Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog

A new report issued by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) researchers found that in a one year period, the costs associated with personal injuries from car crashes exceeded $99 billion. The cost of direct medical care accounts for $17 billion. The total annual cost amounts to almost $500 for every licensed driver in the United States. The yearly costs of fatal and non-fatal crash related personal injuries totaled $70 billion for people riding in motor vehicles. Every 10 seconds, someone in the United States is treated in an emergency department for car accident-related injuries. Plus, almost 40,000 people die from these personal injuries each year. The director of CDC’s Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention announced that this study highlights the magnitude from the problem of crash-related injuries from a cost perspective and the results are staggering. The CDC researchers used 2005 data to compile the report.

In Chicago, we unfortunately hear news weekly of car accidents where personal injuries or wrongful deaths result. Just this weekend, police were questioning a female driver involved in a Chicago car accident that killed a 39-year old Chicago man. Another fatal crash occurred in the south suburb of Frankfort over the weekend. A man was killed Thursday night when the Kawasaki motorcycle he was driving slid under a truck. A preliminary autopsy showed that the Illinois man died of multiple personal injuries in the accident. Illinois state police said that the injury victim failed to stop at the intersection and yield the right of way to the truck driven by another man.

Visit the Chicago Tribune online to learn more about the CDC car accident cost study.

Two families have agreed to settle their wrongful death lawsuits stemming from the crash of the February 2009 Continental Airlines crash that killed all 49 individuals on board the plane and one on the ground. According to a statement released by the family of the wrongful death victim’s plaintiff’s attorney, “Some families, when they receive a significant offer, would choose to take it and move on. Most of the families will hang in and go the distance until a trial to get the sort of numbers we think are appropriate.” The wrongful death lawsuit settlement terms are confidential.

The other wrongful death lawsuits are set for trial in March 2012 in federal court. According to recent documents, the crew’s failure to monitor airspeed, which slowed enough to trigger the stall warning, contributed to the airplane accident. Other contributing factors were found to be unnecessary conversation between the pilots and the Captain’s failure to manage the flight.

Wrongful death is a legal term that means that the victim’s death has been caused by the fault of another individual. In addition to situations like the airplane accident described above, deaths caused by drunk driving, a defective or dangerous product, failing to diagnose a fatal disease, or the construction of an unsound structure of a building may be considered as “wrongful deaths.” Personal injury lawyers generally file wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of family members or beneficiaries of the decedent. In some situations, these wrongful death claims are filed in order to obtain monetary damages to cover the earnings the deceased person would have provided.

For more information on the wrongful death settlements, read the article at Business Week.

An Illinois man is seeking a cash settlement from the suburban city of Zion and five Zion police officers for Illinois personal injuries sustained in addition to alleged violations of his civil rights. The plaintiff, a forty one year old man, claims that Illinois police officers in the city of Zion injured him near his residence when they Tasered him and allegedly manufactured evidence against him in relation a fight near his house. The Illinois injury plaintiff was acquitted of the criminal misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest and has since filed a federal lawsuit seeking monetary damages against the city. The Illinois injury plaintiff is seeking monetary damages including punitive damages, costs, and attorney fees. He alleges that the arresting officers are guilty of false arrest, conspiracy, excess force and battery.

The Chicago personal injury lawyers of Levin & Perconti are familiar with damages in injury lawsuits and want our readers to notice that the Tasered Illinois man is seeking punitive damages in the lawsuit. Punitive damages are damages intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the personal injury lawsuit or other lawsuit. Although the purpose of the punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will in fact receive all or some portion of the punitive damage award. Punitive damages are awarded only in special cases, usually under tort law in cases like our injury attorneys do, where the defendant’s conduct was egregious.

More information about the civil rights lawsuit is available at the Lake County News-Sun.

Indiana-based DePuy Orthopaedics announced today that the company is voluntarily recalling the ASR™ XL Acetabular System and DePuy ASR Hip Resurfacing System because a number of patients who underwent this hip replacement system have since had to have a second surgery.

A press release by the company claims that many surgeries with the ASR system have worked, but the company now recommends that patients who have this device be closely monitored to ensure proper performance.

That National Joint Registry of England and Wales revealed that 12% of patients who received the ASR Hip Resurfacing System and 13% who received the XL Acetabular System required a second or “revision” surgery. The risk for revision surgery was highest among female patients with a 50mm ASR head size. The company will pay for reasonable costs, including monitoring and treatment such as revision surgeries.

