Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog

Two wrongful death lawsuits were recently filed after a 15 year old girl died in a parasailing accident in Florida. The 15 year old girl’s sister was also parasailing with her at the time of the accident, and she suffered serious personal injuries. The two girls were severely injured when they were thrown into the roof of a hotel and several trees. At the time, there was a weather advisory warning of thunderstorms and strong wind. The lawsuits name the company providing the parasailing service, the boat captain, and the Wyndham resort where the family was staying. Through the lawsuits, the parents hope to stimulate increased regulation of companies that offer parasailing.

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Posted In: Amusement Park Accidents , Boating Accidents , Injuries to Minors and Children , Wrongful Death

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Illinois is one of the states where parents of children may be allowed to sue Mattel for recalled toys even where their children have not yet shown physical harm. The Wall Street Journal reports that Illinois and California are states where plaintiffs may be able to demand that companies like Mattel pay for medical tests for children who have been exposed to these dangerous toys by setting up medical-monitoring funds.

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Posted In: Dangerous toys , Toys

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Several product liability lawsuits have been filed against C.B. Fleet Co. Inc., the makers of Fleet Phospho-soda for kidney damage and death. The popular over-the-counter laxative is used to flush out patients’ bowels before procedures such as colonoscopies. To date, more than 50 lawsuits have been filed in over 20 states.

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Posted In: pharmaceuticals , pharmaceuticals

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The Food and Drug Administration warned that the painkiller codeine, if taken by certain nursing mothers, could potentially pose a risk of overdose to their infants. Doctors treating nursing mothers should prescribe low doses of codeine. Mothers taking codeine should be attentive to signs of excessive sleepiness or limpness in their babies. The FDA will also ask makers of codeine-containing products to put information about the risk into their labels. In particular, infants of women whose bodies process, or metabolize, the drug very quickly may have an increased risk of an overdose, the FDA said. To determine whether a mother is a rapid metabolizer of codeine, a genetic test can be performed.

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Posted In: pharmaceuticals

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The Food and Drug Administration recently issued an advisory to warn parents that children under the age of two should not be given cold and cough medicines unless instructed by a doctor in order to prevent injuries. These medicines' labels currently advise receiving instructions from a doctor for children under two before use but many doctors and parents ignore these warnings despite the fact that hundreds of adverse effects and even some deaths have been cause by the medications. It is unclear whether the liability falls on the drug manufacturers, doctors or parents. Critics of this practice have petitioned the FDA to ban marketing the drugs toward children under the age of six but some of the drugs' labels show pictures of infants in diapers. Some critics have gone as far as suggesting that these medicines should no longer be sold over the counter. Drug manufacturers argue that the FDA approved the drugs as safe and effective but this is contested because when the drugs were initially tested the results were only monitored in adults. The studies were decades ago and safety standards have risen significantly. Harmful ingredients in cough medicines include dextomethorphan, which can cause neurological side effects like abnormal movements and hallucinations, and pseudoephedrine, which has been linked to infant deaths, high blood pressure and arrhythmias. Children have been injured by standard doses. Overdoses do occur, however, when parents give children two different medicines with the same ingredients. Sales of the drugs are booming and it is unlikely that restrictions more than requiring stronger wording on labels will be implemented as a result of the investigation.

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Posted In: Injuries to Minors and Children , Medical Malpractice , Products liability , Wrongful Death

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The United States has been ranked 42nd in life expectancy in the world. There are many different theories regarding why the US continues to slip in the rankings. First, other countries are improving health care, nutrition and lifestyle. In addition, 45 million Americans are without health insurance while most Europeans countries and others have universal health care. The US also has one of the highest percentages of obese people in the world. The infant mortality rate in the US is also not ranked near the top. Some experts claim that improved access to health care could help increase life expectancy. There should also be focus on ways to reduce tobacco use and cholesterol, control blood pressure and blood sugar and reduce Americans' susceptibility to cancer, heart disease and lung disease. Andorra, Japan, Macau, San Marino and Singapore have the highest life expectancies. Western European countries, Australia, Sweden and Canada also have high life expectancies.

