On July 14, 2007, 16-year-old Eric Jones went to the city of Springfield’s public beach with his brother and cousins. The public beach is located on Lake Springfield. Eric did not know how to swim. He was in the water at least chest-deep when he disappeared beneath the surface. His…
The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a jury’s wrongful death verdict regarding the death of a woman who was hit by a truck as she stood on the side of a road next to her disabled car. The woman’s husband filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the truck driver, the…
Caterpillar Inc. purchased a factory owned by Bucyrus International located in Milwaukee. That facility was making strip-mining equipment. Because of the purchase, Caterpillar assumed the labor contract Bucyrus previously had negotiated with the United Steelworkers Union. About two months after the July 2011 purchase, a 36-ton piece of machinery called…
Jimmy Hill was 66 years old and was unloading a truckload of chicks at a farm when an employee of the transportation company J.B. Hunt drove a forklift over Hill’s ankle. Hill underwent surgery to repair the broken ankle and later died of post-operative sepsis. He is survived by his…
Daniel Orr died in a motorcycle accident in August 2012. His beneficiaries, who were his daughters, Hailey and Daniell, filed claims seeking benefits payable under a group life insurance policy governed by ERISA. The insurance policy was issued by Union Security Insurance Co. to Orr’s former employer. The policy provided…
In the aftermath of the recent Philadelphia Amtrak derailment, which cost the lives of eight individuals and severely injured more than 200, it came to light that the U.S. Congress had passed an act in 1997 to limit or cap Amtrak’s total payouts to train crash victims to $200 million.…
Tracy Morgan, the actor/comedian, has settled his lawsuit against Walmart. In June 2014, Morgan and three others were involved in a truck crash on the New Jersey Turnpike when their limousine was struck by a Walmart truck. Morgan’s close friend and mentor, James “Jimmy Mack” McNair was killed. Morgan suffered…
Daniel DiNardi was a State Department of Transportation supervisor who was pulling his orange Department of Transportation pickup truck onto the right shoulder of a highway to remove debris. Before getting out of his truck, he activated the emergency lights and yellow strobe lights on his truck. After he placed…
It has long been law in Illinois that, “a judgment against two or more defendants, whether in contract or tort, was indivisible, and could neither be vacated by a trial court or reversed by a reviewing court as to one defendant alone, even though it was not erroneous as to…
The Illinois Appellate Court for the Second District has reversed a Lake County, Ill., dismissal of a personal-injury and wrongful-death claim against Rene Melbourn who was dismissed on motion under the Illinois Code of Civil Procedures, Section 2-615, for failure to state a cause of action. The plaintiffs appealed the…