Although the company took steps to recall the hip systems, many people were forced to undergo pain, suffering and ongoing medical treatment due to the defective DePuy hip implants. Like most surgeries, hip surgery is a serious medical procedure and complications can occur. According to Medlineplus.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, during a hip replacement, a surgeon removes bone and cartilage that has been damaged and inserts a man-made device in its place. Surgical risks include wrong-site surgery, anesthesia errors, infection, blood clots and even death. Most hip surgeries occur in older patients, increasing the risk for medical errors.

Those who have suffered injuries as a result of the faulty design and manufacturing of faulty DePuy ASR hip replacement systems may be able to seek justice for the defective medical devices. When injuries occur due to defective medical devices such as the ASR Hip Resurfacing System and the XL Acetabular System, victims can be compensated for their pain and suffering, lost income and medical bills.

Our Chicago product liability attorneys have handled a number of cases involving defective products and medical devices. We have helped victims receive fair and reasonable compensation and may be able to help you recover damages for your pain and suffering. If you believe that you suffered injuries or a loved one died because of these defective DePuy hip replacement systems, contact our Chicago injury lawyers to discuss your claim in a free and confidential consultation.

In the latest update regarding product liability and harmful pharmaceutical interactions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that it is investigating the possibility that the combination Parkinson’s drug called Stalevo may increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death in elderly patients who are taking the drug. Stalevo is an anti-parkinsonian dopaminergic combination medication, combined of carbidopa, levodopa, and entacapone, that treats Parkinson’s disease. The drug is manufactured by Finnish drugmaker Orion Corporation and is marked by Swiss-based Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Stalevo is currently used to treat adult patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease in two scenarios: to substitute with equivalent strength of each of the three components or to replace immediate-release therapy when patients experience the signs and symptoms of end-of-dose “wearing off.”

FDA urged patients not to stop taking the drug, but warned patients to let their physicians know if the patients have risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The first indication of product liability risk for Stalevo came from a clinical trial called STRIDE-PD, according to LA Times. The average age of the patient was 60 years of age and the trial that exposed the risks lasted an average of 2.7 years. The study’s results found seven heart attacks and one death.

The results of the clinical trial were combined by the FDA with results from fourteen other trials totaling about 4800 patients. With the wider patient pool, the analysis showed twenty-seven adverse product reactions of heart attacks, strokes, or deaths for a statistically significant increased risk of 146%. When the data from the trial was not included, the increased risk was only 67% and it was not statistically significant. The FDA is continuing to look into the significance of the clinical trial results.

Click the link to the LA Times to read more about the FDA product liability warnings.

The State of Illinois formerly provided its state citizens with useful and valuable information and detailed histories of its state’s doctors, including vital information such as whether the Illinois physician was convicted of a crime, fired by a hospital, or forced to make Illinois medical malpractice payments within the previous five years. As one would expect, many individuals in Illinois concerned about their physicians’ abilities frequently visited the Illinois physician information website. During the two years in which the information was posted, the Illinois physician profiles generated 130,000 clicks per week.

Unfortunately, access to the Illinois physician profiles came to a halt earlier this year when the state of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation removed them from its website and locked them. As Chicago Tribune describes it, this is the latest chapter in a long political battle that has pitted Illinois patient advocates against the lobbyists who represent Illinois hospitals, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies.

Now, the only information available to the public is whether the Illinois regulatory agency has previously disciplined the physician. One state legislator explained that we had a useful and powerful tool to protect patients and now it is gone; Representative Mary Flowers added that we should mandate that the state of Illinois provide this critical consumer health information. Patients’ rights advocates and Illinois medical malpractice attorneys explained that similar websites have proved popular in other states where they receive more than 800,000 hits a year. But, any effort in Illinois needs to face tough competition from the Illinois State Medical Society, which lobbies on behalf of doctors and has helped defeat similar medical malpractice protection bills.

To read more about the Illinois medical malpractice website and its removal, visit the Chicago Tribune.

As most of the readers of our Chicago injury lawyer blog know, texting in Illinois while driving can get you pulled over and ticketed by police in Illinois. And, Chicago drivers have known that talking and driving on the cell phone can similarly result in such penalties. Now, our south suburban readers need to know that chatting on your cell phone in Midlothian or Park Forest can get you curbed as well.

The Southtown Star has reported that officials in those villages have recently barred driving and using a cell phone without a hands-free device within their borders. Like Chicago, Midlothian and Park Forest are “hands free” communities. Its an effort centered on avoiding Illinois car accidents that officials said are more likely to happen while drivers are using their cell phones. Enforcement of the hands-free laws in Midlothian and Park Forest are just the beginning. Pulling over drivers for using cell phones is now considered a primary offense. In other words, you do not have to be committing some other traffic offense to be pulled over for using a hand-held device.

