Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

The USA Today (6/22, Szabo) reports, "There's a growing debate about the safety of the recycled rubber chips used to cushion falls on many children's playgrounds." The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved rubber play surfaces since 1991, both to protect children from head injuries and to prevent tires from ending up in landfills. However, EPA officials now "say they can't vouch for the safety of recycled rubber, which can be contaminated with lead and other toxins, according to internal documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

New York and New Jersey "last year closed half a dozen [synthetic playing] fields because of high lead levels. The EPA is conducting a pilot study to decide whether to launch a larger, more comprehensive study of the risks," spokesman Dale Kemery says.

Despite the risks, rubber chips present real advantages. A 1997 Lancet study found that playgrounds with rubber surfaces had the lowest rate of injury, with half the risk of bark mulch and a fifth the risk of concrete. Playground injuries cause 200,000 emergency room visits and about fifteen deaths each year.

As a Chicago personal injury lawyer, I support further testing of the recycled rubber chips and the evaluation of other safe alternatives. If the chips are truly harmful, then the decreased risk is not worth exposing children to harmful chemicals.

The Loyola Elder Law Initiative Presents the 2009 Hurley, McKenna & Mertz Lecture Series Event: Tips and Trends in Long-Term Care. Hurley, McKenna & Mertz, P.C. is a partnership of trial lawyers in Chicago dedicated to the representation of persons whose lives have been destroyed by the negligence of others. The firm's practice includes representation of nursing home residents and their families in cases of abuse, neglect, and fraud.

Eric M. Carlson, J.D. the Director of the Long-Term Care Project of the National Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC) will present on July 16, 2009. The Lecture will be held at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law located at 25 East Pearson Street in room 1103 at 6:00 p.m. The lecture is free and is open to the public; a reception will follow.

Mr. Carlson advises attorneys all across the country on long-term care issues. He co-counsels litigation on the behalf of long-term care residents, and is the author of numerous publications including Long-Term Care Advocacy and Long-Term Care Law Reporter.

Long-Term care is an important topic because it is relatively unfamiliar territory for many attorneys. Many are not aware of significant inconsistencies that often exist between a facility’s current policies and their legal obligations. In the lecture, Mr. Carlson will enlighten the audience as to the common problems with long-term care and will provide practical tips for advocating on residents’ behalf. Noteworthy trends in the provision of long-term care will also be a relevant topic for those in attendance and will be discussed with a critical eye towards both opportunities and potential pitfalls.

The Denver Post (6/22) editorializes, "A U.S. Supreme Court decision last week made it significantly more difficult - too difficult, we think - for older workers to prove age discrimination claims." The decision, "which came on a 5-4 vote, means workers have to prove their age was the key reason for the employment decision in question, regardless of whether there is at least some evidence that age was a motivating factor."

The practical impact of the decision "will be to create an unfair distinction between age discrimination cases and other types of discrimination cases based on gender, race and ethnicity." The Post argues, "The remedy for this situation is for Congress to amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act so the burden of proof mirrors that in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, under which other discrimination cases are brought."

As a personal injury lawyer who has seen many employment discrimination cases in the Chicago area, I am concerned that the new Supreme Court Ruling makes it too difficult to prove age discrimination and will leave many worthy victims uncompensated.

As an anti-tobacco advocate and a personal injury lawyer who has seen many smoking-related injuries, I am thrilled by the President’s signing of the tobacco bill into law.

The historic measure gives the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented power to regulate tobacco, including the marketing and distribution of tobacco products. CBS Evening News (6/22, story 5, 0:30, Couric) reported the President signed the "landmark legislation today, saying it will save lives" and that “as someone who started smoking as a teenager, he knows how hard it is to quit."

The Los Angeles Times (6/23, Parsons) reports, "Obama declared that his signature on the bill represented a significant defeat for tobacco companies that tried to hook young customers." President Obama said yesterday, "Their campaign has finally failed. Today, change has come."

