Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

Over the past two months, three people have died in the same Best Western hotel room. An elderly couple first passed away in the hotel room in April. Then, on Saturday, a mother and her 11-year-old son were found unresponsive in the same hotel room. Sadly, the boy was pronounced dead on the scene. The mother awoke from a coma and is now in stable condition.

Authorities are currently waiting on toxicology results for the boy and will not say at this point whether the deaths are linked. However, today, the hotel’s management company told a news agency that carbon monoxide was discovered in the room. Additionally, officials are investigating the system in the hotel’s pool area. The room at issue is located above the hotel’s pool.

As a personal injury lawyer, I would ask the same question as the elderly couple’s son did: “Why are they still renting out this room?” (www.thetimesnews.com). The hotel had a duty to ensure that its rooms were safe for its guests. Because of this, at the very least, the hotel should have stopped renting this room until a full investigation into the couple’s deaths was completed. Had the hotel taken proper steps after the couple’s death, an innocent 11-year-old boy likely would still be alive today. I hope this tragic story prompts hotels across the country to significantly improve their safety procedures.

Last week, Hurley McKenna & Mertz filed five lawsuits against the Diocese of Joliet for failing to protect children from predatory and pedophile priests and teaching staff within the Diocese. This abuse occurred during the 1970s and ‘80s while the victims were young boys, age 8 to 16, in catechism school or in the seminary. These pedophiles swore their victims to secrecy, likely in an effort to hide this despicable behavior from the children’s parents.

The Diocese of Joliet created an environment that gave its pedophile priests and teachers unfettered access to innocent children. Specifically, the Diocese of Joliet allowed known or suspected predators and pedophiles to meet with young boys at remote or private locations outside the presence of other adults. This situation was a formula for disaster and directly led to countless incidents of child sexual abuse under the Diocese’s watch.

Mark McKenna, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, explained how many of these victims repress the painful memories of abuse, “the scars from child sexual abuse and the secrecy surrounding it take years, even decades to heal properly. The process is extended in the many cases where victims, as a coping mechanism, repress memories of the abuse. That’s why laws have been passed which protect victims by allowing them to seek damages when their memories are ‘unlocked.’”

The law firm of Hurley McKenna & Mertz intends to hold the Diocese of Joliet accountable for its failures that led to these innocent victims suffering life-altering abuse.

Last week, Hurley McKenna & Mertz filed lawsuits in the Circuit Court of Cook County on behalf of men who were sexually abuse as children at Brother Rice, Leo and St. Laurence high schools. Each of these high schools belonged to the Congregation of Christian Brothers. The Congregation of Christian Brothers and these high schools allowed sexual predators to abuse innocent children for decades by moving accused brothers between schools and failing to notify the proper authorities, among many other failures.

The Congregation of Christian Brothers declared bankruptcy in April 2011. As quoted in the Chicago Tribune, Hurley McKenna & Mertz partner Mark R. McKenna explained the significance of the bankruptcy filing:

“There has been difficulty determining what, if any, assets the Christian Brothers have to pay claims. We felt it was important to protect the rights of our clients to file this lawsuit right now.”

The attorneys of Hurley McKenna & Mertz are honored to represent these courageous men who suffered life-altering sexual abuse that could have been prevented if the Congregation of Christian Brothers had acted properly.

Tort reform advocates frequently argue that lawsuits against doctors and hospitals drive up the costs of health care. Yet, according to a recent study, hospitals are actually profiting from their own mistakes because insurers pay for longer stays and extra care when preventable surgical complications occur.

This study was published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study looked at 12 hospitals and found that the hospitals on average made $30,500 more for patients with preventable complications than for patients without complications. The study’s researchers argued that to help reduce these complications, insurers should stop paying for substandard care and should reward high quality care with bonuses. Further, they called for mandatory disclosure of the complication rates of hospitals.

