Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

Yellowstone National Park officials say “rescue crews have recovered the bodies of two Montana men who died while trying to climb a frozen waterfall below the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.” (AP, 5/26). As a personal injury attorney, I always encourage those involved in extreme adventure activities to proceed with the caution. Friends of the two deceased men allerted park officials when the two had not returned from a weekend hike.

Rescuers found the climbers' bodies on a rock ledge several hundred feet below the canyon rim. Park officials say it appears an ice surge fell on the men as they were climbing the rock ledge.

After a decade of consistent increases in Motorcyclist deaths, the statistic made a dramatic fall last year, potentially due to motorcyclists being budget conscious and riding less. (J. Lowry, Washington AP, 4/22). The study, which is “set for release Thursday, indicates a 16 percent drop in U.S. motorcycle fatalities through the first nine months of 2009 compared to the same period in the previous year. It projects at least a 10 percent decline in fatalities over the entire year, or about 530 fewer deaths.”

The study is authored by James Hedlund, a former National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration official, who is now a safety consultant. Hedlund said, “There is nothing in the data to indicate the cause of the sudden decline, but it is most likely due in part to a cutback in recreational driving by motorcyclists. When economic times get tough, recreational acitives are the first to go.

Some disagree that overall motorcycle usage is down since high gas prices have driven sales of the smaller vehicles. As a personal injury attorney in Chicago, I am please to hear that motorcycle fatalities are declining. I would, however, caution all riders to continue to operate their vehicles safely and to always wear a helmet.

As a personal injury lawyer in Chicago, I am both saddened and disappointed in the West Virginia Mine explosion that caused 25 needless deaths. Quickly after the explosion, news surfaced that the Massey Energy coal mine had a less than stellar record for safety, which appear to have been more like slaps on the wrists than actual orders to change.

This week, reports suggested that “The Massey Energy coal mine where 25 people died in an explosion was cited for violating for two federal safety violations on the day of the blast” (T. Huber, AP Charleston, WV, 4/7). Mine Safety and Health Administration records do not indicate whether the citations were issued before or after the explosion, but emphasizes the carelessness surrounding the deaths.

Underground coal mines are required by law to have detailed escape maps showing escape routes, oxygen caches, and refuge chambers, and records show “one of the violations involved inadequate maps of escape routes from the Upper Big Branch mine. The other involved an improper splice of electrical cable on a piece of equipment.”

Unfortunately, a continuous pattern of rule breaking was not addressed appropriately, and an unnecessary tragedy occurred. I sincerely hope changes are made swiftly to ensure the safety of the mining industry at large.

Although drivers distracted by cell phone use has received a lot of notoriety lately, most people don’t consider the effect cell phones have on pedestrians. The boom of mobile devices that not only allow users to talk, but also to text and to surf the internet opened a new world to the new age multitasker. The new distracted walking phenomenon has made crowded city sidewalks perilous for the average commuter.

One such unlucky pedestrian, 25 year old Tiffany Briggs, was “lost in conversation” when she ran into a parked truck (New York Times, Matt Richtel, 1/17). Although distracted walking accidents tend to be much less serious than their driving counterparts, they can be serious and they are increasing dramatically. In 2008, just over a thousand pedestrians made emergency room visits because of walking while talking or texting. An Ohio State University study concluded that the 2008 emergency room visits were two fold the 2007 visits.

As car and truck accident attorneys in Chicago who fight through the city sidewalks filled with distracted walkers in a daily basis, we at Hurley, McKenna & Mertz urge all people to be careful when walking as well as driving, for their own safety as well as the safety of others.

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.

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.

An $11 million settlement was approved in two wrongful death lawsuits arising from the 2005 Metra derailment in Chicago that killed two women and injured 117 other passengers.

According to reports, on Sept. 17, 2005, a five-car Rock Island Line Metra train heading from Joliet to downtown Chicago derailed at a South Side track crossover, where the maximum allowable speed was ten miles per hour. The train was traveling at 69 miles per hour and twisted off the rails and skidded, which forced the fourth and fifth cars to break away. The two passengers who died were riding in the fourth car, which crashed into a steel bridge.

The National Transportation Safety Board blamed the Metra engineer's failure to heed a crucial signal and the commuter rail agency's lack of a system to override human error as key reasons for the derailment.

Continue reading "$11 million settlement reached in Chicago Metra wrongful death suit" »

Each year, millions of Americans are treated for Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). In fact, TBI is the leading cause of death among those 45 or younger. TBI can be caused by direct head trauma but can also be caused by severe shaking or whiplash from a car accident. More recently it was discovered that exposure to explosive charges-- like soldiers serving in the Iraq war have been exposed to—can cause brain damage when pressure from an explosion moves through the body and causes damage to the brain cells.

While many people show signs of TBI, it is common for people who suffer from brain damage to not show any outward symptoms, as there may be no bleeding or loss of consciousness. To add to the complication of diagnosing TBI is the fact that MRIs fail to detect 15% of TBIs, however, more research is being conducted as a result of the number of soldiers coming back from Iraq with brain injury. Many times, the success of civil lawsuits relating to TBI depends on the quality of the medical expert retained to testify about the plaintiff’s brain trauma. The attorneys at Hurley, McKenna & Mertz, P.C. have a long history of pursuing difficult cases on behalf of average citizens who were injured due to no fault of their own.

Drowning cases in Illinois are very difficult to pursue, but can be successful with the proper legal approach. The Centers for Disease Control reports that drowning remains the second-leading cause of injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years. Despite this striking statistic, Illinois law makes it difficult for parents to recover for the drowning deaths of their children. Illinois courts hold that drownings are most often the fault of an inattentive parent. (Full story).

Even in this difficult setting, however, these cases can be successful. I have resolved drownign cases by proving that the parents took reasonable steps to ensure that their children would be unable to encounter the pool at issue.

In one case, I was able to show that the defendants were liable where the parents closed and locked the only door they were aware of that led to the defendants' pool. The defendants asked the court to grant summary judgment and hold that the drowning occurred because the parents were not watching the child carefully enough. I defeated the motion and was able to settle the case because I was able to show that the child likely entered the pool from another door in the home that led to the pool. The parents were unaware that this door even existed. The defendant, however, was aware that this door had an inoperable lock.

I was able to settle the case for the limit of the defendants' insurance policy after defeating the motion for summary judgment.

The Chicago Tribune should be commended for its reporting of the increasing numbers of workplace injuries among immigrants. In the series, Throwaway Lives, the Tribune observes: While fewer American workers are killed yearly on the job, that’s not so for Latinos. An explosion of immigrant workers has created a throwaway workforce. Hungry for money, they take the most dangerous jobs. They rarely complain, and when hurt, rarely get help.

The laws in Illinois exist to protect everyone, citizens, visitors, non-citizen workers, and illegal immigrants. Nobody in Illinois has a right to subject any worker to illegal conditions.

Hurley McKenna & Mertz remains committed to representing the rights of all injured persons, regardless of citizenship. If you or someone you know has been injured, please call the experienced attorneys at Hurley McKenna & Mertz for a free consultation.