During a jury trial in LaSalle County, Ill., the jury found in favor of Ty Benckendorf, who was a backseat passenger in a car traveling southbound in Marseilles, Ill., on Oct. 20, 2010. The defendant, 75-year-old Juliann Huber, was driving a car that was heading southwest. It pulled into the…
Pengxuan Diao rented a converted garage. An employee of Southern California Gas Co. arrived while Diao was sleeping to perform maintenance. The gas company employee opened a gas valve that activated an uncapped gas line running to the garage where Diao was sleeping. The Southern California Gas Co. employee left…
In the early morning hours of April 19, 2010, Chantel Jobes was driving a vehicle alone and left the southbound lane of Highway 11, crossed the northbound lane and crashed into a concrete railroad trestle. Jobes was seriously injured and filed a lawsuit against the Norfolk Southern Railway Co., the…
On Nov. 13, 2012, Kevin York was riding his bicycle near the exit of Busse Wood Forest Preserve in the northwest suburbs of Cook County, Ill., when he was struck by a motor vehicle driven by defendant Kenneth Heffern. Heffern, a 76-year-old retiree, left the scene after the incident. York,…
In a recent Illinois Appellate Court case, the issue was whether to deduct attorney fees and litigation expenses from the personal-injury settlement amount or judgment before calculating the 40 percent maximum that hospitals and doctors are entitled to receive as their share of lawsuit proceeds under Illinois’ Health Care Services…
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago has affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a lawsuit against a Wal-Mart store for injuries suffered by Kristen Zuppardi. She went to the Wal-Mart store in Champaign, Ill., with her brother and her son…
On Nov. 25, 2008, Thomas J. Hagerman was driving westbound on Route 6 in Morris, Ill., when the defendant, Betty Leake, who was attempting to make a left turn onto Lisbon Street, chose not to yield the right-of-way. Instead, Leake turned directly in front of Hagerman’s truck, causing Hagerman to…
Ann E. Guiffrida’s personal injury case against the owner of a bar called The Palace in downstate Hamburg, Ill., was dismissed because the plaintiff had mixed up the names of two corporations. One was The Palace Inc. and the other was Boothy’s Palace Tavern Inc. Guiffrida filed a lawsuit in…
The issue in this case was how to calculate the lien-payment math in a personal injury lawsuit that involved treatment at the county-owned Stroger Hospital. The Illinois Appellate Court ruled that health-care service liens must be calculated from the total amount a plaintiff recovers, not from the amount after attorney…
On Nov. 9, 2012, Hawree Amin was riding a bicycle eastbound on Winnemac Avenue in the city of Chicago, traveling through the intersection at Clark Street. The defendant, Karl Fujihara, driving eastbound in his car came alongside a car on the left. Amin maintained that Fujihara suddenly veered to the…