Articles Posted in Verdicts and Settlements

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Chicago City Council voted last seek to pay over $5.4 million as a settlement of three lawsuits, two of which involved alleged Chicago Police misconduct. The largest settlement, of $4.1 million, involved the family of a Flint, Illinois farmer who was shot three times on the back by a Chicago Police Officer while he was unarmed and already wounded. Another settled case involved a young 13-year-old who was handcuffed and detained against his will by Chicago Police officers who demanded information about the young boy’s neighbors. He was awarded $145,000 by the City Council. The officers involved in the case were members of the now disbanded Special Operations Section of the CPD, or SOS. According to the article, many SOS officers were convicted of terrorizing numerous Chicago residents by invading their homes, performing illegal searches, and other illegal police tactics that they used to pocket thousands of dollars in cash for their own benefit.

Finally, the last was a $1.2 million Chicago accident lawsuit for a beer truck driver who was injured when his vehicle was rear-ended by a Chicago Fire Department truck in 2003 at Lincoln and California in Chicago. The driver underwent two back surgeries and continues to suffer from back pain. Through last November the city had paid out nearly $40 million in settlement of police abuse cases. In this year alone, the city has already spent over $38 million to settle such cases.

The City of Chicago employees have a duty to act properly under their scope of duty. Cases of police brutality and misconduct in Chicago should never be tolerated and when victims take action it sends a message to all City employees to refrain from these types of actions. While it can be intimidating to stand up against the city of Chicago, it is your right as a citizen to speak out when you have been injured by one of its employees. It is helpful to think of the City like any other large corporation that has many employees. When the employees of a large corporation act negligently, the corporation can be held accountable for their actions. It is the same for the city of Chicago. Settlements like these are important because they prove that the citizens of Chicago have a right to be heard and their legal rights always hold up in a court of law.

In an excellent example of how lawsuits can positively affect social change, the northwest Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights is changing the way it plows its parking lots and other public areas after it settled a slip and fall lawsuit filed by a woman injured when she slipped on public property in 2010, reports the Chicago Tribune. In the past, the city workers were instructed to place an equal amount of snow into each of the four corners that they are clearing, making more parking spaces available to use. The new rules force the workers to plow snow into only three corners and avoid plowing in areas where there are stairs.

The injured Arlington Heights resident sued the city in 2010 when she slipped in a parking garage due to an unnatural accumulation of ice near the stairwell of the lot. The city approved a $49,500 settlement for the couple in December, 2012. The woman fractured her leg when she fell and called out to her husband. When he came to her aid, he also slipped and fell. Several other people slipped and fell in the same spot, according to the couple. While the city denied all liability and insisted that the accumulation of ice was natural and not the result of negligence on their part, they have now decided to change the way that they plow public spaces to prevent future accidents like this.

This lawsuit provides a great example of just how important litigation can be in positively affecting social change. Plaintiff based litigation is important to ensure that negligent and dangerous behavior by companies, cities, municipalities and other powerful organizations does not continue to negatively impact individuals. Everyone has a right to take a stand against negligent, reckless or dangerous behavior. In this case, the city of Arlington Heights was acting negligently in the way that they removed their snow. The lawsuit filed by these brave citizens helped to change the way that the city plowed their snow, and will hopefully prevent other citizens from experiencing painful personal injuries in the future. Perhaps other cities in the Chicago area will see this lawsuit and reevaluate their snow removal techniques.

A Chicago personal injury lawyer from our firm recently read about an Illinois railroad welder was awarded a $1.05 million dollar verdict against Union Pacific Railroad when his twenty-year career came to a screeching halt due to injuries sustained while working for the railroad company. The plaintiff was injured in January 2010 while he was working in Springfield, Illinois, lifting heavy equipment. He was not provided with adequate and safe equipment or a welder’s helper. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that the railroad failed to provide him with a truck with a working mechanical lifting device, causing him to sustain injuries to his back and spine. He was later diagnosed with herniated lumbar disks and nerve root impingement and required surgery to correct his back problems. These injuries ended his career with Union Pacific and he was then rejected from 99 percent of all jobs that he applied for, seriously diminishing his earning capacity.

The trial lasted eight days and the jurors deliberated for eight hours prior to returning with the $1.05 millions dollar verdict for the plaintiff. The lawsuit was brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, an act designed to protect and compensate injured railroad workers. As long as the injured worker can prove that the railroad was at least partially negligent in causing the injury, the worker can recover for that negligence. Our Chicago personal injury attorneys know that every employee has a right to a safe workplace, no matter their profession.

While the railroad industry has its own piece of protective workers’ rights legislation, all employees have the right to keep their employers honest and trustworthy through workers compensation’ laws. When you are injured on the job, you have the right to file a workers compensation claim. Per the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission’s website, workers’ compensation is a no-fault system of benefits paid by employers to workers that are injured while on the job. These injuries include physical injuries as well as diseases. Like railroad workers, all Illinois workers are protected by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act.

Recently, our Chicago nursing home attorneys settled a lawsuit with Evergreen Healthcare Center in Evergreen Park for $575,000. Attorneys Steven M. Levin, Margaret P. Battersby Black and Carl F. Silverman worked on behalf of the granddaughter of the victim who sustained injuries while living at the nursing home. The victim developed several bed sores that worsened d and eventually contributed to her death. The lawsuit we filed on behalf of the victim alleged that Evergreen Healthcare staff failed to properly prevent, monitor and treat the victim’s bed sores, and these injuries contributed to her tragic death. Her family now has closure and can begin to heal after this horrific ordeal.

In February 2007, the then 77-year-old victim suffered a stroke and was admitted to a Chicago hospital. She was later transferred to the Evergreen Park nursing home for rehabilitation where the staff noted that she was at high risk for bed sores due to her immobility. The victim’s family noted that when they would visit, they could smell that she had not been changed, was never turned over, and on one occasion they even noticed that her feeding tube was loose. In fact, the only persons who ever noticed her bed sores were her family members, not the staff whose job it is to provide care for her. In fact, the victim developed bed sores on her heels and sacrum. Our senior partner and co-founder, Steven Levin noted that, “[o]n each occasion, it was her family, not the nursing staff, who discovered the new sores. Her sores worsened and her overall condition deteriorated. She was hospitalized two months later and diagnosed with sepsis, dehydration and pneumonia.” Tragically, the victim died in May 2007 from these injures.

The facility’s staff was obligated to prevent the victim from developing pressure ulcers and was required to frequently reposition her and closely monitor her skin condition. However, our investigation revealed inconsistencies in her charts and a failure to properly assess the progress of her bed sores. Our office filed a complaint in December 2008 in the Circuit Court of Cook County and the case was settled last month.