As a medical malpractice attorney in Chicago, I am not surprised by this study at all. For decades, hospitals have been blaming medical malpractice plaintiffs and their attorneys for the high costs of health care. This study shows that the hospitals themselves are to blame for the high costs of health care. Worse yet, this study shows that hospitals have been profiting from their own mistakes, while labeling victims of medical errors who seek compensation through the court system as greedy.

Next time someone tries to tell you that medical malpractice lawsuits are hurting health care in the United States by driving up costs, please refer him or her to this study.

On Tuesday, Central DuPage Hospital fired a part-time chaplain after learning about allegations of “inappropriate behavior” with a boy from years earlier. The alleged inappropriate behavior occurred while the chaplain served as a priest in the Joliet Diocese and resulted in him being declared unfit for parish ministry.

The allegations stem from a former parishioner accusing the priest of touching him inappropriately, taking pictures of him and forcing him to try on clothes in front of the priest as a boy.

According to the hospital, the diocese failed to mention the allegation when it recommended the priest for the chaplain position. The hospital became aware of the allegations only after the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests contacted the hospital and urged it to remove the priest. The diocese undoubtedly put children at serious risk by failing to notify the hospital of these troubling allegations.

As a personal injury lawyer who represents multiple victims of pedophile priests in the Joliet Diocese, I am appalled that the Joliet Diocese continues its practice of transferring pedophile priests elsewhere without giving notice of child sex abuse allegations. Without question, this practice led to the sexual abuse of many children who would not have been abused otherwise, if the diocese had given proper notice.

It is incomprehensible that the diocese would continue such a practice while under intense scrutiny for shielding pedophile priests for decades. This recent failure should serve as a warning to all parents that the Joliet Diocese remains unable to properly handle pedophile priests.

After a lengthy fight to keep the files private, the Joliet Diocese recently agreed to turn over the personnel files of 16 priests with substantiated allegations of child sex abuse against them. As expected, these files show that the Joliet Diocese covered up child sex abuse by priests for decades. Sadly, these files also indicate that two abuse victims committed suicide.

The Joliet Diocese typically responded to allegations of child sex abuse by a priest by moving the accused priest to a different church or sending the priest on an out-of-state assignment. This approach allowed pedophile priests to abuse countless victims as they moved from parish to parish.

Hurley McKenna & Mertz currently represents men who were abused by predators in the Joliet Diocese. These men were not only victimized by their abusers, but also by the Joliet Diocese. The Joliet Diocese is directly responsible for the abuse suffered by these men because it chose to protect the church’s reputation by shielding pedophiles, instead of protecting innocent children.

A Los Angeles jury awarded $8.3 million to a retired Montana prison guard in a verdict against Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy orthopedic unit. Like many others, this man received a defective hip implant from DePuy and needed to have the implant replaced after it was causing him significant pain. These metal-on-metal hip implants shed metal debris into the implant recipient’s body causing serious harm.

When metal-on-metal hip implants were initially released, manufacturers said that metal-on-metal hip implants would last much longer than traditional implants, and would allow patients to be far more active with fewer restrictions. Unfortunately, for many patients, just the opposite has been true. In August 2010, Johnson & Johnson recalled two of the hip implants—the ASR XL Acetabular System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System—because of unexpectedly high failure rates.

Hurley McKenna & Mertz represents multiple individuals who have suffered significant pain and disability as a result of defective metal-on-metal hip implants. As their attorney, I strive to hold these manufacturers accountable for the pain and suffering that they have caused, and I am very pleased to see that this Los Angeles jury has done just that.

A bar recently fired an employee for calling the police after a patron left the bar extremely intoxicated and attempted to drive home. According to the employee, when she began her shift at the bar the driver was noticeably drunk and continued to drink for an extended period of time. When the driver left the bar, the employee said she knew he was in no shape to drive and was going to kill someone or himself. At that point, the employee made the potentially life-saving decision to call the police, who quickly located the driver and arrested him.

Two days later, the employee said she received a call from her boss who told her she was fired because it was bad for business to have a bartender call the cops.

