Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

SEXUAL ABUSE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT

Sexual abuse and assault has become an epidemic in Illinois, and nationwide. At Goldberg & Goldberg, we have vast experience representing the victims of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Assault, as well other victims of predatory behavior. Our lawyers have represented victims of sexual abuse and assault at the hands of celebrities, artists, musicians, professional athletes, corporate CEOs, clergy, doctors, nurses, nursing home workers, day care workers and others in positions of power. At Goldberg & Goldberg, we become partners with our clients in the healing process and believe that part of our mission is to assist every victim of sexual abuse and assault on their healing journey.

SURVIVING R. KELLY PART II, THE RECKONING

Published on: February 26, 2019

Birth Injury Litigation In Cook County, Illinois: What You Need To Know

For over 50 years the lawyers at Goldberg & Goldberg have represented the victims of Birth Injury and Birth Trauma caused by the hands of doctors and hospitals. Over that period of time, we have learned a thing or two about birth injuries, how they occur, what impact they have on the victim over a lifetime and how to litigate birth injury cases. This blog post is an effort to educate the families of the victims of birth trauma on how to proceed with a birth injury or birth trauma lawsuit.

NOT ALL LAWYERS ARE CREATED EQUAL: This might sound snobby, and we apologize if it does, but as obvious as this statement is, most people do not know how to spot someone who has expertise in birth injury litigation and someone that doesn’t. The internet has allowed a class of lawyers to develop that are only interested in advertising their services in order to find cases to refer to other lawyers who actually know how to handle these cases. In the City of Chicago, there are very few lawyers that have the competency and financial resources to handle a birth injury case. Internet lawyers advertise for birth injury cases in the hopes of referring them to a lawyer that knows what he/she is doing and getting a percentage of the fee. These lawyers do not actually handle their own cases. How do you avoid these lawyers? Ask the right questions. Ask them to show you examples of settlements and verdicts that they have obtained as lead counsel. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is usually a duck. The same can be said about trial lawyers.
WHY CAN’T I DO THIS ON MY OWN?: In almost all cases you need a lawyer to handle a birth injury case on behalf of your injured friend or loved one. Birth Injury cases are some of the most complex and difficult cases a lawyer can handle. The medicine is complex and the lawyers hired by the hospitals and doctors are sophisticated. Regardless of what risk management at the hospital might tell you, if you attempt to handle a complex matter like a birth injury case on your own, you will not be treated fairly. Hire a lawyer early to protect your rights.

Published on: March 22, 2018

Who is Liable in a Self-Driving Uber Accident?

The Atlantic published an article today in the wake of the accident that caused a pedestrian to be killed by a self-driving Uber vehicle in Tempe, Arizona. A link to that article can be found here. This is hardly the first incident involving a wrongful death at the hand of a self driving vehicle. In 2016 in Florida, a Tesla operating is auto-pilot mode struck another vehicle and killed the driver. The article asks the question, “What are the legal implications in accidents involving self driving car?” While the answer might seem obvious, there are quite a few factors that will impact the answer.

First, the article raises the point that this accident happened in Arizona which has declared itself open for business when it comes to testing and operating self driving automobiles. Arizona’s Governor signed an executive order in August of 2015 which required the Arizona Department of Transportation to take steps to support the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles on Arizona’s roads. An investigation into what Arizona did or did not do to make sure the roads were safe for self-driving cars and the general public needs to be investigated.

Obviously, UBER in this case, or whatever company owns the self-driving vehicle involved in the accident is the first place to investigate when it comes to determining who is at fault for an accident involving an autonomous vehicle. Other self driving-vehicle companies like Lyft, Waymo, Tesla, GM and Intel have set down roots in Arizona too. Since we know that 96+% of all automobile accidents are the result of driver error, this is the obvious place to start any investigation.

Published on: October 31, 2017

OPIOID CRISIS- AN EPIDEMIC. WHAT ARE YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS?

The opioid crisis has wracked our country. This epidemic has touched all four corners of the United States and has left no part of our nation untouched. Like the rest of the country, the State of Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago have been devastated by the disastrous affect opioids have had on the community at large, and on individuals and their families. The federal government and the State of Illinois has collected significant data that is nothing short of shocking. Between 1999-2014, the number of opioid overdose deaths tripled. In 2014 alone, 60.9% of all drug overdose deaths in America involved opioids. In the State of Illinois, overdose deaths involving opioids increased by 44% from 2013 to 2016. 80% of all overdoses fatalities in the State of Illinois in 2016 were related to opioids. Cook County and the City of Chicago have been particularly devastated due to the fact that this is the largest population center in Illinois. What does this mean?

There is no question that in a very short period of time opioid use and abuse has increased exponentially in America. From 1999 to the present the amount of opioid pain medication prescribed and consumed in the United States has quadrupled. Chicago has been flooded by opioid pain medications. Pill pushing doctors and complicit pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies have created a situation where patients who are prescribed these medications for legitimate medical conditions, become addicted and then are forced into a viscous cycle of abuse that often involves criminal behavior and ultimately death by overdose.

Some of the most common opioid medications include:

Published on: April 29, 2016

What’s The Relationship Between Abnormal PCO2 and Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy in Infants?

A recent study published in Pediatric Reseach documents the relationship between abnormal PCO2 and unfavorable outcomes in infants suffering from hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. The object of the study was to determine if hypocapnia could be correlated with adverse outcomes in infants with moderately severe to severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.

The study utilized 234 instances of hypocapnia to determine if there was independent predictive value in data concerning abnormal PCO2 levels and abnormal outcomes for these children. The studies authors determined that there is independent predictive value in the relationship between hypocapnia and adverse and unfavorable outcomes.

