Chicago Injury Attorney Blog

Eva Liberato, the Chicago mother whose son Angel suffered serious brain damage at birth, has accepted a $5.5 million medical malpractice settlement offer from Westlake Hospital and two doctors. The malpractice incident occurred in 2002, after hospital staffers gave Liberato a drug to induce contractions.

The baby’s heart rape dropped and Dr. David Demorest, a family medicine doctor, attempted to deliver the baby using a vacuum retractor. When this method failed, he attempted the delivery using forceps. The forceps got stuck in Liberato’s uterine wall.

Another doctor, Dr. Laura Loya-Frank, ended up performing a C-section procedure to deliver Angel, who suffered brain damage because he was deprived of oxygen for too long. Angel is six years old and he cannot talk, walk, sit, or eat on his own.

On September 19, a Cook County jury ruled that only Demorest was liable for Angel’s birthing injuries. Westlake Hospital and Loya-Frank, however, also will have to contribute to the Illinois medical malpractice settlement.

Two of the signs indicating that a baby sustained brain damage from being deprived of oxygen during birth:

• The infant’s skin coloring during delivery is blue.
• The baby experiences seizures soon after delivery.

Brain damage can result when an obstetrician or another medical provider:

• Employs excessive or improper use of vacuum extraction.
• Does not perform a cesarean birth in a timely manner.
• Does not properly monitor the mother or baby before, during, or after delivery.
• Does not properly respond to the fetus’s sudden change in heart rate during labor.

Birthing errors that cause personal injury to the mother or baby can be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Illinois woman accepts $5.5 million settlement in childbirth lawsuit, BND/Associated Press, September 22, 2008

$5.5M Settlement for Improper Drug Administered During Birth, WBBM 780/Sun-Times, September 21, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Vacuum Extraction: Is it Safe?, iVillage

Forceps delivery, Birth International

More mesothelioma lawsuits have been filled in Madison County, Illinois. These Illinois personal injury lawsuits are just a few of the many suits that have been filed throughout the United States by workers and families seeking to obtain compensation for illnesses and deaths due to exposure to asbestos at work.

Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring minerals that have been used in certain products and were present in many construction sites until the 1980’s. Some 2,000 to 3,000 mesothelioma cases are diagnosed each year.

Among the recent mesothelioma lawsuits in Madison County:

* The estate of George Charles Davis is suing 25 corporations because he was exposed to asbestos while working as an engineer in Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado, and Texas from 1951 to 1983. Davis’s lawsuit accuses the defendant companies of negligence because they did not provide workers with instructions on how to work safely with asbestos. The estate is seeking at least $150,000.

* Mary Lindsey’s estate is suing 75 corporations for her lung cancer death. The lawsuit claims that secondary asbestos exposure caused her illness and that she was exposed to the toxic fibers from her husband's work clothes. Her estate is seeking at least $250,000.

* Illinois resident Franz Mueller is suing 75 companies after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma earlier this year. The plaintiff says that he was exposed to asbestos while working as a machine operator and a welder. His lawsuit contends that the defendants did not exercise reasonable care to ensure his safety on the job. He is seeking at least $150,000 for medical care, lost income, and legal fees.

* Geraldine Kruemmelbein says her husband, who died from lung cancer in 2006, got sick because of asbestos exposure at work. Robert Kruemmelbein was a Duncan Foundry laborer from 1950 to 1960, a maintenance worker for Dow Chemical in 1961, and a machine operator at Owens-Illinois Glass for over 30 years.

Geraldine is suing 74 defendant corporations. Her wrongful-death lawsuit contends that the defendants should have anticipated that exposure to asbestos would make her husband ill. She says her husband experienced great physical and mental anguish because of his cancer and that he spent large sums of money prior to his death for medical costs. The disease also prevented him from working and the family experienced the loss of his support and society.

Bunker Hill woman files asbestos complaint in husband's death, The Record, August 27, 2008

Several Mesothelioma Lawsuits Filed in Illinois, TransworldNews.com, August 28, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma and Asbestos Center

A recent ABC News undercover investigation found that despite the known danger that pool drains can pose—especially to children—there are still public pools in the US that have yet to install safety drain covers and shut-off valves that are supposed to prevent kids from getting stuck or sucked into a drain’s powerful suction. Defective pool drains can be a premise liability.

During its probe, ABC News discovered that 16 of the 23 hotels pools that it reviewed in different cities across the US are still not safe. Pool Safety Consortium Paul Pennington called the drain covers in many of these pools “death traps.”

The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool & Spa Safety Act, which is a new federal law that will go into effect later this year, will impose a heavy fine on any public pool that does not install a safety drain cover by December 20, 2008. The law is named after former US Secretary of State James Baker's 7-year-old granddaughter, who drowned after she got caught in the underwater floor drain of a friend’s hot tub. The suction pressure holding Virginia underwater was estimated at 700 pounds, which made it impossible for family and friends to pull her out of the water before she died.