Although media coverage of the signing focused largely on the President’s unclear personal use of cigarettes, what is important is that the bill has been signed in to law, and that tobacco companies no longer have the ability to inaccurately promote their products. When asked if the President “practices what he preaches,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was shown saying: "I don't honestly see the need to get a whole lot more specific than the fact that it's a continuing struggle." Regardless of the President’s personal afflictions with smoking, he has acted rightfully within his capacity as President by signing the bill into law.

Court secrecy is a dangerous practice that prevents people from finding out about unsafe products. As a personal injury lawyer in Chicago I find the practice of document sealing irresponsible. Consider the following example of such irresponsibility.

The American Association for Justice reports (6/4), “Over the past year, Bausch & Lomb has quietly settled over 600 contact solution lawsuits, with more cases still pending”. The contact solution was tied to instances of fungus infections and blinding in many patients that used the product.

As part of the settlement agreement, Bausch & Lomb forced all court documents in the case to remain sealed. This keeps vital information including internal investigations into the cause of the infections from contact users and doctors. Details of outdated company testing procedures, which are widely used by other contact solution manufacturers are also included within the sealed documents.

The Sunshine Litigation Act currently facing Congress would give judges “additional discretion to limit secrecy agreements that keep hidden important and life saving information from the public” and would “close the loophole in our courts” to ensure that such information is disclosed.

NPR (6/9, Goodwyn) reported that "Jamie Leigh Jones was a...Halliburton employee in 2005 when she was sent to work in Iraq." She was drugged, beaten and raped shortly after her arrival. "It has been four years since the attack, and despite the physical and circumstantial evidence, the Department of Justice has declined to investigate." She is now fighting for the right to have her case heard in court instead of arbitration.

Arbitration has "become a dominant feature in the legal relationship between American corporations, their employees, and their customers." The Arbitration Fairness Act “now before Congress would ban clauses that make arbitration mandatory for the resolution of disputes - restoring to consumers and employees the choice of taking their case to court."

At Hurley McKenna & Mertz, we believe in the right to a trial by jury, and oppose mandatory arbitration and anything else that interferes with that right. Congress should ban mandatory arbitration and allow people to chose to take their case to court or to arbitration, as the right to trial by jury is a pillar that is essential to the principle of justice in this country.

The Wall Street Journal (6/10, Koppel) reports, "The U.S. Supreme Court's decision this week calling for judges” to recuse themselves from “cases involving big political donors confronts the growing role of money in the U.S. judicial system." The Journal adds, "Political donations to judicial candidates at the highest state courts have soared in recent years, creating concerns that money is eroding public confidence in the system."

NBC Nightly News (6/8, story 3, P. Williams) reported that the Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. "reads like it's right out of a John Grisham novel. The justices ruled today that state court judges that get big campaign contributions cannot sit in judgment of their biggest contributors”. This case, which is a particularly poignant example that favors the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, “comes from West Virginia, where a coal company executive spent $3 million to get Judge Brent Benjamin elected to the state supreme court. He then ruled in favor of that coal company in a $50 million case."

Concluding, the Washinton Post (6/10) says, "States should consider abandoning judicial elections for a merit selection system that better insulates judges from the corrosive influences of money and politics." At Hurley McKenna & Mertz, we favor the Massey ruling requiring judges to recuse themselves when large contributors come before them.

The Deseret Morning News (6/5, Davidson) reported that Bruce R. Kaster, "an attorney who represents the families of Utah State University students killed in a grim 2005 van accident, told Congress on Thursday" that "courts allow companies to keep too many civil lawsuit documents secret that could save lives by disclosing dangerous defects in products."

An example of such a document is a memo from 2000 by Copper Tires that discusses that the tires they produce lack important safety features that are present in other brands. Copper Tires manufactured the tires involved in the 2005 accident that killed eight Utah State University students.

Currently, the House Judiciary subcommittee is “considering the Sunshine in Litigation Act, which would make it more difficult for companies to keep secret documents used in civil cases.” Each year, countless American’s are injured or killed by defective products that manufactures are aware of, but the public is not. As a product liability lawyer, I believe that companies are too easily allowed to seal important facts about defective products in court files to the detriment of public safety. I support an Act that would increase the likelihood that manufactures would be held accountable for their defective products.