Recent statistics have shown that talking on a cell phone causes nearly 25% of all Illinois car accidents. Four out of every five accidents are attributed to distracted drivers whereas one out of every three accidents are attributed to drunk drivers. In 2002, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis calculated that 2,600 people die every year as a result of using cell phones while driving and another 330,000 receive personal injuries. Drivers talking on cell phones were 18% slower to react to brake lights.

To read more about the south suburban texting bans, read the article at the Southtown Star.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced several product recalls this month and the month is not even over. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products and frequently announces product recalls. First, in cooperation with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Circus World has recalled wireless video baby monitors due to overheating hazard. Wiring in the baby monitor camera can overheat and emit smoke, posing a burn hazard to consumers. Second, P. Graham Dunn in cooperation with the U.S. CPSC has recalled nearly 500 wooden toy rattles, which pose a serious choking hazard to young children. Third, the U.S. CPSC and Asurion have voluntarily recalled about 470,000 counterfeit Blackberry-branded cell phone batteries in refurbished devices; the batteries can overheat, posing burn and fire hazards.

Additionally, the US CPSC and LG Electronics have reannounced the Goldstar and Comfort-Aire dehumidifier recall, which affects about 98,000 dehumidifiers. The power connector for the dehumidifer’s compressor can short circuit and pose serious fire and burn hazards to consumers. Another fire hazard product recall involved the Bosch Thermotechnology Boiler Survey Kit. The recall affects about 1500 service kit for gas-fired boilers. The use of a silver-covered gas pipe adapter included in the service kit can lead to gas leakage, which can pose a fire or explosion hazard to consumers. Miami Breaker, Inc. has also voluntarily recalled products due to fire hazard. Their product recall involves about 43,600 counterfeit “Square D” circuit breakers, which can fail to trip when they are overloaded.

To read more about recent product recalls, please visit the CPSC website.

Over the past few days, several individuals received personal injuries and some unfortunately passed away after several individual Illinois motor vehicle accidents in the south suburban areas of Chicago. A teenager from a south suburb of Chicago died after he lost control of a sports utility vehicle that he was driving near the Illinois city of Country Club Hills. In addition to the Orland Park seventeen year old who passed away in the SUV accident, three other youths received personal injuries. The teenager was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle; there was no indication that alcohol or any other drugs were involved in the deadly motor vehicle accident.

Further, on Sunday night, a speeding vehicle struck and killed a teen bicyclist in Dolton, Illinois. The Dolton driver that caused the Illinois wrongful death has continued to elude police and was eluding police when he was speeding and struck the teenager.

Another individual received serious personal injuries after a south side motor vehicle accident on Monday. The injuries occurred after the motorcycle accident victim crashed his motorcycle on outbound interstate 57 at 127th Street in Illinois. Around the same time in another South Side suburban neighborhood, Country Club Hills, a Mexican restaurant was hit by a car and received extensive property damage.

Additionally, an Orland Park man who was involved in a motor vehicle accident a year ago died over the weekend from his personal injuries. He was involved in a motorcycle accident last August on I-355 at Interstate 88; an autopsy revealed that the motorcycle victim died of cerebral injuries.

More information about the serious Illinois motor vehicle accidents is available at The Southtown Star.

Local authorities in California reported that eight people were killed and ten people received personal injuries after a driver racing in a motor vehicle race lost control of his off-roader vehicle. The vehicle went airborne in the motor vehicle accident and landed on top of spectators. The agency investigating the deadly car accident stated that bystanders did not have much of an opportunity to escape the out-of-control vehicle. Online videos of the race from former years show that spectators stand dangerously close to the speeding off-road vehicles. Additionally, no concrete or other barriers exist to separate spectators from the cars. The race was held in a desolate area in California on federal desert land just east of the mountains – off-roaders were racing the loop reaching speeds of over 60 miles per hour.

The driver has not been arrested; alcohol was not a factor in the crash. A different off-roader commented that he did not think the racer did anything stupid, he just hit it too hard. One eyewitness said that she could tell that several people were trapped under the vehicle. She personally saw one woman with a major head wound bleeding and another individual crushed beneath the car. The investigators on scene were searching the vehicle for mechanical defects and to attempt recreating the collision scene.

A video of the off-roader race accident scene where 8 people were killed and ten people were injured is available at Chicago Tribune.

Recent reports from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) are showing that the number of estimated reports of Chinese drywall product liability have reached 6300. This number is composed from homeowners across the nation who have complained of having defective Chinese drywall. Florida has the highest number of Chinese drywall reports – 58% of them.

