Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

The American Arbitration Association released an announcement following the settlement between the Minnesota Attorney General and the National Arbitration Forum stating “it would stop participating in debt collection forced arbitration proceedings until new guidelines are established” (AAJ, Axelrod and Lorenzi, 7/22)

American Association for Justice Senior VP of Public Affairs, Linda Lipsen, said, “it has become clear that Congress must step in to protect consumers against predatory forced arbitrations. While AAA’s decision is noteworthy, it does nothing to halt nursing home, employment or any other consumer forced arbitrations, which are similarly biased and egregious. That is why Congress should pass the Arbitration Fairness Act and prohibit this abusive practice.”

As a personal injury lawyer, I support the Arbitration Fairness Act. Congress must act in a timely fashion to put a conclusive end to the continuing abuse of everyday people by corporations and private Wall Street forums.

Kristen Kridel reports for the Chicago Tribune about a dangerous consequence of not adequately maintaining your pool – mosquito breeding (7/29). Entomologist George Balis says unkempt swimming pools are just another sign of tough economic times. Neglected swimming pools are a haven for mosquitoes that can transmit West Nile virus, and local experts say the number of neglected swimming pools is on the rise. For example, according to the Lake County Health Department, “the number of desolate pools in Lake County has doubled in just a few years…Buffalo Grove also has seen an estimated twofold jump.”

Murky, brownish green water with a noticeable smell is a haven for mosquito breeding, and “one mosquito can lay 50 to 250 eggs in a batch.” Mr. Balis further offered “two ways to keep mosquitoes out of a pool are to keep it chlorinated and turn on the pumps regularly.” However, there has been at least one positive outcome from a cooler than normal summer – the ability of the West Nile virus to spread has been reduced. This season, “four batches of mosquitoes have tested positive for West Nile virus” in the Northwest district of Illinois “down from several dozen infected batches by this time in 2005.”

As a personal injury lawyer in Chicago, I encourage all swimming pool owners to keep their pools clean. Even though cooler than average temperatures have had a positive effect on the West Nile virus, temperatures have been warming up lately and the summer season is not over.

Like countless other porches in Chicago, “the rickety landing where Atit Mansuria and Carolina Landeros were chatting hadn’t been inspected for years – in this case, since it was built in the mid-1980s” (Chicago Tribune, Olivio, 7/16). The railing suddenly collapsed, sending them “tumbling 20 feet to the concrete alley below.” Both were seriously injured – Landeros fractured her neck, and Mansuria is still hospitalized with severe head injuries. This accident appears on a list of about “700 complaints phoned into the city’s 311 system this year in what serves as the Department of Buildings’ best gauge of potential hazards lurking beneath porch barbeques and apartment deck parties this summer.”

Kashif Khundmiri of Rogers Park and his neighbors complained to the city for months about a rotting porch system in an empty apartment building in close proximity to the area where the neighborhood children play. Nothing was done, and the porch eventually collapsed. Court files show that the City of Chicago has been after the property owner since 2007 to make repairs.

Merely six years after a catastrophic porch collapse in Lincoln Park killed 13 people and triggered a citywide crackdown on deteriorating porches, the city has returned to a more laissez faire approach to porch safety. City officials are now saying that it can take weeks to have a reported porch inspected and there is nothing they can do about it for personnel reasons. Although the lag in response to complaints is disappointing, there are several things you can do in the meantime. Be sure to notify the property owner or landlord of the deteriorating porch so that he or she may fix it without the city’s involvement. At the very least, if the porch is clearly a safety hazard, a warning sign should be posted on the property.

As a personal injury lawyer in Chicago I encourage all people to be aware of porch safety, especially during the summer months when most people are able to enjoy their porches. If a porch is in need of repair, it is probably best to first report it to the property owner before the city of Chicago for efficiency purposes. If he or she will not fix the defunct porch without city orders, then the City may need to get involved.

Mike Stuckey reports on a Washington State hunting accident that killed 54-year-old Pamela Almli when an unsupervised youth hunter for msnbc.com mistook her for a bear. The horrific accident “highlighted issues about hunting on public land in Washington that were news to some state residents. First, hunting in close proximity to hikers was perfectly legal. Second, there was no requirement for trailhead signs to warn hikers like Almli that there were hunters in the area,” and third, while the youth hunter “was not old enough to have driven himself to the traihead, in Washington state there is no minimum age for hunting without adult supervision as [the 14-year-old hunter] was doing that day with his 16-year-old brother.”