The Las Vegas Sun (5/29) editorialized, "It is only common sense that many federal laws, those on civil rights among them, should be consistently and strictly enforced throughout the country." However, "many federal laws not covering constitutionally protected freedoms should stand only as a minimum standard."

The paper said, "regulators under Bush often wrote "preemption" language into regulations, which meant the laws would be standard across the country because they preempted any relevant state law." One famous example is California’s 2005 request to the Environmental Protection Agency “to adopt a law setting tougher automobile emissions standards than those set by federal law.” This request was denied.

Now, Obama has "directed his administration to abandon the freewheeling preemption policies of the Bush administration," including asking the EPA to reevaluate their previous decision. President Obama sent a memo to his staff stating, “heads of departments and agencies should not include preemption provisions ... except where such provisions would be justified under legal principles.” He further ordered the reviewing of any regulations written in the past decade by federal departments and agencies to search for unjustified preemptive language. Concluding, the paper said, "Obama's directive is a victory not only for states, but also for consumers."

I have been a product liability lawyer in Chicago for 25 years. I found it very interesting and disconcerting that George Bush, the head of a party that supposedly prides itself on state’s rights, would summarily and unilaterally federalize product liability law on such a massive scale. Thankfully for the citizens of Illinois, the Obama administration has reversed this unwelcome attempt to preempt state tort law.

As a Chicago personal injury lawyer I am very pleased to see that after decades of marketing their addictive cancer causing products to children, tobacco companies are feeling the pain a fully informed jury can inflict. Consider this recent verdict in Florida:

The AP (6/2) reports, "A Florida jury awarded $30 million to a Pensacola widow in a ruling against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco." This is one of the first cases to be tried since the 2006 Florida Supreme Court Ruling that “threw out a massive class-action award to thousands of smokers and required the cases be proved individually.”

Benny Martin died of lung cancer in 1995 after being a longtime smoker. He began smoking “20 years before cigarettes had warning labels.” According to attorneys for "Benny Martin... the tobacco company conspired to make its products more addictive to customers and withheld information about the dangers of smoking."

Such deceptive tactics are targeted by the new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory legislation that will, if passed, give the FDA a wide array of new powers to regulate the tobacco industry. These new powers include the ability to regulate the marketing and advertising of tobacco products.

Chicago Tribune encouraged by manufacturer's decision to stop making drop-side cribs.
The Chicago Tribune (3/28) editorialized, "Drop-side cribs, with a movable rail that can be raised and lowered, are a staple of baby rooms." However, "they probably won't be for much longer" because "major crib manufacturers have agreed to stop making them." The Tribune said that despite the fact that parents will complain about the inconvenience of the new cribs, that the drop-sided cribs were dangerous. "We heartily supported congressional action last year that gave the commission more money and more authority to ferret out and block unsafe products," the Tribune said. "In this case, the manufacturers moved before the agency did, and that's good to see."

Snowy sidewalks make city life difficult for the Chicago’s handicapped population. Unfortunately there are no Chicago laws that require owners of private property to remove snow from private walks and drives however, under the Chicago City Code, landlords are required to keep emergency exits accessible. Clearing snow and ice from building doors and steps fall under that category.

Local fair housing laws closely mirror federal requirements that landlords provide "reasonable accommodations" for renters with disabilities. The goal is to allow a disabled tenant to "enjoy" the property equally as all the other tenants, but not be given overly burdensome favors. Under Illinois law, in certain circumstances, owners who do a careful job of snow removal from public walks are protected from personal injury lawsuits.

Most court decisions require a tenant to put requests for accommodation in writing to trigger their rights—but the accommodations that are required vary case by case. If you have been injured as a result of a fall at someone else’s property, the Premises Liability attorneys at Hurley McKenna & Metz, PC may be able to help. Please contact us at (312) 553-4900 for a consultation.