In related news, a recent ruling issued decided that the former employee of a construction company that built homes made with the defective Chinese drywall cannot claim money awarded to homeowners affected by the product, even though his own house is affected. The deciding judge ruled that even though the claimant lost his job with the construction company, he could not join the class action product liability lawsuit because it excluded the construction company employees. An attorney who represents homeowners in the class action lawsuit said that homeowners specifically remember the contested claimant telling them that the odors they noticed as they walked through their homes before closing were just a “new home smell.”

The Chicago personal injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti have been drafting blogs about the tainted Chinese drywall for quite some time now. Stories involved insurers dropping homeowners with Chinese drywall, CPSC pressing China for drywall damage compensation, and other issues related to the home repairs. Some experts have opined that the odors, personal injuries, and corrosions blamed on the Chinese drywall may actually be caused by the failure to remove sulfur and contaminants from synthetic gypsum.

Click on the News-Press.com link to read more about the Chinese drywall lawsuits.

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca Plc is set to pay roughly $198 million dollars to settle about 17,500 product liability lawsuits. The product liability lawsuits alleged that AstraZeneca’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel causes some users to develop diabetes. AstraZeneca had previously agreed to pay at least $55 million dollars to resolve more than 5,500 lawsuits alleging that the company knew that Seroquel could cause diabetes and failed to adequately warn patients. The earlier agreements to settle are part of the 17,500 product liability settlements. The Financial Times reported that the product liability settlement stems from court ordered mediation. And, the Wall Street Journal reported that analysts have described the settlement figure as relatively small.

Seroquel is an antipsychotic drug used in the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, insomnia, and anxiety disorders. Annual sales of Seroquel are approximately $4.7 billion worldwide and $2.9 billion in the U.S. The most common side effect of the drug is sedation and other side effects include tachycardia, abnormal liver tests, dizziness, upset stomach, substantial weight gain, a stuffy nose, akathisia, and increased paranoia. The rare, but life-threatening, neuroleptic malignant syndrome may also result from use of the drug.

In October 2009, AstraZeneca reported reaching a $520 million agreement to settle two federal investigations and two whistle-blower lawsuits over the sale and marketing of Seroquel. One of the investigations related to certain physicians who participated in clinical trials and the other involved off-label promotion of the drug. Aggressive marketing resulted in Seroquel being increasingly used for children and elderly people for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Physicians are permitted to prescribe any approved drug for off-label uses.

Read more about the product liability settlement by visiting the Wall Street Journal.

A rail crossing that is infamous for Chicago railroad car crashes is set to be rebuilt this month in order to improve safety before high school classes resume for students who cross the path over the railroad to get to school. Additionally, the Illinois Commerce Commission has urged that the city of Chicago increase traffic enforcement to reduce Chicago train-vehicle crashes at the congested Nagle Avenue crossing on the Union Pacific Railroad corridor.

According to a Chicago Tribune report, vehicles can be stopped on the tracks at Nagle and many other dangerous Chicago railroad crossings on a daily basis, which is seriously dangerous. Drivers routinely take those risks and despite knowledge of the consistent law breaking, most of the hundreds of tickets issued to drivers at the Chicago railroad crossing for failing to yield to trains or for stopping on the tracks were issued by Union Pacific police, not Chicago police officers. Planned changes to increase safety are planned for between August 23 and September 3 and include new signs, better pavement markings, and new concrete crossing panels. City of Chicago traffic engineers are also evaluating whether changes in the timing of signals would keep the rail crossing clear of vehicles when the traffic lights change from green to red.

More information about the fixes for the dangerous Chicago railroad crossing is available at the Chicago Tribune.

Now that BP is finally on the verge of capping its well, the source of the largest oil spill in United States history, the oil company’s focus must now shift toward the cleanup of the Gulf and the expensive civil liability fines that it faces stemming from the disaster. Based on a federal panel of experts’ estimate earlier this week, BP could face up to $17.6 billion in civil penalties from the 4.1 million barrels of oils leaked from it well into the Gulf.

Environmental lawyers familiar with such toxic tort cases opine that BP is likely to negotiate a lower penalty. Nonetheless, the fines could still hurt the company’s ability to pay for the cleanup costs. Under the Clean Water Act, oil owners are liable for fines of $1,100 per barrel spilled even if it did nothing wrong. The penalty jumps to $4,300 per barrel if BP was grossly negligent, which would include making conscious decisions that increased the likelihood of an incident while engaged in a risky business, such as deepwater drilling. BP Chairman expressed doubt about the fines being that high, stating that BP and the government have a mutual interest in a lower number because, according to BP Chairman, the government does not want to push BP into insolvency.