I find this story to be very troubling. As a Chicago personal injury lawyer, I have represented families who tragically lost loved ones in drunk driving accidents. It is infuriating to me that a bar would actively discourage employees from reporting drunk drivers because it is “bad for business.” The bar is simply placing the success of its business ahead of innocent lives.

I hope this bar’s despicable policy against reporting drunk drivers is unique to that bar and not a common practice among other establishments.

Yesterday, Hurley McKenna & Mertz filed lawsuits in the Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of four men who were abused by serial pedophile, Thomas Hacker. As a Boy Scout scoutmaster, school teacher, and park district director, Thomas Hacker repeatedly abused countless young boys throughout the Midwest. In December, Hurley McKenna & Mertz filed a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America and the Chicago Area Council for failing to protect scouts against Thomas Hacker. The lawsuits filed yesterday are against Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Board of Education, and the Burbank Park District.

Just as he did as a scoutmaster, Hacker used his position as a teacher and park district director to gain unsupervised access to young boys. Unfortunately, these organizations similarly failed to protect children against Hacker. As a result, Hacker sexually abused numerous young boys.

Hacker’s reign of terror finally ended in February, 1988, when he was arrested and convicted of five counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault against three boy scouts and was sentenced to two concurrent 50-year terms.

The attorneys of Hurley McKenna & Mertz are honored to represent these brave men who have come forward to hold the organizations that failed them as children accountable for their actions.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles was recently forced to release approximately 12,000 pages of personnel files in connection with child sexual abuse lawsuits against it. The files demonstrate the archdiocese’s shocking disregard for the safety of children. The files show that the archdiocese attempted to protect pedophile priests from law enforcement by instructing them to destroy any documents regarding sexual abuse allegations, in the words of one official, “for your own and our legal protection.” Worse yet, church officials expressed outrage over a priest performing baptisms without permission, yet showed little concern over sexual abuse allegations against that same priest.

As a Chicago personal injury lawyer who has represented numerous victims of child sexual abuse, I am confident that archdioceses throughout the country took an approach to clergy sex abuse similar to that of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Specifically, church officials consistently put the interests of the church and its pedophile priests ahead of innocent children. Thankfully, the missteps of the Catholic Church with respect to clergy sex abuse are finally being exposed so that victims can receive the justice that they deserve.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that two Catholic Church officials in California covered up child sex abuse by priests until as late as 1987. This report is based on recently released internal documents from a Catholic diocese. Unsurprisingly, this particular diocese fought for years to keep these documents secret in an effort to avoid civil liability and public embarrassment.

According to the report, the Archbishop and his top advisor worked with other church officials to send pedophile priests out of the state so that the pedophiles could avoid criminal prosecution. This approach likely led to these pedophiles being able to abuse many more innocent children at dioceses in other states.

As a Chicago personal injury attorney with extensive experience handling sexual abuse cases, I know that Catholic Church officials throughout the country took actions similar to those taken by these officials. This approach put thousands of children at risk by allowing pedophile priests to join new parishes whose members had no knowledge of their past abuse. Furthermore, this approach clearly demonstrates that Catholic Church officials chose to put the reputation of the church above the safety of children.

With the release of these documents, I am hopeful that the Catholic Church in California will no longer be able to deprive the victims of sexual abuse of the compensation that they unquestionably deserve.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation recently announced that it plans to lay off most of its medical regulators. According to officials, these lay offs will reduce the department's ability to license and discipline physicians. Reports also indicate that the inability or delay in securing medical licenses will negatively impact important physician training programs for medical residents.

As a medical malpractice attorney in Chicago, I believe that proper supervision of physicians as well as discipline for bad doctors is crucial to our healthcare system. I am troubled that the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation responded to budget constraints by cutting back in such an important area. I believe that medical malpractice attorneys, like me, play a vital role in protecting patients by policing negligent doctors and health institutions, yet, medical regulators are also very important to protecting patients. I hope the State of Illinois reconsiders these cutbacks for the sake of Illinois' healthcare system and its patients.