Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog

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.

It has been roughly a year since House Democrats and Republicans approved legislation aimed to improve food safety. Now, public health advocates concerned about recent food safety recalls are growing frustrated that the United States Senate has yet to take up the bill. The Washington Post reports that a coalition of food safety groups tried to turn up the pressure last week on the leaders in the Senate, running newspaper ads featuring constituents who fell seriously ill from food poisoning and urging the leaders to move the bill to the Senate floor and to pass the bill.

Last week, President Obama addressed in a statement his support for the passage of the food safety bill. President Obama added that the bill provides the government the tools it needs to ensure food safety. The food safety bill would be the first major change to food safety law in 70 years and would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) greater regulatory authority regarding food production. Additionally, it places the responsibility where it belongs – on the manufacturers and farmers to produce food free from product contamination.

As the Chicago product liability attorneys at Levin & Perconti are aware, the legislation comes after a series of food-borne illnesses over the past four years. You can remember that the food recalls have included various products, such as spinach and cookie dough, and have generally made Illinois and U.S. consumers weary about food safety. In fact, just yesterday – USA Today reported that close to one in twenty five outbreaks of foodborne illnesses in restaurants and delis can be traced to contaminated, freshly-made salsa or guacamole!

Click the link to read the full food safety law article.

Chicago product liability attorneys at Levin & Perconti have blogged a lot about the lack of government regulation of dietary supplements. Now, thanks to an agreement among United States Senators to include guidelines in a food safety bill, stricter government oversight of dietary supplements is within touch. Four areas of common ground were outlined in a letter sent by chairs of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The letter talked about incorporating the areas of agreement into the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) Food Safety Modernization Bill.

The provisions include: (1) all dietary supplement manufacturing, processing, and holding facilities to register with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, (2) the FDA having the authority to issue a mandatory product recall order if a dietary supplement is adulterated or misbranded or the use of such supplement could cause serious adverse health consequences such as death, (3) the FDA commissioner to publish guidelines on the new dietary ingredients as soon as possible, and (4) mandate that the FDA notify the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) when a new product contains a synthetic anabolic steroid.

According to Senator McCain, the bill would protect professional and Olympic athletes along with casual sports participants who use supplements. Pro sports leagues have supported the bill. Athletes in the past have blamed positive drug tests on substances that turn up in dietary supplements even though they are not listed as ingredients on the label.

Follow the link to read more about the dietary supplement regulation.

CBS2Chicago.com is reporting that reformers against Illinois nursing home neglect are pushing for higher minimum staffing levels at Illinois nursing homes. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has proposed reforms that would raise minimum staffing levels at Illinois nursing home and the notion is being quietly fought by the industry, despite evidence proving that more time spent on residents’ care by nursing home nurses and nursing home aides improves the overall health of residents. The Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have repeatedly stressed the importance of adequate nursing home staffing levels in order to prevent Illinois nursing home abuse. Studies have linked more nursing hours with better care, demonstrated by fewer bed sores (pressure ulcers) and less unexplained weight loss.

Today in Springfield, government talks resumed as state officials, advocates for the elderly and mentally ill, and industry leaders attempt to agree on proposed Illinois nursing home legislation. Presently, Illinois rules only require that nursing homes provide a minimum of 2.5 hours of nursing care per Illinois residents daily. CBS2Chicago reports that works out to about 31 certified nurse aides and licensed nurses per hundred residents. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn wants to phase in more nursing care. Under the Governor’s proposal, the minimum by 2014 would be 4.1 hours each day for residents who need skilled care and 2.8 hours daily for residents needing intermediate care. While some homes already meet those standards in Illinois, some do not. As a reminder, the Illinois nursing home proposals stem from news reports of assaults, rapes, and murders in Illinois nursing homes.

Click here to read more about the proposals to prevent Illinois nursing home neglect.