The dome-shaped cover of the government-approved safety drains are designed to keep a child’s body from getting sucked into the drain. They are different from the standard flat drain covers, which do not prevent hair, fingers, or other body parts from getting stuck in the drain. This can lead to evisceration or drowning within seconds.

The Graeme Baker Act mandates that all public pools have a domed drain cover or a very big flat drain to minimize the chances of the dangerous vacuum effect occurring. The new law, however, does not cover private pools.

While over 50 people have reportedly died due to faulty pool drains since the 1980’s, some experts say that there are many more pool drain entrapment deaths that have gone unreported.

'She Died in My Arms': A Mother's Mission for Safe Pools, ABC News

The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool & Spa Safety Act Summary, APSP.org

President Bush Signs Into Law the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety
Act of 2007, Reuters, December 19, 2008

Related Web Resource:

Hidden Dangers of Pool Drains, CBSNews.com, August 1, 2007

Continue reading "ABC News Investigation Exposes Dangerous Pool Drains In Public Pools and Hotels Across the United States" »

A 47-year-old Champaign man who says a Belleville priest sexually abused him when he was a 13-year-old altar boy at St. Teresa’s Parish has been awarded $5 million by an Illinois jury. James Wisniewski says that Rev. Raymond Kownacki sexually abused him multiple times over five years beginning in 1973 and the Belleville Diocese covered up the abuse incidents.

Wisniewski, who filed the sex abuse lawsuit in 2002, will likely undergo mental counseling for the duration of his life to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder. On August 27, 2008, the jury awarded him $2.4 million in compensatory damages and $2.6 million in punitive damages.

Jury members found that the diocese knew as early as 1973 that Kownacki was a child sex offender and rapist but continued to transfer him to different parishes without letting members know about the potential threat he posed to children. One transfer sent Kownacki to St. Henry’s Parish, where he lived next to an elementary school and high school.

According to Belleville Bishop Wilton Gregory’s testimony, there were reports compiled in 1973 and 1982 that stated that the former priest had raped and impregnated a teenager (helping her to abort the fetus) and molested a number of boys, including twin brothers, at the Salem parish. A former Belleville vicar general, James Margasan, said he knew about a number of sex abuse allegations against Kownacki but did not investigate the matter or notify parishioners.

According to the Illinois Child Sexual Abuse statute of limitations, a victim can file a sex abuse lawsuit:

• Within 10 years of turning 18.
• Within 5 years of the abuse victim finding out that the abuse was the cause of personal injury.

Injuries from sex abuse can take a lifetime to recover from and you may be entitled to personal injury compensation for the harm you have suffered.

Jury awards $5 million to former altar boy in Belleville priest abuse case, BND.com, August 28, 2008

Man: Jury award in priest-abuse case `good start,' AP, August 29, 2008

Related Web Resource:

Illinois Child Sex Abuse Statute, Illinois General Assembly

A medical malpractice lawsuit that will soon go before the Illinois Supreme Court could test the constitutionality of a state law limiting how much a plaintiff can receive for non-economic damages. The personal injury lawsuit, first filed in Cook County, involves a young girl who sustained a serious birth injury in October 2005. According to the lawsuit filed by the girl’s mother, Frances LeBron, Abigaile LeBron became mentally impaired and suffers from cerebral palsy due to the birthing malpractice incident. She will now will require 24-hour specialized care for life.

Illinois’s medical malpractice damage caps allows a medical malpractice plaintiff to be awarded no more than $1,000,000 in non-economic damages from hospitals and $500,000 maximum from doctors. There is no cap for the amount of economic damages that a plaintiff can be awarded.

Last year, however, the Cook County circuit court judge presiding over this case found Illinois's medical malpractice caps law to be invalid and unconstitutional. Judge Larsen also said the limits prevent juries from properly compensating injury victims.

There have been two times in the past that the Illinois Supreme Court has found that laws placing a limit on personal injury damages were unconstitutional. The latest law was enacted in 2005.

Cerebral Palsy
This medical condition is a result of permanent brain damage sustained by a baby before, during, or right after birth, and the lifetime costs of caring for a child, who will later become an adult diagnosed with cerebral palsy, can be astronomical. Birthing mistakes that can lead to cerebral palsy include:

• Improper forcep use.
• Failure to move the baby through the birth canal quickly enough.
• Failure to remove an umbilical wrapped around the baby’s neck in a timely manner.
• Failure to plan or perform cesarean birth in a timely fashion.