The civil fines, discussed above, which fall under United States environmental laws are distinct from costs that BP currently faces to clean up the spill. Additionally, they are separate from costs that BP faces for compensating the personal injury victims of the disaster.

Click on the Business Week link to read more about the liability fines facing BP.

In the latest news of vehicle safety concerns, the Los Angeles Times reported that Toyota announced the recall of 412,000 Avalon and Lexus vehicles for steering problems. This means that since October, nearly 9 million cars have been subject to product recalls around the world. This is almost as many vehicles as were sold by all manufacturers in the United States last year. Because of the product recalls and product safety violations, Toyota faces hundreds of product liability lawsuits arising from its problems with sudden acceleration and sticking gas pedals. Additionally, it has been the target of extreme scrutiny by federal safety regulators and the United States Congress.

The 373,000 recalled Avalons, dating from between 2000 and 2004, have improperly cast steering lock bars. These steering lock bars have been a factor in three accidents reported to the Toyota company. The problem occurs like this: a minute crack can develop on the surface, which in turn, can break the bar and lock the steering wheel, increasing the risk of an automobile accident. As opposed to the several hundred thousand Avalons, a smaller number of Lexus model vehicles from 2003 through 2007 have a different steering shaft problem. Luckily, no personal injuries have been reported related to the Lexus issue. Additionally, Toyota says it will recall 80,000 Land Cruisers for another problem involving faulty steering shafts. Toyota plans to replace the steering column bracket on the recalled vehicles, a product procedure that takes nearly two hours to complete. Toyota has announced that it would notify owners by first class mail beginning in late this month to take their vehicles to a dealer to have the work done at no charge.

More information on the Toyota recall is available at Los Angeles Times.

The Food Safety Bill is currently bogged down in the United States Senate; however, advocates against unsafe food products are urging its quick passage. There is widespread knowledge and understanding that the Food Safety Bill is long overdue and common sense; moreover, it is needed to finally update our country’s horse-and-buggy-era food safety laws. Among several food safety measures, the Food Safety Bill would require annual inspections for high-risk processing facilities, improve oversight of food imported from other countries, and significantly improve “tracebacks,” a method of figuring out contaminated products’ locations, before our country’s consumers digest them.

One prickly point of the Food Safety Bill involves a controversial amendment to ban bisphenol-A (“BPA”). Some advocates are asking senators to reject the amendment because it is jeopardizing the bill’s passage; these advocates suggest that BPA should be dealt with separately. Advocates against unsafe food products, including product liability lawyers, are familiar with BPA. BPA is an organic compound used to make plastics and resins in addition to other applications. It has been known to contain estrogen since the 1930s and concerns about BPA’s use in consumer products have been regularly reported. Reports of the dangers of BPA surfaced frequently in 2008 after several governments issued reports questioning its product safety and prompting some retailers to remove products containing BPA from their shelves. A 2010 report from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised further product liability concerns regarding exposure of fetuses, infants, and young children. Some health effects that were raised in reports on BPA included that it may lead to increased obesity, neurological issues, and thyroid function problems. Thus, advocates are torn about the BPA amendment to the Food Safety Bill; on one hand, the bill should be passed ASAP. But, on the other hand, is this the legislature’s best chance to put a halt to the use of BPA?

Follow the link to read more about the Food Safety bill.

As the Chicago product liability lawyers at Levin & Perconti have mentioned before, personal injury lawsuits and other negligence lawsuits hold product makers accountable to their consumers. Through the civil justice system, consumers have a voice. The Filipino-American Community Newspaper has addressed these issues in a recent article. The article states that automobile defects and defects in other products make them unsafe for consumers and their families. The law provides injured parties a right to recover compensation against the manufacturer or seller. The article addresses that through civil actions, consumers can recover the costs of present and future medical care, loss of earnings, and damages for pain and suffering. Further, corporate defendants who exhibit gross disregard for the safety of the public make them liable for punitive damages.

As Chicago personal injury attorneys are aware, insurance companies, politicians, and other large corporations or lobbyists unfairly criticize injury lawsuits as “lotteries” for the injured victims. They blame lawyers and blame product liability lawsuits for the faults in the economy. As the article addresses, nothing is further from the truth. Legal remedies protect consumers against big companies that have profits to use to protect themselves in court, even if its against the public interest.

As an example, injury and product liability lawsuits have positively influenced the way cars are produced and designed. Consider tires for instance. In the past, Firestone’s defective tires caused 271 deaths. But, the resulting injury and wrongful death litigation brought tires and their manufacturers under increased scrutiny and has resulted in safer tires for consumers.

Click on the link to read of the article on personal injury lawsuits.