Articles Posted in Firm News

Firm News | July 25, 2014

Earlier this month, a man filed a workplace injuries lawsuit after 2012 incident in which he says he suffered a fall during a mandatory training workshop. The lawsuit, filed in DuPage County, alleges that the plaintiff was asked to participate in a workplace exercise that was originally designed to foster mutual respect, understanding and empathy between the employees at a fire safety company located in Addison, Illinois.

The lawsuit names a third-party business consultant as a co-defendant in facilitating what the plaintiff says is an incident that caused him mental and physical pain and suffering after he fell to the floor and injured his knees to the point where he required surgery.

Firm News | July 18, 2014

The current election race for Illinois state governor has drawn attention to the plight of residents in nursing homes. Recently, it has come to light that Republican candidate Bruce Rauner once shared ownership in a chain of long-term nursing homes involved in a series of lawsuits for wrongful death and other patient injuries.

An advocate of the gubernatorial candidate points out that Rauner technically did not participate in the day-to-day operations of the company, but instead he sat on the board of its controlling private equity firm. Either way, Rauner’s connection to the embattled nursing home is proving problematic to his election campaign.

Firm News | July 16, 2014

When a loved one’s life is cut short due to the negligence of another, it is only natural to want to see justice done. But even when justice is done, it doesn’t do anything to bring that loved one back. Sometimes lives are completely ruined, both mentally and financially. Restitution or compensation can, however, help with the financial part of a loss, and sometimes that is enough to help a family move on.

A car accident that took the life of a young University of Illinois student in October 2013 finally had its day in court, with the driver of the deadly vehicle sentenced to 42 months in jail. Those 42 months were controversial because the driver, while negligent, caused the accident in a way that seemed to be without intention.

Firm News | July 11, 2014

Illinois State Police have arrested a woman for DUI after she allegedly drove her SUV onto the highway while traveling the wrong way. The accident happened in Bolingbrook, Illinois, on June 27. According to police, the 24-year-old woman was under the influence when she took her red Ford Explorer onto I-55, just south of Route 53 at around 2:00 a.m. Police say the woman was heading in a southerly direction while in the northbound lane of that highway.

Sometime thereafter, police say the defendant’s Explorer collided with a black Toyota Sienna and a gray Chevrolet Avalanche. The impact caused injuries to a 21-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man. Witnesses to the crash assisted in the rescue of the 60-year-old victim from the overturned Chevy Avalanche. A witness described seeing the defendant alongside the road crying hysterically after the crash.

Firm News | June 27, 2014

A Norris City, Illinois, woman says that her life was changed forever after she suffered a bout of weakness while working in her yard two years ago. In fact, she recalls that she had difficulty making back inside her home from the front yard due to an overwhelming sense of fatigue. Following that incident, the woman says that she went to several doctors to see what had happened to her. For the next 18 months she travelled the country and says that she had more emergency room visits than she cared to remember.

Eventually, the woman found a doctor who told her that she suffered from a neurological disorder. The doctor informed her that she had something similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease, (Progressive Super Nuclear Palsy). He also predicted that the woman had less than a year before she would be totally disabled. The doctor suggested that she make the most of her remaining days by spending it with her family.

Firm News | June 20, 2014

Anyone who has traveled on the highway has probably had the experience of driving next to a large commercial tractor-trailer. Sometimes, it’s a rather ominous feeling being dwarfed by such an enormous and ponderous vehicle. Now imagine that same vehicle — only 10 feet longer and 20,000 pounds heavier. According to one man, that’s exactly what a new proposal from the trucking industry would allow to happen along Illinois roads.

The president of the Illinois Troopers Lodge, an organization that advocates on behalf of state police, was in Washington D.C. on June 18 to oppose the measure. The union president says that the bill would enable tractor-trailers to rival locomotives. He says that there is already a place for such bigger, longer and heavier vehicles — on train tracks. He likened the proposed changes to allowing a 33-foot-long, 97,000-pound train with rubber wheels onto state highways.

Firm News | June 13, 2014

Most Americans take the safety of the candy we eat for granted. The majority of us don’t even think about biting into a non-food object when we place a piece of American candy into our mouths. That’s because of a little known 1930’s era federal statute which prohibits the sale of such candy. That is not the case in Canada. There, parents can by a chocolate egg for their kids, which contains another smaller plastic egg inside that holds a small toy. The toys can present a choking hazard for children.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent says that each year around Easter, they seize tens of thousands of those eggs on the U.S. and Canada border, mostly from people unaware that each egg carries a fine of $2,500. The majority of the eggs are manufactured by an Italian candy manufacturer called the Ferrero Group. They are the same people who make Nutella spread. The candy eggs with toys inside are called Kinder Eggs and marketed towards kids aged 3 to 8 years old.

Firm News | May 30, 2014

A well-known former high school boys’ swim coach has been identified as a victim in a fatal car accident in Illinois. The driver who caused the crash was allegedly intoxicated at the time. He is currently housed at Winnebago County Jail with bond set at $1 million.

The car accident happened in the early morning hours of May 20 on Illinois 251 in Rockford. The 46-year-old driver was merging into traffic when his vehicle drove over two medians and hit a guardrail. The impact caused the vehicle to become airborne and it landed on a pickup truck driven by the 57-year-old victim, who was on his way to work. He died at the scene due to chest trauma.

Firm News | May 23, 2014

A Chicago law firm recently came to a partial settlement with one of three defendants named in a lawsuit alleging that an autistic child suffered permanent brain damage as a result of her improper placement into a foster home. The attorneys representing the plaintiff alleged that a health care organization subcontracted out the placement and care of an autistic child. The child was then put in a home under the care of a convicted felon who beat her over the course of nine months.

According to the plaintiff’s attorneys, the subcontractors choose to pay their shareholders instead of funding the placement agency working for them, which left them underfunded and unable to perform the necessary background and licensing checks. That lack of money also meant that the supervisory agency also performed fewer home visits.

Firm News | May 17, 2014

Have you ever been driving and saw a tractor-trailer truck pulled over and wonder why the police selected that particular truck to pull over out of the hundreds out on the road? Well, according to the Illinois State Police, they are alerted to trucking companies with questionable driving records by looking at the online postings of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. That is the agency tasked with keeping tabs on the safety records of more than 500,000 over-the-road trucking companies throughout the country.

The FMCSA website uses five criteria to evaluate trucking companies: unsafe driving, hours of service, driver fitness and vehicle maintenance. A review of that website, in conjunction with another safety watch list run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, identified 184 Illinois commercial trucking companies with poor safety records and 26 with bad marks in four out of the five critical categories.