The Illinois injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti have been watching the status of several bills that will affect our clients and have noticed that they have been stalling pending the passage of the historic health care bill. While the Chicago medical malpractice attorneys are relieved that our lawmakers are finally addressing comprehensive health care reform, we are anxious about the status of several other bills. We agree with the American Association for Justice and are confident that the healthcare bill’s passage will now allow for progress on other bills that we’ve been watching.

Some key measures that have stalled in the House and the Senate that the Illinois medical malpractice attorneys at Levin & Perconti are focused on include:

(1) The Medical Device Safety Act (H.R. 1346, S. 540), which would allow medical product liability victims to bring product liability lawsuits in state court against makers of faulty medical devices.

(2) The Notice Pleading Restoration Act of 2009 (S. 1504), which would restore the “notice pleading” standard that was the standard for many years in federal court and overturn the Supreme Court’s cases requiring personal injury plaintiffs and other plaintiffs to put enough facts in a complaint to establish a “plausible” claim in order to withstand a challenge by the defense. As Chicago injury lawyers, we are paying close attention to this bill. Requiring injured victims who sometimes have little to no information as to who caused their injuries at the time of suit to file a detailed complaints puts a large burden on plaintiffs and limits their access to justice.

(3) The Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2010, which would make it easier for American consumers injured by defective products, such as the controversial Chinese-manufactured drywall, to file product liability lawsuits against foreign manufacturers of defective products.

To read more about the stalled bills that affect negligence lawsuits that Illinois injury attorneys are watching.

Click here to search for the status of any House or Senate bill.

Progress was finally made last week when the historic health care bill was signed into law. During the arduous debates involving the health care law for nearly a year, the only points that opponents of health care reform would discuss were “tort reform” and “frivolous lawsuits.” Despite mountains of facts to the contrary, 40 million people uninsured, and skyrocketing health care costs, opponents to the health care bill and many Republican lawmakers argued that trial attorneys and plaintiff injury litigation were to blame for all of our nation’s health care system’s problems.

So, the entire argument of health care opponents was that too much medical malpractice lawsuits and personal injury lawsuits were the cause of our country’s broken health care system. And what has happened now that monumental health care legislation has been signed into law? The health care opponents hired lawyers and filed lawsuits of their own.

The Chicago injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti agree with the American Association for Justice and acknowledge that there is nothing inherently wrong with using the legal system to solve disputes when no other solution is available. In fact, the Chicago medical malpractice lawyers agree that the judicial system was created by the Founders for this very purpose! However, it is awfully hypocritical for lawmakers to push for “tort reform” and limit everyday American citizens’ access to civil justice while also using the court system to push their own self-serving agenda. It is shameful that such individuals are continuously trying to limit the type of justice that individuals harmed by negligent doctors or nursing home abuse can obtain through the justice system while using the court system for its own movement.

To read more about the tort reform hypocrites, click on the link to the article featured on Huffington Post.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce and its investigations subcommittee have summoned the chief executives of WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Humana Inc. and Aetna to testify about medical claims denied for individuals with preexisting conditions as well as recent rate hikes.

The lawmakers have written letters to the CEOS of the four largest insurance companies, asking these companies to provide information about claim denials for policyholders with preexisting conditions and refusing coverage for potential customers with medical conditions. Congress also wants the insurers to list their average premiums and average increases, information about the companies' maternity care coverage in the individual market, and information to justify rate increases.

The Chicago medical malpractice attorneys at Levin and Perconti are members of the American Association for Justice and will remain on top of these issues. Our Illinois personal injury attorneys constantly work to protect not only their clients’ rights to healthcare, but the right of all America's patients to healthcare.

Chicago newspaper SouthtownStar explored the nursing home abuse legislation introduced by Chicago lawmakers this week. The nursing home abuse attorneys at Levin & Perconti are happy with the two key features of the reform nursing home abuse legislation – beefing up nursing home staffing in Illinois nursing homes and raising fines on facilities that endanger residents. The nursing home industry signaled that it was not happy with the nursing home neglect bill, stating that the proposal far exceeds the issues addressed by the Illinois governor’s nursing home safety task force.