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Posted In: Current Issues

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A wrongful death lawsuit has recently been filed against the City of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department by a family whose son was shot by police officers while unarmed. The Chicago police allege that the 18-year-old did, in fact, have a gun. The police are currently reviewing surveillance video taken at the scene. The family and witnesses claim that it only seemed like the teen was carrying a gun because he was trying to hold up his baggy pants. The family's attorney alleged that some witnesses have not come forward because they were intimidated by police. As a result of the shooting there have been local protests and meetings between the Chicago police and clergy. Multiple arrests were made during the protests.

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Posted In: Current Issues , Wrongful Death

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A wrongful death and personal injury lawsuit has been filed by the family of a 42 year old man who died after being tasered by Chicago Police. The lawsuit alleges excessive force in that the man was non-combative when initially taken into Police custody but was later tasered twice, pepper sprayed, and thrown to the floor when he asked to use the bathroom. A spokesperson for the Chicago Police stated that the police had followed procedures for subduing combative persons.

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Click here for a prior post on Taser litigation

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Posted In: Products liability

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Just one month after issuing a recall of Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer toys, Mattel has announced a second, even larger recall. This time, the recall targets two types of toys. First, 436,000 die-cast toys from the “Cars” movie are being recalled because they have been found to contain lead paint. Like the toys from the previous recall, these tainted toys were made in China. Mattel states that it is trying to prevent harming children with its products by moving production to Chinese facilities that it owns and controls, instead of having the toys made by Chinese subcontractors. And while this may improve toy safety in terms of lead poisoning, the change would do little to remedy any problems that caused the second part of the recall. Mattel is also recalling 18,200,000 other toys, including some Barbie toys, because they contain small and powerful magnets that can cause personal injuries to minors if swallowed. The magnetized toys were manufactured according to Mattel design specifications.

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Click here for a prior post on the first Mattel recall
Click here for a prior post on the dangers of toys with magnets

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Posted In: Injuries to Minors and Children , Lead Products

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In DeKalb, Illinois, a monster truck injured nine people, two seriously, during a demonstration. The driver was doing stunts and warned the crowd to stand back because the situation seemed dangerous. Eventually, the driver lost control of the truck and veered into a crowd of about 100 people before breaking through a fence and coming to a halt on nearby railroad tracks. It remains to be seen whether any personal injury lawsuits will be filed against the truck driver, or NAPA Auto Parts, who sponsored the event.

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Posted In: Truck Accidents

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The Chicago area parents of a minor who videotaped the rape of a 16 year old girl have settled the personal injury lawsuit against them for a six-figure sum. The girl was drunk at a party at the parents’ house when the minor was assaulted by the parents’ child and three other teens. The lawsuit alleged that the parents knew or should have known about the party in their home at which underage teens were drinking.

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Posted In: Injuries to Minors and Children

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The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently conducted a random sampling survey of 85 pieces of children’s jewelry. The study showed that 20 percent of the toys sampled posed a potential poisoning hazard to young children. Over 95 percent of the 17.9 million pieces of children’s jewelry items pulled from the market since the start of 2005 were imported from China.

The primary poison concern when dealing with imports from China is the metal lead. Jewelry is the most dangerous place for lead because children can swallow a small piece. This can in turn cause acute poisoning, which can lead to respiratory failure, seizures and even death. From 2000 to 2005 over 20,000 children turned up in emergency rooms after ingesting jewelry. Toy jewelry manufactures may face personal injury lawsuits if found negligent in the sale and distribution of children’s toys.

