I had a great guest on the air on December 23, 2017. The podcast his here. I went to a seminar at the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association on medical malpractice to keep up my continuing legal education. One of the speakers was a former president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, Pete Flowers. He is one of the name partners in Meyers and Flowers. They handle all sorts of cases, including medical neglect, and a fair amount of medical product liability, and other things. As he got up to speak he was introduced as having settled a case for $1 billion. After Read more…
Category: Personal Injury
There has been little guidance from the courts in Illinois about electronic discovery. The Illinois Supreme Court has changed the rules a little bit to accommodate electronic issues. But for the most part we treat electronic discovery the same way we treat paper discovery. Facebook posts are discoverable to some extent and get used in the courts. Electronic documents are discoverable under the discovery rules. The appellate courts are slow to get cases because unless a litigant wants to take the time and money fighting about it the issues frequently just get resolved at the trial courts, without appellate review. Read more…
The appellate court recently held that offset language in uninsured / underinsured policies with plaintiffs injured by two defendants does not apply. Throwing out the offset language is counterintuitive to most lawyers. Lawyers are taught that you apply the language of the contract. This case reminds us that the terms of the insurance policy are applied generally, but that there are exceptions to general statements. In Tufano the court held that the policy holder must be placed in the same position as if each tortfeasor carried the same as amount of insurance as the injury victim. Furthermore, one tortfeasor’s payment cannot be Read more…
The Illinois fourth District Court of Appeals decided, on July 15, 2016, in Miller vs. Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, that medical bills are not reduced to the amount paid by insurers in personal injury suits. This case creates a split in circuits because a different case entitled Perkey vs Portes -Jarol, from 2013 decides the opposite on virtually identical facts. In Perkey a party ask to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. With this court case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals there is a split in circuits, which suggests the Supreme Court will take Read more…
In civil rights cases plaintiff typically uses statute called section 1983. This statute which allows for the plaintiff to file suit for violations of their constitutional rights. The statute gives a person the right to file suit against a person who is a government employee for deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and law. The statute gives the plaintiff the right to recover attorney’s fees incurred. The attorney’s fee shifting provision makes this an attractive statute for victims of constitutional rights violations. The statute had been interpreted to provide liability if and only if the Read more…
The Supreme Court eliminated the public duty rule in the case of Coleman vs East Joliet Fire Protection District. The common-law public duty rule provided that governmental entities, such as fire and police entities, were immune from liability for things like responding to calls. In Coleman the court got rid of the immunity and substituted willful and wanton misconduct as the test for governmental liability. In Coleman plaintiff resided with her husband in an unincorporated area of Will County. She called 911 indicating that her husband could not breathe and needed an ambulance. She asked the person on the 911 line to hurry Read more…
Zofran (ondansetron) is an antinausea drug. It is intended for significant nausea issues caused by things like chemotherapy. However, Glaxo SmithKline also marketed it for use with pregnant women. The problem was that Glaxo SmithKline had failed to do any testing of the drug with pregnant women. In 2006, prior to its becoming available in a generic form, Zofran was among the top selling drugs in the United States. The FDA estimated that number nearly a quarter of Zofran prescriptions were given to pregnant women. As early as 2006, in a study published in Hong Kong, concerns were raised about Read more…
I spoke at the Illinois Trial Lawyers seminar in September 2014. I gave an update on tort law. Below is a breakdown of the cases that I discussed. There were a few already on this blog that I did not include. Enjoy. Feel free to contact me at Ackerman Law Office if you have questions or want to hire me. 217-789-1977. Sharbono v Hilborn In Sharborno v Hilborn a woman went in for a mammogram in November 2004. The defendant Dr. concluded that the lesion was benign. He did not order a biopsy. Two years later she went to her family doctor complaining of cramping her Read more…
In one of the weirdest fact patterns in a long time the appellate court ruled on intentional infliction of emotional distress is a suicide case. Obviously, the law must accommodate even extremely weird fact patterns and this case is weird. Intentional infliction of emotional distress is an odd, and often maligned, cause of action. People in general, the author included, are very skeptical of emotional distress claims of any sort. Courts are also skeptical. However, in Turcois vs. Debruler the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decided a precedent-setting case. In Turcois the question came up whether a plaintiff in an intentional inflection of emotional Read more…
In Segovia vs. Romero the first district appellate court clarified what money a defendant may set off against a judgement. The case is somewhat unusual procedurally. The plaintiff in this case was the wife of a State Farm insured. The defendant in the case had driven his car into the rear end of the plaintiff’s vehicle. State Farm paid for her loss pursuant to her husband’s policy in the amount of $10,766.20, itemized as follows: $5,000 Med Pay $5,516 Property Damage $250 Deductible $10,766.20 Total Payment by State Farm The defendant had an insurance policy through American Heartland Insurance Company. State Farm Read more…