Illinois state Senators Jacqueline Collins and Heather Steans co-sponsored the legislation, which is backed by groups such as the AARP, unions representing health care workers, the Supportive Housing Providers Association, and Illinois Citizens for Better Care. As an AARP volunteer from Decatur stated, and Levin & Perconti has unfortunately realized for a long time now, thousands of nursing home residents in Illinois are victims of nursing home abuse, assault, and inadequate care. The nursing home group says that the legislation is unreasonable and mentions that the state has cut back on public health surveyors for many years.

Specifically, Senate Bill 685 aims to address these problems by improving the quality of care, creating meaningful regulations for Illinois nursing homes, providing regulations that promote resident safety, improve the quality of care for nursing home residents through provisions like higher staff to patient ratios and enhanced training, and offering less restrictive alternatives to people who do not need nursing home care.

The AARP has set up a Nursing Home Legislation Hotline. Citizens can contact their legislators and urge them to support by the SB 685 by calling 1-888-616-3322.

Click here to read more about the Illinois nursing home legislation.

To read the AARP summary, click here.

Chicago injury attorney Steven M. Levin recently addressed the violence that has been reported and uncovered in Illinois nursing homes in a Letter to the Editor at Chicago Tribune. Mr. Levin commended the Chicago Tribune’s effort in raising public awareness surrounding the safety issues in Chicago nursing homes. The title of the Chicago Tribune article was “Nursing homes’ toll: 86 sex cases, 1 arrest.” Steven M. Levin has represented victims and families of victims in several incidents of Illinois nursing home abuse and neglect and has advocated for nursing home reform for many years. The nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti have fought for the vulnerable nursing home victims and have been successful in obtaining many record verdicts and settlements.

The Chicago Tribune noted that many of the Illinois nursing homes where sexual attacks occurred were operated with insufficient nursing home staff. Mr. Levin replied that substandard nursing home staffing is the cause of the majority of Illinois nursing home neglect and safety issues. Mr. Levin added that some nursing home owners focus on census and revenue over the safety of their nursing home residents. In order to end the incessant violence in Chicago nursing homes, we must address the issue of nursing home staffing.

As highlighted in a blog post from earlier this week, Illinois elected officials are stepping up their push for nursing home safety, but there is more that we can do. Readers are encouraged to contact your state representatives to demand legislation providing adequate staffing standards for Illinois nursing homes. You can find out who your state representative is by clicking here.

To read the Letter to the Editor that Steven M. Levin submitted to the Chicago Tribune, click here.

The Chicago nursing home attorneys at Levin & Perconti are happy to share that the State of Illinois is stepping up its nursing home safety push, according to a recent Chicago Tribune article. The Illinois Attorney General stated that her office and the local police are working to protect Illinois nursing home residents by visiting Chicago and Illinois nursing homes unannounced and also conducting safety checks at troubled Illinois nursing homes.

Chicago police have joined forces with investigators and medical experts from the Illinois Attorney General’s office to find unregistered felons and sex offenders living in Illinois nursing homes. When visiting Illinois nursing homes unannounced, authorities are also interviewing nursing home residents and nursing home staff at the Illinois facilities with histories of serious resident safety breaches. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is also working to introduce a comprehensive package of nursing home safety-reform bills in the near future.

The nursing home injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti are glad that vulnerable nursing home residents are finally getting the attention they need and deserve. For too long, residents have been neglected, being abused under the radar. Recently, Governor Quinn’s Nursing Home Safety Task Force completed a 52-page plan to overhaul our state of Illinois’s troubled nursing home system. The task force was formed after a Tribune investigation documented rapes, attacks, and murders at Illinois and Chicago nursing homes that serve the area’s poorest residents. Particularly troublesome in Illinois is its reliance on nursing homes to house younger psychiatric patients, including more than 3,000 with felony records. This is an issue that Levin & Perconti has often highlighted in its Illinois nursing home abuse blog. More than a dozen early nursing home safety bills have already been introduced by nursing home advocates and the nursing home industry.

Click here to read the full Chicago Tribune article about the increased safety push.

