Insurance – Allstate To Raise Rates For Illinois Insureds
May 4, 2012
Allstate Corp. is increasing car insurance rates in Illinois by 3 percent to 5 percent beginning May 17, according to company filings with the Illinois Department of Insurance. The size of the increases will depend on how long a customer has been with the company.
via Allstate car insurance hike reverses hometown discount – Finance News – Crain’s Chicago Business.
March 20th Vote Smart: Review Judicial Evaluations Presented by Illinois State Bar Association
February 29, 2012
Rating Judicial Candidates
Since Illinois voters have the responsibility to elect judges, the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) feels it has an obligation to share with the public information about qualifications of judicial candidates. The lawyers who practice alongside candidates for judicial office are in a unique position to assess the professional qualities that are necessary for good judges.
View ISBA’s judicial ratings for the March 20th primary by county.
Judicial Evaluations | Illinois State Bar Association.
Wrongful Death – A Series of Mistakes Cause Girl’s Death
February 22, 2012
If not for a series of “mistakes” made by the four paramedics who treated Starks on that fateful day, attorney Brian Murphy argued that the girl would be alive today.
The first mistake was that the child was “intubated through the esophagus that leads to the stomach, instead of through the trachea that leads to her lungs,” Murphy said.
The second mistake involved ignoring a “standing medical order” issued by the Fire Department. According to Murphy, it states that, if a patient’s condition worsens, paramedics are to look into the patient’s mouth to “visually observe where the breathing tube was placed.”If the paramedics had done that, Murphy said, “They would have seen the tube was in the esophagus and not in her trachea and they would have removed it and properly placed it.”
The third mistake involved the “fender-bender” that delayed Starks’ transport to the hospital.Instead of proceeding to Trinity Hospital after determining that the driver of the other vehicle was not injured, the paramedics chose to follow, what Murphy called a “ridiculous general order” that states that, if you’re in an accident involving property damage, you remain on the scene.
via Paramedics’ alleged mistakes in girl’s death likely to cost taxpayers .
Wrongful Death – Father Knows Best – Son’s Death in Salt-truck Was Avoidable
January 24, 2012
When a company designs and manufactures a product, the Law requires that manufacturer and/or designer to make sure that the designed product is reasonable safe for its intended use. Too often, it is the personal injury legal battle that brings about those simple changes, that were they implemented to begin with, the injury for which the lawsuit was brought would not have happened. It was the amputated leg of a homeowner whose legs were badly mangled up under his lawnmower when he felt and it back over his legs that prompted manufacturers to put that kill switch on the mower’s handle. It was the McDonald’s case that prompted car manufacturers to equip their cars with cup-holders. It was the avoidable death of several drivers that prompted car manufacturers to use the three-point seat belts. These simple modifications added to the cost of manufacturing, but has prevented additional injuries and death.
In the example below, and the wrongful death lawsuit that has been filed, the same principle is again at play. A simple cut-off switch and/or a protective panel could have prevented the death of a young man? The Jury will make that finding in due time I suppose.
“A suburban father filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday, one month after he made a horrific discovery at the family’s business: His son had fallen on a salt-truck auger, and the younger man’s clothing had been pulled in to the mechanism, strangling him.
David Pittas filed the suit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court against the manufacturer and others tied to the sale of the salt spreader that killed his 26-year-old son Timothy Pittas. The younger Pittas would still be alive today had the salt-spreader been equipped with an emergency shut-off device or at least if the auger — the metal device that spins and spreads the salt — had a guard around it.
“The only reason we’re doing this is so no other person has to go through what I’m going through, or what my wife is going through or my [other] son is going through or my daughter is going through,” a choked up David Pittas told the Sun-Times, referring to his wife Mary and their two surviving children. “It’s wrong to bury your son, and it’s wrong that we had to. If I can save one other person’s life with this then Tim didn’t die in vain.””
via Father says son’s death in salt-truck accident didn’t have to happen – Chicago Sun-Times.
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If you or a loved one has been a victim of personal injury in Chicago or the surrounding area, contact or call us at 312-252-5252 for a free no obligation consultation to discuss your legal options.
Mediation – 678 Partners Ask CFR on How Mediation Can Yield Lower Costs, Produce Win-Win Results And Leave Less Emotional Strain in Comparison Vimeo
January 13, 2012
678 Partners ask CFR on how mediation can yield lower costs, produce win-win results and leave less emotional strain in comparis from Amir Homayoun Rafizadeh on Vimeo.
