for the summer, but on July 30, Ford County Judge Steve Pacey will decide whether to reinstate 21 of the original 126 lawsuits the bus company previously withdrew.

Kim Evans, Ford County circuit clerk, said Suburban Express filed a motion on April 28 to reopen the cases without prejudice, a decision that would allow the company to reopen those cases in the future.

Suburban Express declined comment on why certain cases were being reinstated despite its previous statement, which said, “We recognized that this legal approach of trying to uphold our agreement with customers carries with it a negative perception that we do not intend.”

Within a month of withdrawing the cases, Suburban Express requested information from the University under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, including communications from Joel Stenfeldt of the Office of Public Affairs, which mentioned UIUC SubReddit moderator Murph Finnicum or graduate student Jeremy Leval.

Finnicum said the University did not notify him that the company had requested the information.

“I Googled myself looking to see if I could find my phone number online, and I came up on FOIA request,” Finnicum said. “I would have never known.”

After requesting the same information, Finnicum was provided with a 100-page document that he uploaded to Reddit for others to read.

Eight days after the FOIA request, Finnicum received a second letter from Suburban Express’ lawyer James Long, asking him to remove a claim on a Reddit thread, which said the bus company is “likely to sue.”

In a letter of response, Finnicum said he does not plan to remove the information, which Finnicum believes constitutes as free speech as well as a matter of public awareness.

In light of this information, Ken White, First Amendment rights attorney and legal blogger, who brought awareness to the lawsuits after a blog posting on Popehat.com, has become involved once again in conversation on the subreddit.

White said he is aware of two cases of defamation on the subreddit, in which he is researching to help provide free legal service.

“I don’t like bullies and I don’t like people that chill online speech with bogus claims,” White said. “I don’t like people manipulating and abusing the legal system.”

White said he is preparing to write a sequel to his first Suburban Express blog post on his blog Popehat.

Corinne can be reached at [email protected] and @corinnesusan.