A recent Appellate Court decision clarified the degree to which Illinois homeowners owe a duty to guests on their property. The court upheld a Cook County verdict that found the defendant homeowner liable for the injuries the plaintiff sustained after falling down a stairwell at the defendant’s home. Donald Van…
The Winnebago County personal injury lawsuit of Candice Martlett and Jonathan Martlett, a minor v. Jennifer Fuller, 09 L 68, is yet another example of a defendant driver admitting liability for a car accident, but denying the extent of the plaintiff’s injuries. However, despite the defendant driver’s denial of the…
A Chicago jury entered a $3 million jury verdict against a forklift manufacturer in an Illinois product liability lawsuit. The Chicago lawsuit arose out of a work injury involving 35 year-old Keith Price and a forklift designed and manufactured by Nacco Materials Handling Group, Inc. As a result of the…
Most car accidents are fender-benders, i.e., they result in some property damage to the vehicle and fairly mild injuries to passengers. This is because many accidents take place at slower speeds, e.g., when a vehicle is slowing down, or speeding up from a stop. However, the faster a car is…
Whenever a party enters into a contract with another party, he/she is agreeing to the terms and conditions set out in that contract. However, the assumption is that if one of the party fails to abide by the terms of the contract, that the other party may terminate the contract.…
A recent Illinois personal injury lawsuit evaluated the degree of duty a railroad owes to protect trespassers from becoming injured on its property. Dominic Choate v. Indiana Harbor Belt RR Co., et al., No. 1-10-0209 (June 2011), was filed after a 12 year-old boy required a leg amputation after falling…
In law, if you don’t agree with a lower court’s ruling, you have the option of appealing your case to a higher court. However, just because you file an appeal does not mean you will be happy with the outcome. In the product liability lawsuit of David Show, et al.…
In the Cook County personal injury case of Wayne C. Bland and Suzanne Bland v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 07 L 1633, a company takes responsibility for the negligence of one of its employees. The worker at the Citgo Petroleum Corp.’s Lemont plant left a piping system valve open, thereby releasing…
People get into routines when they drive. For example, some drivers go into autopilot as they commute to and from work, following the same route and never diverging from it. Other drivers go with the flow of traffic and might not be aware of the speed they’re driving at. However,…
An Illinois Supreme Court ruling in a product liability lawsuit confirms that manufacturers are not required to guard against every risk to the consumer. The verdict in Dora Mae Jablonski v. Ford Motor Company, No. 110096, reversed a $43 million judgment in a 5-0 vote. Jablonski was filed as a…