Had an eye opener discussion with Erin Johnston CEO and Founder of CFR an IL based mediation business. Idea Chef and I have been talking to different groups in the prior weeks about the Gulf Oil Spill and its consequences to the BP brand. Today we also decided to invite Nima Taradji as well to get the perspective of a trial attorney. Very educational and interesting findings when comparing mediation, arbitration and also litigation. Big cost and time differences between the techniques, better outcomes when both parties agree to some aspect rather than having one looser and one winner. Something very few people know: Emotional toll on the case looser, something mediation avoids because both parties decide, and not one or the other. Grab a cup of coffee over a Saturday or Sunday and listen to this interview.
Product Liability – FDA Requires Increase Warning For Yaz Blood Clot Risks
January 12, 2012
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted 21-5 to require drospirenone-containing birth control pills – including Yaz, Yasmin, Ocella, Beyaz, Safyral, and Vestura – to warn about increased risk of blood clots.
via Yaz Side Effects: FDA Requires Increase Warning For Yaz Blood Clot Risks | InjuryBoard Kansas City.
msnbc video: Panel: Benefits of ‘Yaz’ outweigh risks.
The 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011
January 7, 2012
I am posting this against my better judgment… but then again, this made me smile.
The top ten Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011 are:
- Convict sues couple he kidnapped for not helping him evade police
- Man illegally brings gun into bar, gets injured in a fight, then sues bar for not searching him for a weapon
- Young adults sue mother for sending cards without gifts and playing favorites
- Woman disagrees with store over 80-cent refund, sues for $5 million
- Mom files suit against exclusive preschool over child’s college prospects
- Man suing for age discrimination says judge in his case is too old
- Obese man sues burger joint over tight squeeze in booths
- Woman sues over movie trailer; says not enough driving in “Drive”
- Passenger’s lawsuit says cruise ship went too fast and swayed from side to side
- Mother sues Chuck E. Cheese – says games encourage gambling in children
via The 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011 – Yahoo! News.
Wrongful Death – Personal Injury – Frivolous lawsuits Are Not The Issue – Carelessness Is.
January 3, 2012
We have heard so many tales of woes about how medical malpractice lawsuits are ruining the medical health of this country by making healthcare expensive for all and by causing the exodus of doctors from the so-called “judicial hellholes” (of which Illinois is supposedly one) toward States where there are limits on justice that a victim of a doctor’s carelessness can hope to obtain.
The problem with that proposition is that it is simply not true. What causes medical malpractice lawsuits are not patients and/or juries and their verdicts or lack of caps on those verdicts, but medical malpractice. The best way to prevent a lawsuit based on medical malpractice is to not commit carelessness.
Note that here, we are not talking about things that may go wrong in the natural progression of a treatment: there are times when a treatment goes wrong through no fault of the medical provider and/or the attending physician. Things may go wrong because Medicine is an art. What we are talking about here are actual damages caused to individuals that are the direct result of carelessness–that is different from simply not getting the intended result. For example, damages that could cause for failure of a doctor to simply read objective tests that are performed and that are ready to be reviewed but the doctor simply decides not to avail himself f the useful information those tests provides him. That is when medical malpractice lawsuits may be expected.
NYT: Doctors at Harlem Hospital Didn’t See Most Reports
Nearly 4,000 tests for heart disease performed over the last three years at Harlem Hospital Center – more than half of all such tests performed – were never read by doctors charged with making a diagnosis, hospital officials acknowledged Tuesday.
The echocardiogram tests, a type of ultrasound used to evaluate heart muscle and valve functions, were ordered by doctors at the hospital. The tests were stored on a computer and basically forgotten, officials said. The lapse occurred because the cardiology service at the hospital had developed a system by which technicians were given the responsibility to scan all tests and flag any that looked abnormal, so that they would be given priority when doctors read them.It appears, officials said, that the tests that were not flagged were put aside and forgotten.
The city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the public hospital system, including Harlem Hospital, and Columbia University, whose medical school supplies the cardiologists who work at Harlem Hospital Center, acknowledged the problem in a joint statement on Tuesday, after being asked about it by The New York Times.
“While the process the doctors followed may have alerted cardiologists to those echocardiograms that were most likely to be abnormal, the failure to read the echocardiograms in a timely manner is inexcusable and may have placed patients at risk,” Alan D. Aviles, hospitals corporation president, said in the statement. It was unclear who developed the screening system, hospital officials said.