As 2010 approaches, the attorneys at Levin & Perconti wanted to take a moment and wish you and your families a Happy New Year! A recent article in the Huffington Post highlighted the top ten civil justice triumphs of the decade and we think it’s important to reflect on the progress that civil justice attorneys have made. From tort reform failures to product liability victims rights; from Wyeth v. Levine to referendum rejection of special interests; from blogs and books to studies – the past decade has sure been filled of rewards after much hard work in civil justice.

Continue reading "Top Ten Civil Justice Triumphs of the Decade" »

The Chicago Tribune reported recently that the Illinois medical error reporting law will finally be implemented. Ten years ago, a landmark report addressed that medical mistakes cause up to 98,000 wrongful deaths in American yearly. In 2005, Illinois legislators decided to tackle the issue a passed an Act requiring hospital to report the deadliest kind.

Continue reading "Illinois medical error reporting law to finally be implemented?" »

The attorneys at Levin & Perconti received a recent update from the American Association for Justice and wanted to spread the word about this bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. The much needed bill aims to restore standards required to file court cases and strengthen the basic legal protections of Americans. The bill comes after two U.S. Supreme Court decisions unexplainably added difficulty for litigants seeking justice in many civil cases.

Continue reading "Open Access to Courts Bill introduced in Congress" »

CNN.com recently featured an Op-Ed by Anthony Tarricone, the president of the American Association for Justice. The interesting Op-Ed highlighted the recent uptick in “lawyer blaming” that opponents of health care reform are using. Mr. Tarricone summarized it quite nicely when he wrote, “Somehow, the fringes of the GOP have made health care about trial lawyers and medical malpractice. Instead of focusing on how to fix our broken health care system, opponents of real reform would rather limit the legal rights of injured patients. Talk about misguided priorities.”

As attorneys at Levin & Perconti see on a daily basis, medical negligence affects real people. Studies indicate that up to 98,000 people die yearly from preventable medical errors, and countless more are severely injured. Mr. Tarricone compared this statistic to two 737s crashing daily for a year. If this were to happen, would we blame the airlines or the passengers? And, would we question the FAA?

Continue reading "Is blaming lawyers the new "strategy" for halting any meaningful health reform? " »

The Fair Elections Now Act offers an alternative to the U.S.’s current pay-to-play system. Under the Act, Candidates for Congress could volunteer to accept donations only from individuals in amounts $100 or less. Right now, there is too much at stake to continue to allow big pharmaceutical companies and other big businesses to finance the elections.

E-mail your representative about Fair Elections.

Following JP Morgan Chase’s announcement in July and the settlement between the Minnesota Attorney General and the National Arbitration Forum, Bank of America has announced that it will halt forced arbitration. In a recent press release, AAJ Associate Director of Federal Relations acknowledged that this announcement is a positive step, but also reinforces the need for Congress to protect consumers from forced arbitration.

To learn more about forced arbitration.

Two families are offering testimony in the nation’s capital today in favor of the proposed Medical Device Safety Act. One family is scheduled to talk about their 16 year-old son who was dependent on a pacemaker. His family believed that his death was related to a problem with the pacemaker device.

To read more about the medical safety product testimony.

The House is expected to vote on a multibillion-dollar food safety bill, touching ever facet of the U.S. food supply chain. The bill’s full impact is not known yet, but consumers are supposed to be safer.

To read more about the House food safety vote.

The Chicago Tribune reports that following the testimony of victims of the Burr Oak cemetery scandal, congressional leaders left Chicago to push for legislation for federal oversight of the cemetery industry. The hearing was held to document the horrors of families whose loved ones may be among those hundreds discovered at the Chicagoland cemetery in an alleged scheme for money.

To read more about the potential federal cemetery oversight.

Recently, President Obama signed the FDA tobacco regulation bill into law. The law allows the FDA to require specifications on warning labels and advertising. Additionally, the law specifically states that no provision of the Act modifies or otherwise affects any action or liability under the product liability law of any state.

To read more about the tobacco regulation law.