In October 2017, Cook County’s chief judge, state’s attorney, sheriff, board president, public defender and the chair of the county board’s Criminal Justice Committee all petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court to issue a rule that would eliminate pre-trial incarceration due solely to the inability to pay a money bond. The…
On Aug. 31, 2015, 34-year-old Carrie Scheetz, a teacher, was driving home from work on a county road in Rock Creek Township, Ill., when a school bus approached a four-way intersection at a stop sign. There was no stop sign for traffic traveling in Scheetz’s direction. Scheetz could see the…
Within a year of when Michael Booth signed an employment agreement that had a non- competition clause, he resigned as president of Axion RMS and then went to work for a competitor. It was also alleged that, after leaving Axion RMS, he started luring away former colleagues. Axion sued Booth…
On July 28, 2016, the defendant, Demetris D. Owens, delivered a semi-trailer truck to a warehouse loading dock at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The plaintiff, Michael Heatherly II, a forklift operator, attempted to unload the materials inside the truck by driving his forklift onto the truck from the dock. As…
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law the Collective Bargaining Freedom Act, which became effective April 12, 2019. Under the new law, local governments will no longer be able to pass right-to-work ordinances. The legislation is a signal of Gov. Pritzker’s approach to workforce regulation. A similar bill was…
The Illinois Supreme Court has held that sentencing a juvenile to a prison sentence of greater than 40 years violates his or her Eighth Amendment rights because it imposes a de facto life sentence. The defendant in this case was a juvenile at the time of the offense. The juvenile…
Sherri Miyagi, a dentist, was visiting a Walgreens pharmacy when she was injured by a hand truck operated by an employee of the defendant, Dean Transportation Inc. Dr. Miyagi filed a complaint, alleging negligence and respondeat superior against the defendant, Dean. Before the start of the jury trial, Dean admitted…
The appeal in this case comes out of a jury’s verdict in favor of the plaintiff, Lanisha Blockmon, who was special administrator of the Estate of Walter Blockmon III. On July 11, 2014, Blockmon was driving on I-80 near the city of Country Club Hills, Ill., when his vehicle was…
George Petrosian was performing general repair work at an elevated parking system. While he was standing on a scissor lift, the lift’s work platform fell 25 feet, which caused him to suffer a torn ligament in his left ankle and bilateral torn rotator cuffs. Petrosian, 72, underwent six surgeries and…
A 24-year-old pastry chef, Emily Fredericks, rode her bicycle from her apartment to her job at a restaurant in Philadelphia in November 2017. As she approached an intersection, a garbage truck driven alongside her by Jorge Fretts, an employee of the waste disposal company Gold Medal Environmental, prepared to make…