There were eight cases, all involving claims by or on behalf of the estates of now deceased former workers of the defendant Weyerhaeuser Co. The former workers had claimed that their nonoccupational exposure to asbestos was the cause of their injuries and subsequent deaths. Weyerhaeuser operated a door manufacturing facility…
After much deliberation, two years ago Illinois lawmakers crafted a more lenient law for the transferring of juveniles to adult courts for some serious crimes. The idea was to give judges the clear opportunity to judge or to use their discretion for juveniles charged with serious crimes who were 16…
In a new piece of legislation, 735 ILCS 35/1, et seq., Illinois joins more than three dozen other states in enacting some form of the Uniform Interstate Deposition and Discovery Act. The act creates a simpler means in which to conduct discovery out of state. This will make it easier…
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) concluded at an all-day conference that deadly truck underride crashes could be prevented when passenger vehicles crash into a tractor-trailer truck or straight struck from behind. In underride crashes, a passenger car crashes into the rear of a tractor-trailer truck and the car…
On Oct. 12, 2010, the plaintiff Christina Marshall was driving southbound on Route 71 in Ottawa, Ill. When stopped behind a line of backed up traffic waiting for a school bus to drop off children, the driver traveling behind Marshall slammed on his brakes and swerved his van onto the…
In 1983, Alma and Israel Zivin executed a mutual last will and testament. The will stated that upon either the death of Alma or Israel, all property would go to the other. The will further stated that in the event that they both died or upon the death of their…
Two questions were certified for immediate appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court in a case against a school bus company, First Student Inc. The case was brought on behalf of a student who alleged that the misconduct of a driver accused of sexually abusing a student could put the corporation…
Mildred Thomas was shopping at the CVS drugstore and asked the clerk to check the price of a chair that was stacked with other chairs in a metal bin on a 6-foot shelf. As the clerk reached up and moved the chair to look for the price, multiple chairs and…
There are more than 1,200 lawsuits pending against Johnson & Johnson by women who used talc powder products for feminine hygiene and now claim they developed ovarian cancer. In a three-week trial in Missouri state court, the jurors deliberated for a day before returning a verdict in favor of the…
On Oct. 18, 2011, Shama Khan was a passenger in her husband’s car, which was stopped at a red light on eastbound Grand Avenue (Route 132) near Stonebrook Drive in Gurnee, Ill. The defendant Shawn Tabin, 72, was driving his car eastbound and then rear-ended the car behind the Khan…