The authors of the study determined that future studies of normocapnia will be important in determining the extent of the relationship between abnormal PCO2 and adverse outcomes in infants with moderately severe to severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.

Published on: April 28, 2016

United States Supreme Court Defers Request To Make Exceptions To The Feres Doctrine In Birth Injury Case

The Supreme Court of the United States has deferred action on a petition to hear a case involving a child who was brain injured at birth during labor and delivery at Evans Army Community Hospital in Colorado. Critics of the Feres Doctrine hoped that the Supreme Court would use this opportunity to clarify and make fair the controversial doctrine. The Feres Doctrine was articulated in Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135 (1950). Justice Robert Jackson, writing for the court, wrote the opinion which held that the United States is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries that active members of the military experience due to the negligence of other active members of the military.

Isabella Ortiz was born in 2009. Her mother was a Captain in the United States Air Force. During the planned caesarian section delivery Capt. Ortiz was given a medication to which she had a known allergy. As a result, her mother’s blood pressure dropped which caused Isabella to suffer hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. The lack of oxygen to her brain caused her to sustain brain damage. As a result, she cannot walk on her own and needs assistance at school.

Her claim was originally filed in Federal Court in Colorado where it was dismissed because the court found that Isabella’s injuries flowed from conduct that was “incident” to military service. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals also denied the claim, applying the genesis test to the Feres Doctrine and ruling that Isabella’s injuries were directly related to her mother’s injuries making Feres directly applicable.

Published on: April 26, 2016

Statute of Limitations Does Not Bar Wrongful Death Claims In Medical Malpractice Cases When Plaintiff Dies Midway Through Litigation

The Illinois Appellate Court, First District has decided that when a plaintiff dies during medical malpractice litigation, even after the statute of limitations has run, the estate can add a wrongful death claim. Previously, plaintiffs were faced with inconsistent statutes which made this scenario unclear. In Lawler v The University of Chicago Medical Center Justice Delort, writing for the appellate court, resolved this conflict in favor of justice for the victims of medical malpractice.

The court found that since the defendants were on notice of the claim for medical negligence brought by Ms. Prusak before her untimely death that same complaint was not barred by the expiration of the statute of limitations or repose simply because her death claim did not accrue until after the expiration of the same because the original claim was filed within the statute.

Published on: April 19, 2016

$13.8 Million Verdict In Wrongful Death Of Model Who Drowned In The Chicago River

On May 12, 2011, Irma Sabanovic was on her way to pick up her boyfriend from his job as a DJ at the popular Chicago nightclub, Exit. Somehow she became lost and wound up on Goose Island, an artificial island located in the Chicago River. Goose Island is a heavy industrial area that is confusing to navigate. Irma found her way onto W. Blackhawk Street. While travelling westbound on Blackhawk her car left the road and plunged into the inky darkness of the North Branch of the Chicago River. For nine days the Chicago Police searched for Irma, treating the case as a missing person’s investigation. Eventually her body was discovered inside her upside down vehicle submerged in 12 feet of water at the bottom of the river off of the end of Blackhawk St. Police canvassing the area were able to locate a closed circuit surveillance video that captured her vehicle driving off of the end of the road and into the river at 2:00 am on the morning of May 12, 2011.

Irma Sabanovic was a 25 year old fashion model who was studying theater at Wilbur Wright College. She was a beautiful, sweet, fun-loving woman with a wickedly smart sense of humor. Her family, unable to make sense of her needless and tragic death, hired Goldberg & Goldberg to investigate the circumstances and determine why there were no signs, barricades and warnings at the end of the road. A wrongful death and survival lawsuit was filed at the end of May 2011 against the City of Chicago.

For years the City claimed that there were no warning signs at the end of the road, even though a similar tragic accident had occurred 17 years earlier on the opposite bank of the Chicago River. After that accident, the City erected barricades on the West bank of the river but claimed to have done nothing on the East bank. Or so we were told, until the City of Chicago discovered the proof of their own negligence in late 2015 when they “found” work orders which showed that stop signs and a dead end sign had been placed in 1993 and removed, for an unexplained reason, sometime thereafter. It was also determined that a 2000 lb concrete Jersey Barrier had been placed on the road near the east bank of the river but that the barricade did not extend across the entire length of the roadway. Had concrete barriers been deployed across the entirety of Blackhawk St. this tragedy would have certainly been avoided.

Published on: April 15, 2014

Neonatal Encephalopathy and Neurologic Outcomes – Revised Criterea from ACOG

In 2003 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists(ACOG), along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, published Neonatal Encephalopathy and Cerebral Palsy: Defining the Pathogenesis and Pathophysiology (“NEACP”). This monograph became more commonly known as “the Green Book” and it has been roundly criticized as an attempt by its authors to use “junk science” to create hard an fast “essential” criteria to diffuse obstetrical malpractice claims against Ob/Gyns. In the more than 10 years since its publications its authors have backed off the allegedly essential nature of its core criteria and physicians have been forced to admit that factors like cord blood ph levels above 7.0 can still occur in births where the fetus experiences perinatal asphyxia that is the result of negligence.

Recently, ACOG published an update to the Green Book titled Neonatal Encephalopathy and Neurologic Outcome, Second Edition. This update changes some of the so-called “essential” criteria that expert witnesses have relied upon to defend causation in birth injury cases.

The update defines Neonatal Encephalopathy as a clinically defined syndrome of disturbed neurologic function in the earliest days of life in an infant born at or beyond 35 weeks of gestation, accompanied by early onset seizures and difficulty initiating and maintaining respiration and depression of fetal tone and reflexes. The update relaxes the criteria which obstetricians and pediatricians feel demonstrate the likelihood of peripartum or intrapartum ischemia playing a role in the pathogenesis of neonatal encephalopathy.