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The producers of the Tom Cruise movie, Mena, are being sued for wrongful death according to The Hollywood Reporter.  In September of 2015, two crew members working on the film were killed in a small aircraft accident in the Columbian mountains.

The crew members were working in a remote area of Columbia, flying over treacherous terrain.  The movie’s producers hired a Columbian pilot who was allegedly unqualified to operate the small aircraft in such dangerous conditions.

Movie productions have strict rules concerning who may or may not work on what has been described as a “closed set.”  If the production companies cut corners and hired an unqualified pilot to ferry members of its crew to the remote location then it is likely that they are responsible for the wrongful death of its crew.

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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.

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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.

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On February 6, 2013, the Chicago law firm of Goldberg & Goldberg filed a wrongful death case on behalf of the Estate of Genevieve Klimczak who died on February 12, 2012. Ms. Klimczak was a resident of McHenry Villa, a self described “retirement community” offering 24 hour a day security…”so residents can leave the worries of living alone behind them.” McHenry Villa and Home Instead, Inc. have been named as defendants in the lawsuit. McHenry Villa is located at 3516 W. Waukegan Road in McHenry, Illinois.

On February 12, 2012, Genevieve Klimczak a 91 year old resident of McHenry Villa with Alzheimer’s disease was allowed to elope from her room at McHenry Villa and walk out of the building through a self-locking door that could not be opened from the outside. Ms. Klimczak’s body was found the next morning by employees of McHenry Villa. The temperature overnight was as low as 7 degrees Fahrenheit. At the time, Ms Klimczak was being attended by caregivers from Home Instead, Inc. Ms. Klimczak is survived by her nephews, Donald Lorenz and John Lorenz, and her niece, Evelyn Marthalar.. Mrs. Klimczak was a lifelong resident of Chicago.

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Abbott Laboratories best selling drug, Humira, has been linked to a host of serious side effects, including severe neurological injuries. Abbott’s is on track to sell $15 billion worth of the drug per year by 2015. Abbott already expects to sell close to $10 billion worth of Humira in 2012. Humira is used to treat a variety of rheumatological conditions, including, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis as well as Crohn’s disease.

In 2009, Abbott included the following warning in the package insert for Humira under section 5.5 titled, Neurologic Reactions:

“Use of TNF blocking agents, including HUMIRA, has been associated with rare cases of new onset or exacerbation of clinical symptoms and/or radiographic evidence of demyelinating disease. Prescribers should exercise caution in considering the use of HUMIRA in patients with preexisting or recent-onset central nervous system demyelinating disorders.”

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Goldberg & Goldberg has filed one of the first products liability cases in the country against Abbott Laboratories concerning the drug Humira. Humira is expected to be the world’s biggest selling medication, with estimated 2012 sales of $8.7 billion. Humira is a TNF (tumor necrosis factor) blocker that is used to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriasis, Crohn’s Disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis and Juvenile Arthiritis, among other conditions. Humira works by binding TNF and reducing pain, inflamation and joint damage that is caused by these conditions. Humira affects the immune system, and because of this, can hurt the bodies ability to fight infections and can cause a whole host of other problems.

Unfortunately, Humira causes neurological problems, opportunistic infections and malignancies. The litigation filed against Abbott claims that Abbott was aware of these problems and failed to warn the users of Humira about the real dangers associated with the drug.

The first trial of a Humira case is now set for April of 2013. Goldberg & Goldberg has taken a lead role in the prosecution of this litigation. If you or a loved one has been injured by the drug Humira, please call us. We would be happy to discuss your potential case with you.

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This blog entry comes courtesy of the President of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and was published in the February 24, 2011 edition of the Belleville News Democrat:

It is once again time to set the record straight with your editorial board. There was never a health care crisis in this state and there were no “jackpot justice conditions” that caused doctors to flee Illinois.

Your editorial board and the president of the Illinois State Medical Society (ISMS) have chosen to ignore important facts when it comes to medical care access in this state. Over the years, we have consistently increased the number of physicians in our state. That’s right. The American Medical Association data reflects increases for each of the last 45 years. Clearly not a climate of doctors leaving Illinois or retiring early.

Funny how it used to be, for years, ISMS would falsely claim doctors were fleeing our state and that we already had a shortage of doctors because of fabricated “jackpot justice conditions.” As the data has failed to support that claim, the dialogue now shifts to an attempt to create a “future crisis”. In fact, a recent survey – funded in part by ISMS – clearly demonstrated oversaturation of physicians in the largest populated area of our state. That’s correct – more than enough doctors in the greater Chicagoland area.

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The following blog entry comes courtesy of a guest blogger, Stacy H. Federico, who has a blog devoted to raising awareness of Type II Diabetes and the benefits of healthy eating. We would like to thank her for her contribution to our blog.

Taking 10,000 steps every day (or walking about five miles) is incredibly useful to you.

I started walking 30 days ago. I wake up every day at 5:30 and walk about 5 mls (with my dog).

I had been so happy with myself. Recently a buddy told me, “What are you currently doing for exercise today?” I informed her about the walking, and she said, “Yeah, but what exactly are you doing for exercise?”

She declared that walking does not get the heart rate up sufficiently and won’t do one thing to enhance my overall health or my waist line and that if I needed to lose any weight, I needed a true workout.

Well , I informed her the 10,000 steps philosophy isn’t new…the good news is the 10,000 steps regimen has additionally been linked with an increase in insulin sensitivity in over 50 adults.

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A low vitality score, better known as an Apgar score, at birth is a strong predictor of a later diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy according to a new study published on bmj.com. The authors learned that children with an Apgar score of less than 3 at birth had a 100 times more likely chance of developing cerebral palsy than those with an Apgar score of 10. The correlation between a low Apgar and cerebral palsy was highest in children with normal birth weight and modest in children with low birth weight.

The study measured these correlations in more then a half million Norwegian children born between 1986 and 1995. Of those children almost 2 in 1000 were given the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy before they reached the age of 5.

The most important conclusion to be drawn from this data is that Cerebral Palsy is closely related to factors that also effect infant vitality, something that has been strongly suspected in medicine for years. Low Apgar scores can be indicitive of a brain injury that has occured at the time of birth.

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The Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter is honoring our partner, Barry Goldberg, for his outstanding achievement as a trial lawyer at their 50th Anniversary Gala being held on October 21, 2010 at the Hilton Chicago Hotel. Barry is being honored for being one of only a handful of trial lawyers who have five or more five million dollar verdicts. In addition to this achievement, Barry was the first medical malpractice lawyer in the State of Illinois to achieve a million dollar verdict and/or settlement and to this day holds the record high verdict in Illinois in a personal injury matter, an award in excess of $127 million.

We are proud of Barry and his many accomplishments.

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