Reginald Bush a/k/a Reggie Bush, a former Heisman Trophy winner, had a successful professional football career and was named as starting running back for the San Francisco 49ers. While he was playing against the then St. Louis Rams at Edward Jones Dome in 2005, whose turf playing field was surrounded…
S.V. and Hemalatha Gopalratnam sued the laptop manufacturer Hewlett-Packard claiming that its battery pack maker, DynaPack Technology Corp. and battery cell manufacturer, Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. were a cause of the death of their son, Arun Gopalratnam who died in a fire in the basement bedroom of the Gopalratnam’s home.…
A New York City jury signed a $39.5 million verdict for a 30-year-old woman after she fell through an unguarded “vertical ladder” fire escape and suffered permanent injuries. That fire escape design had long been outlawed under legislation approved by the New York state legislature in 1928. This type of…
On April 2, 2009, Michelle Odom was filing a document at a storage tower near her workstation in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange when her phone rang. She turned to answer her phone, but the knit sleeve of her sweater caught on the open drawer of the storage tower. The tower…
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago has affirmed a decision by the district court judge regarding circumstantial evidence without an expert witness. In this case, the plaintiffs, Howard Piltch and Barbara Nelson-Piltch, were driving in their 2003 Mercury Mountaineer in 2006 when they were involved in…
In the model years 2009 and 2010, Toyota’s Corolla has been targeted as a dangerous vehicle because of the electric power steering (ETS) system. In fact, two Toyota Corolla owners, one in New York and one in Pennsylvania, filed suit. The Corolla owners have alleged that the steering system’s defect…
The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a Cook County trial judge’s order regarding the effect of an attorney’s lien notice sent to a defendant’s attorneys rather than the defendant directly. Randy Brown was the owner and operator of a Harold’s Chicken Shack in suburban Broadview, Ill., until Jan. 15, 2009.…
The Illinois appellate court has reinstated a product-liability lawsuit against a distributor in which there was a default judgment against the manufacturer of the product. In this case, the manufacturer was not subject to jurisdiction, and the plaintiff wasn’t able to satisfy the judgment. Nevertheless, the court ruled that the…
A federal jury has entered an $11 million verdict for victims of the design defect of the 1996 Toyota Camry. The jurors indicated that Toyota was 60% at fault for the 2006 crash that left two people dead and two seriously injured. They also found that another defendant, Koua Fong…
Late in 2002, the developer of 1717 S. Prairie Ave. in Chicago, Ill., retained the defendant Hansen & Hempel Co. to complete the masonry work for a 23-story condominium complex. When the building was nearly finished in March 2004, it started to experience water leakage. The condominium association, Board of…