Washington State is not alone in its lack of age requirements as a total of 21 states allow children to hunt alone at age 12 or younger, even though federal law prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from purchasing a rifle or shotgun. Proponents of the current regulations argue that the age at which children can hunt alone should be up to their parents.

As a personal injury lawyer I advocate for minimum age requirements for hunting without adult supervision. Gun control laws are in place for a reason, and allowing a minor to hunt without adult supervision seems to contradict those laws. Furthermore, it is well known that children are developing judgment skills well into their teenage years and usually into adulthood. Allowing a child who lacks fully developed judgment skills to hunt unsupervised is asking for an accident just like the one that unfortunately occurred in Washington State.

Hurley McKenna & Mertz is familiar with nursing home cases involving abuse and neglect and has two notable settlements of 3,750,000 and 1,200,000 in nursing home cases . An article in the Chicago Reporter by Jeff Kelly Lowenstein reveals that Illinois is one of the worst states for nursing home care, and discusses the racial divide between the level of care provided at nursing home facilities. As a personal injury lawyer I am disappointed in the overall quality of nursing home care in Illinois and am particularly saddened by the apparent discrepancy in care between races.

One terrible incident covered in the Chicago Reporter article talks about the event that lead to a near-death experience and unnecessary emergency room visit for Luzella Roberts. A nurse at International Nursing and Rehabilitation Center performed dialysis in her left arm with a syringe when doctors notes explicitly said dialysis was to take place only through a catheter in her right arm. Her daughter came to visit two hours later to find her face gray and swollen. When she screamed for the nurse to remove the needle, her mother began to bleed uncontrollably and was rushed to the emergency room. Mrs. Roberts nearly lost the arm that had “for 60 years had cooked dinner for her husband, dressed her four children, and had three weeks earlier cupped her newest great-granddaughter” entirely because of careless caregivers.

The Chicago reporter did further analysis of nursing homes in Illinois and made many shocking discoveries including that Illinois is “arguably the worst state in the nation for Black senior citizens seeking quality nursing home care.” The reporter analyzed the records of 15,000 nursing homes in Illinois and ranked them on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being the worst. The worst rating “was given to 57 percent of [majority] Black nursing homes, compared to 11 percent of [majority] white nursing homes.” Furthermore, an excellent rating was given to 29 percent of white nursing home but zero black nursing homes. Some argue that the disparities are a result of differences in staffing levels and staff qualifications, others feel as though it is “blatant racism.”

Even when controlling for poverty, The Reporter found that “poverty did not reduce the inequities. Homes where most people were white got far better care than nursing homes where the majority of residents were black, even if both were poor.” These kind of results necessitate legislative action, but unfortunately very little has been done. Many advocate for stripping the homes with consistent poor ratings of their funding.

As a private citizen and a personal injury lawyer, it is obvious to me that health insurance reform is necessary. This is not to say that the health insurance industry is the only area in need of reform in order to improve the current health care system, but it is certainly a substantial contributing factor.

Trudy Lieberman interviewed ex-insurance company head of communications, Wendell Potter, for the Excluded Voices series in the Columbia Journal Review (6/24). In the interview he revealed the reasoning behind his choice to leave the insurance giant, CIGNA, bringing to light several inconsistencies characteristic of the industry not known by most people. Many of the inconsistencies are driven by the pressure to please shareholders and to make profits, which almost always contradict the best interest of patients.

He references one example when he was in Virginia where hundreds of people were waiting in line to receive free medical care in animal stalls; many had camped in the rain overnight because they could not afford the care they needed. He then got on a private company plane, and once realizing that people’s insurance premiums were paying for his flight, he felt he had to leave the industry.

Mr. Potter also discusses the ways insurance companies are able to purge expensive policy holders by either finding a pre-existing condition unknown to the patient and claiming it was not disclosed, or by increasing premiums so high that individuals or companies can no longer afford to have benefits; both are “common industry practices” that leave people without necessary coverage.

As a former head of communications, Mr. Potter also provides insight into the tactics of deception employed by insurance companies. He says the insurance companies will outwardly act as though they support reform but will use political connections to kill parts of reform they don’t like behind the scenes through “third party advocates.”

Clearly, the profit maximizing incentives are not appropriate for an industry that deals with a fundamental human need. The current health insurance system is not functioning in a way that equitably supplies a necessity, so it is time to at least consider other alternative approaches.

