Posted on February 18, 2019 in Slip and Fall

Every day we go about our daily business, and we often forget about how much we are at the mercy of businesses and other entities to perform basic maintenance on their property. This can mean complex repairs (elevator maintenance) to simple maintenance such as making sure sidewalks and driveways clear of snow and ice. For some, an outing as simple as going to the grocery store can result in serious injuries.

For one woman this became a sad reality. Sharon Jordan went to the grocery store Food 4 Less expecting a normal day of shopping. Her mundane errands soon turned into a painful accident when she fell in the parking lot of Food 4 Less. Jordan broke her ankle in the fall. After her accident, she filed suit. In the discovery process, her counsel found out about a company called Pete's Lawn Care, and they were added to the suit.

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 Posted on February 11, 2019 in Slip and Fall

It is a snowy day in one of the coldest states in America, Illinois. Your apartment complex makes reasonable efforts to clear snow and ice from walkways, but their drainage systems are not kept up to code. A freezing rain storm hits, and the defunct drains cause an icy patch to form outside of your door. It is after business hours, so there is no way the apartment complex could order maintenance to clear the walkways.

You are coming home from a late night at the office and you fall on the ice, sustaining serious injuries that cause you to miss work. Medical bills pile up and your pain and suffering is great. A costly lawsuit ensues, but the property owner can prove that they make reasonable efforts to clear the walkways. The owner says that an Act of God is beyond their control and that they do not owe you anything for your slip and fall injuries.

The above situation is real for many Illinois residents, but thanks to a recent Illinois Supreme Court ruling, property owners may now be found liable for dangerously icy conditions.

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 Posted on February 04, 2019 in Medical Malpractice

Pregnancy is an incredibly vulnerable time for the mother and the infant: Many things can go wrong, and the risk of medical complications for parent and child is high. Because this process is so sensitive, with many factors and variables, this is also a precarious time for doctors and other health care professionals. One OB-Gyn in Crystal Lake can attest to this first hand.

Throughout her long career, this doctor has had three medical malpractice claims against her. Unlike many of the cases in the media these days, most physicians believe that they have done nothing wrong. In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine reported in 2011 that in 78% of claims, there is no award or payment given to the patient.

Why So Many Malpractice Claims?

The doctor mentioned above attests that many of these instances can be blamed on miscommunications between doctor and patient. In her featured article, she states that patients expect no complications during pregnancies, but the medical reality is very different. Many times, physicians will order the right tests at the right times, but the tests will not be run for reasons unknown to the doctor. Other kinks in the system (hospital administrative errors, nursing errors, etc.) can also have a negative impact on the outcome of in-hospital medical procedures. This is particularly true during pregnancy.

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 Posted on January 24, 2019 in Slip and Fall

Recently, a charming pizza place in Crystal Lake found out the hard way that a patron can suffer an injury at any time, for any reason. Even something seemingly innocuous like a restaurant's decor, can cause severe injuries in unsuspecting individuals. Like many restaurants, Nick's Pizza and Pub had its signature décor, which was for them peanut shells discarded on the floor (many steakhouses in Oklahoma and Texas also follow this tradition). There are barrels of peanuts about the establishment and patrons are encouraged to discard their used shells on the floor.

In the summer of 2016, one hapless patron slipped and fell on these discarded nut shells. She claimed that this fall, due to slippage on said nut shells, caused severe injuries to her shoulders, neck, head, hip, and ankles. The subsequent lawsuit is still in the courts, but the overall dilemma is not new to us: Whether it is the elderly woman with her scalding McDonald's coffee or some other dining fiasco, we know that restaurant patrons are at risk of injury every day.

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 Posted on January 16, 2019 in Car Accident

A billboard advert for a small, country hospital once read that “the only life you want, is the one you had.” We have all seen similar advertisements for health and life insurance - a grieving widow, a person walking down a flight of stairs with one foot hovered precariously over a misplaced toy car. The phrase “Life comes at you fast” could accurately be changed to “Life and death come at you fast.” For two unfortunate individuals in early December of 2018, this was certainly the case.

A girls' basketball team was driving home on a bus late one evening in December when a semi truck that was coming down the wrong side of the road collided with them on Interstate 74. Two men were killed at the scene, but the rest of the girl's team and their chaperones were left without serious injuries.