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Posted In: Current Issues , Injuries to Minors and Children , Lead Products , Products liability

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A lawsuit has been filed against two California hospitals and a transportation service which claims that the defendants dumped patients in downtown Los Angeles. One patient was a paraplegic who las left crawling in a gutter without a wheelchair. The complaint alleged that he was "left to crawl away with his possessions in a bag clenched in his teeth." Another man was homeless and a detoxifying alcoholic. More patients have probably been victims of this practice, but because of mental disorders or disabilities they often do not realize that they have been severely mistreated.

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Posted In: Current Issues

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Two women have filed product liability lawsuits against the maker of ObTape for personal injuries suffered after the devices were implanted. ObTape is a brand of vaginal sling intended to cure urinary stress incontinence, but the lawsuits alleges that the product instead caused erosion of the vaginal wall, bleeding, lesions, and other complications. Over the course of two years after the device was implanted, one of the women endured 30 hospital visits and three surgeries and continues to suffer from her urinary stress incontinence.

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Posted In: Products liability

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A Chicago area teen died last night after being electrocuted by an air conditioner. The police believe that the boy was injured while hopping fences with his friends. The boy fell onto the air conditioning unit on a neighbor's property, and this apparently led to the boy being electrocuted. The boy was found unresponsive at approximately 10:30pm, and died about an hour later at Holy Cross Hospital.

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Posted In: Injuries to Minors and Children , Land Owner liability

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Taser International, Inc., the company that makes the electric stun guns boasts that its success records in product liability suits is a result of its no-settlement strategy and its refusal to back down from a legal fight. However, of the 52 product liability suits that it claims as victories, 10 of those cases were actually settled and not either dismissed or resulting in a verdict in the company’s favor. Although this fact seems to belie Taser’s brash claims that “Taser doesn’t settle,” representatives from the stun gun company reason that they would consider a settlement a victory for the company if the settlement amount is less than the costs of litigation.

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Posted In: Products liability

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A 22-year-old man was temporarily paralyzed after the roof of his Ford van caved in and crushed him five years ago. A personal injury lawsuit was filed, and recently the jury decided that Ford was guilty of negligence and rewarded the defendant six million dollars. The victim was in the front passenger seat of the van when a tire blew out and the van flipped out of control. A section of the roof above his head collapsed, causing the victim to suffer a broken neck. The defense in the case claimed that Ford knew about the faulty roof and that it could malfunction at speeds as low as five miles per hour. The cost of fixing the problem was $25 per vehicle, however Ford decided that the percentage of injury wasn't large enough to warrant a massive recall.

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Posted In: Automobile Accidents , Products liability

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In yesterday's Minneapolis bridge collapse 50 vehicles are said to be trapped, 4 people are confirmed dead, 20-30 people are still missing and 79 people were injured. Officials said that they expected the death toll to rise. Six years ago, the Minnesota Department of Transportation found minor problems with the bridge and a study suggested that if one of two support planes cracked the bridge could collapse. However, this was found to be unlikely and replacement of the bridge unnecessary. Two years ago, however, the US Department of Transportation said that the bridge was structurally deficient and received a rating of 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, meaning that there is "advanced section loss, deterioration."

The National Transportation Safety Board is sending investigators to the site of the collapse but a spokesperson remarked that the focus has to be on emergency response. While they will be performing a full forensic analysis to see what caused the collapse, the NTSB emphasized that right now, it is more important to rescue every person possible.

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Posted In: Accidental Drownings , Automobile Accidents , Bicycle Accidents , Bus Accidents , Motor Vehicle Accidents , Motorcycle Accidents , Pedestrian , Public Transit , Truck Accidents

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Concerns about the safety of children and product liability have led Fisher-Price to recall almost one million plastic toys. The recall was "fast-tracked", which means the company was able to prevent two-thirds of the toys from even making to store shelves. Suspect toys should be kept away from children. Owners of a recalled toy will receive a voucher for another product of the same value.

Call Mattel's recall line at 800.916.4498
Click here to see pictures of the recalled toys

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