The Today Show (7/6) informed people all over the country about many public pools that are not abiding by federal law and replacing dangerous pool drains. The old pool drains are unsafe because they can pack 800 pounds of suction force and trap young children causing serious internal injuries and even death. A test run by the Today Show crew demonstrated that three adult men could not free a rubber dummy that had been sucked into a pool drain.

Innumerable children have been severely injured or killed as a result of these dangerous pool drains. One six year old girl died after a pool drain sucked out her intestines. Seven year old, Graeme Baker, granddaughter of former Secretary of State, James Baker, was killed when a pool drain trapped her underwater causing her drown. After years of lobbying by the Baker family, the federal government passed the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool Safety Act last year, which required all public pools to replace the old drains with new, safer drains by the end of 2008. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is the agency behind the act.

Unfortunately, half of the pools inspected by the Today Show crew were not in compliance with the federal law. Local agencies have found similarly disappointing figures. In both Denver and Indianapolis, half of the public pools in operation still use dangerous drains. In some counties in Florida, 70% of pools have not replaced their drains. The most egregious example is Los Angeles County, where 90% of pools are still operating without safe drains.

Issues with enforcement are also paramount. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says it does not have the resources to conduct nation wide pool inspections, so it is up to the local agencies to monitor the public pools in their area. On the other hand, local agencies say they do not have authority to enforce the federal law. This leaves many pools operating as a constant safety hazards to users. The discrepancy between the federal and local enforcement of the pool safety act should be an immediate priority, but in the mean time, safety experts are encouraging parents to check with pool managers before letting their children in public pools.

Furthermore, private pool owners are not required to replace the drains, but should be strongly encouraged to do so. Replacing the drain should only cost a few hundred dollars – a small price to pay considering the potentially serious injuries that could occur in the absence of replacement. Safety experts are also urging parents to teach their children the dangers of pool drains and instructing them not to play in the proximity of a drain.

As a personal injury lawyer in Chicago, I am disappointed with the careless enforcement of the federal law requiring all public pools to switch to safer drains. I advise everyone to take pool safety into their own hands and use precaution when swimming, and further strongly encourage parents to teach their children about the perils of pool drains.

In 2006, Hurley McKenna & Mertz secured $12 million in damages for three children abused in a foster home in a settlement with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago. As a personal injury lawyer with experience in this area, it is mind boggling that foster children can be victimized on a serial basis for years without a place to turn to for justice. The Osborn case absolutely represents a failure by the Courts to justly compensate Louise Osborn’s estate for her wrongful death.

On April 10, 1992, Louise and Sean Osborn were taken into Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) custody after their parents were incarcerated for writing bad checks. They were placed with foster parents Matt and Sarah Augsburger, who had three young children of their own (Pantagraph, Brady-Lunney 6/29).

On July 29, 1993 Sarah Augsburger “told Police she fell asleep downstairs and Louise likely crawled into the cupboard in an upstairs closet. She said when she checked on the child more than two hours later, she found Louise unresponsive on the floor near the cabinet.” Louise was rushed to the hospital with a 105 degree fever and died shortly thereafter. She was three years old.

Over a year later, the DCFS Office of Inspector General investigated a complaint against the Child Welfare Agency and issued a report that was highly critical of Youth Services. The most damaging find was “that Youth Services staff was instructed to handle allegations of abuse within the agency, rather than reporting them to the state as required by law.”

In May, the Illinois court of claims decision that DCFS was not liable for Louise’s death reversed the previous $640,000 jury award in the original 1998 trial and the 2001 retrial, and exhausted all avenues for appeal for the attorney’s representing Louise’s estate. Proceeds from the lawsuit would have gone to her brother, Sean Osborn.

Now, attorney Doug Koth is “calling on Illinois lawmakers to correct what he considers a series of mistakes by Illinois courts in the Osborn case that effectively extends parental immunity to foster parents and protects them from lawsuits involving the supervision of children placed in their care.”

As a result of this unfortunate ruling, the accountability of both foster care agencies and foster parents is now virtually eliminated, which inhibits incentive mechanisms from encouraging both parties to take the necessary level of care in placing children in foster homes and caring for them once they are there. This disappointing verdict paves the way for increased carelessness in foster care and will likely lead to “a higher prevalence of abused and neglected foster children.”