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 Posted on January 14, 2019 in Medical Malpractice

In 2012, 65-year-old Elgin, Illinois resident and Vietnam war veteran Bill Hein was admitted for what the doctors called a routine surgery to treat his prostate cancer. The surgery happened in June of 2012 at Sherman Hospital. The procedure itself went smoothly. Afterward, Mr. Hein began to experience pain his left leg, but when he complained about it to the nurses, they said it was “normal postoperative discomfort.” What followed was a series of avoidable, disastrous events that unfortunately resulted in the amputation of Hein's left leg above the knee. His pain persisted, but his doctor ordered the wrong type of test. The next day another doctor ordered another test, but failed to request the results in a timely manner. At no time was the appropriate type of doctor, a vascular surgeon, contacted. Had that happened, appropriate tests and measures (another surgery) may have been taken, and Hein's leg could have been saved. Sadly, those steps were not taken. Eventually another surgery was ordered, and Hein was subjected to nearly two weeks of attempts, but his leg was dying. At the end of the nearly two grueling weeks, Hein's left leg was amputated above the knee.

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 Posted on January 12, 2019 in Medical Malpractice

On-the-job injuries are a frequent hazard, particularly for those who engage in any type of manual labor. Even a minor wound or sprain can send a worker to the hospital. You expect to be treated with the utmost care so that you can recover your health and get back to work. A worker loses wages every day he or she is forced to miss work to recover from an injury. This is why when a trusted medical professional does not meet that expected level of care, the results can be devastating. Sadly, a worker in Elmhurst Illinois did not receive the care he needed from those treating him after a recent on-the-job injury.

It was late summer of 2011 when Edward Smolinski slipped off his work truck and injured the tendon on his left leg by rupturing it. Smolinski was treated and his injuries should have healed in an easy, normal fashion. While he would have likely been able to utilize workers' compensation to pay his medical bills and lost wages for time off work, his recovery did not go as anticipated.

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 Posted on January 08, 2019 in Medical Malpractice

There are few relationships more trusting than that of doctor and patient. A person seeking medical attention is often quite vulnerable, and relies on his or her doctor for protection and care. Doctors carry a heavy burden when they treat their patients, but what happens when that relationship is violated?

An important case involving an egregious violation of medical malpractice was just settled in Chicago. In 2013, Jamie Flores was hospitalized for heart surgery when physicians made an error while performing a procedure called a pericardiocentesis, in which they attempted to drain fluid from the sac around the heart. This error led to many medical complications for Flores including brain trauma. Flores subsequently filed suit.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to settle Flores's lawsuit for nearly $4 million in October of 2018. Throughout the negotiations for this settlement, they tailored a deal in which they did not have to admit any wrongdoing.

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 Posted on December 08, 2018 in Medical Malpractice

Suing OSF Healthcare and a neurosurgeon in 2009, a Poplar Grove woman, Mary Friday, alleged that the doctor left her disabled by operating on the wrong side of her body. The case moved to trial nine years later.

Though the woman's attorneys must first prove an error occurred during the surgery, the lawsuit does not involve a claim of medical malpractice, but proceeds on the little-used and challenging-to-prove claim of negligent credentialing. It essentially concerns the negligent hospital system that allowed an unqualified, incompetent doctor to practice there.

The plaintiff's attorneys cited 17 counts of unprofessional conduct (involving 17 patients from 1997 through 2004) filed against neurosurgeon Denise Crute in 2005 by the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners as evidence of OSF's negligence. The allegations include performing wrong-side surgeries and falsifying medical records.

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 Posted on December 04, 2018 in Medical Malpractice

Larry Diener, a truck driver and hobby farmer who was told by his doctors that he needed colon surgery in 2014, underwent a colon resection at Sarah Bush Lincoln Hospital in Mattoon. Following the shoulder surgery, he got sick and took three rounds of antibiotics in 2018.

The doctor ordered a CT scan and it was discovered Diener had sponges in his body. In 2014, the surgery staff left two sponges in Diener's body - one got attached to his colon and the other pressed on his diaphragm. “I got out of the hospital on April 30, and May 5th, four years was up,” he said. “End of story. No recourse. No nothing.” Here he is referencing the four-year statute of limitations in place for pursuing compensation after a medical malpractice injury.

“It's not common, but it's certainly more common than any of us would like,” Dr. John Mellinger, General Surgery Chair at SIU Medicine reported when asked about such incidents.
Mellinger added that the objects are mostly left behind after emergency or complex surgeries. This is more common in obese patients, and preventive strategies have been adopted by medical institutions, he said.

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