Illinois' med mal law on trial, StlToday.com, August 18, 2008

Illinois Malpractice Case May Shape Tort Reform, NPR.com, February 21, 2007

Related Web Resource:

Cerebral Palsy, National Institute of Neurological Disorders

The Illinois Department of Transportation’s Division of Traffic Safety is reporting that there were 484 motor vehicle fatalities on state roads between January through June 2008. This figure is 19% lower than the 598 deaths that occurred in Illinois during the same time period last year.

Also down is the number of teen traffic fatalities, with 39 deaths from January through June 2008 compared to the 82 deaths for the same time period last year. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich attributes this significant decrease to his administration’s new state teen driving laws, including Operation Teen Safe Driving (which promotes teens getting other teens to drive safely).

He also cited the state’s aggressive measures to enforce safety belt use as a reason that the number of traffic-related deaths in Illinois has decreased. Since the safety belt law allowing Illinois police to pull motorists over for their failure to wear seat belts came into effect in July 2003, safety belt use has risen—with 90.5% usage by motorists and passengers riding in the front seat for the second year in a row.

More IDOT Traffic Statistics for January – June 2008:

• 54 motorcycle deaths (compared to 65 fatalities during the first 6 months of 2007)
• 54 highway deaths (down from 72 deaths during the same time period the year prior)

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that there were 1,249 motor vehicle deaths in Illinois in 2007, a slight decrease from the 1,254 traffic deaths in 2006. 434 of these deaths involved alcohol.

Governor Blagojevich announces safety belt use tops 90 percent for second straight year, Dot.St.Ill.US, July 15, 2008

Governor Blagojevich and Ford Motor Co. launch statewide campaign to reduce teen
crashes and save lives, DrivingSkillsForLife.com

Related Web Resources:

lllinois Department of Transportation

Initiatives to Address Safety Belt Use, NHTSA (PDF)

Continue reading "Decrease in Illinois Traffic Accidents Attributed to Police Enforcement of Seat Belt Use" »

Eight people were taken to the hospital on Saturday after they got sick when nitroaniline was released into a Ro-Corp plant in Illinois. The exposure happened when a barrel filled with the chemical was dropped.

Contrary to earlier media reports, no one was killed from being exposed to the chemical during the work accident. Two hospital emergency rooms in Missouri had to be quarantined, however, because the workers sought medical help.

The chemical nitroaniline is often used in making antioxidants, dyes, gasoline, pharmaceuticals, and poultry medications. Exposure to the toxic chemical can lead to diarrhea, convulsions, irritability, vomiting, anemia, tachycardia, dyspnea, tachypnea, cyanosis, ataxia, methemoglobinemia, respiratory arrest, and chronic cumulative liver damage.

Work Injuries and Illnesses
The owners and managers of plants, factories, construction sites, and other areas where workers do their jobs are supposed to make sure that employees are equipped with the proper safety equipment, the proper safety procedures are followed, and there are no unsafe conditions that exist on a premise that can cause serious injury, illness, or death.

Workers that are injured on the job cannot sue their employers but they are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, as well as personal injury compensation from liable third parties.

8 sickened by chemical exposure at plant in Ill., WTOP, August 31, 2008

Authorities: Did Ro-Corp. workers follow proper procedures?, BND, September 3, 2008

Related Web Resources:

Nitroaniline

US Department of Labor

Continue reading "Eight People Sent to Hospitals After They Are Exposed to Toxic Chemical at Ro-Corp Plant in Illinois" »

One man died and a woman was hurt in Schaumburg, Illinois on Sunday in a motor vehicle collision that occurred at Higgins Road and Mall Drive. The accident occurred around 4:30 in the afternoon.

Preliminary reports indicate that a car was going west on Higgins made a U-turn in front of a motorcycle headed east. Both motorists may have had a green light at Mall Drive.

The motorcyclist, 39-year-old Dean Schroeder, was pronounced dead later in the evening at Alexian Brothers Medical Center. The driver of the car, a 30-year-old woman, was also treated at the hospital for non-life threatening injuries.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2007 Traffic Safety Facts:

• 41,059 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2007.
• 2,491,000 others sustained injuries.
• 5,154 people died in motorcycle crashes last year.
• 70,000 motorcyclists were injured.
• There were 802 large truckers killed.
• 698 traffic crash victims in 2007 were pedalcyclists.

While US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters said that overall traffic deaths in the US reached their lowest figure in 14 years, she noted that motorcycle safety is an ongoing issue, with motorcyclist deaths making up 13% of all motor vehicle deaths in the US.

Motorcyclist dies in collision near Woodfield Mall, ChicagoTribune.com, September 1, 2008

2007 Traffic Safety Facts, NHTSA (PDF)

Related Web Resource:

Illinois Department of Transportation

Continue reading "Palatine Motorcyclist and Car Driver Injured in Collision in Schaumburg, Illinois" »