Articles Posted in Evidence

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A Cook County jury has entered a $231,674 verdict for Patrick Somenzi, who was a patron at the bar known as the Dirty Sock. The bar is located at 9300 S. Roberts Road in Hickory Hills, Ill. On Dec. 11, 2012, Somenzi was a patron at the bar, which was offering an “all you can drink” special during a Bears game telecast.

He was injured when some of the bar’s unruly patrons who had been ejected earlier re-entered the bar and attacked Somenzi and his friends.

Somenzi, who was 23 at the time, was a warehouse worker and sustained torn ligaments in his left ankle that required surgery to repair because of the attack.

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On Aug. 7, 2008, Frosini Xeniotis was evaluated by an oral surgeon, Dr. Cynthia Satko. One of Xeniotis’s baby teeth had never fallen out, and her adult tooth had grown in behind it. The result was just simply “not aesthetically pleasing” to Xeniotis.

Xeniotis was referred to Dr. Satko by her primary dentist. To improve the condition, an oral surgeon would have to remove both the baby tooth and the adult tooth and fill the remaining space. Dr. Satko recommended an implant during this initial consultation.

The procedure described by Dr. Satko involved surgically inserting a titanium screw into the bone and then attaching an artificial tooth to the screw. Under the best of circumstances, this procedure would have been followed by a dental crown. Xeniotis agreed with the plan, and the next day Dr. Satko removed the two teeth and inserted the implant. Over the following year and half, the artificial tooth failed to fully afix into Xeniotis’s jaw.

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On Nov. 27, 2008, Galissa Brown walked out of the Nitro Nightclub in west suburban Stone Park, Ill., at about 1 a.m. She began walking with some of her friends to their car. The police had already been called to this nightclub because of 4 or 5 stabbings. It had been a violent night.

Two blocks from the nightclub, Brown was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Brown was taken to Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., and pronounced dead at 1:58 a.m. Neither the vehicle nor the individual driver was ever identified.

On Nov. 23, 2009, Reginald Brown, Galissa’s father, filed a lawsuit against Nitro under the Liquor Control Act of 1934, which is also known as the Illinois Dram Shop Act.

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Cheneka Ross, 13, was playing tag at a Chicago Park District Park playground while being chased by another child. She ran to the slide to avoid being tagged by one of her playmates. Cheneka climbed up the slide and as she started to slide down, one of her feet became caught on a piece of plastic near the slide’s bottom. She was not able to see the plastic from the top as the slide was curved. The girl fractured her ankle requiring surgery.

Cheneka’s mother, Artenia Bowman, filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Park District asking for her daughter’s medical expenses as well as damages, claiming that the district had acted willfully and wantonly toward the slide’s users. It was also alleged that the park district had received numerous complaints from the community about the slide’s condition and submitted multiple affidavits showed that the park district had received complaints about the slide’s defect since 2010.

The park district’s records system showed that in August 2010 the slide was “boarded up and waiting for repair.” One week prior to the incident with Cheneka, the park district log indicated that the “slide west of park [was] still broken.”

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In September 2008, Erica Perkins was involved in a car crash while driving a car owned by Beverly Perkins. LaTonya Reese and Kionna Griffin sued Erica Perkins for the injuries they suffered in the crash.

American Access Casualty Co. issued a non-owner’s insurance policy to Erica Perkins and provided a defense to Erica against each of the complaints filed against her. However, the insurance company required Erica to cooperate with American Access and to answer all questions and provide any written proofs that American Access required.

American Access charged that Beverly Perkins regularly let Erica drive without adding her as a primary insured. American Access alleged that the Perkinses have been uncooperative, choosing not to answer questions or cooperate with American Access’s investigation. As a result, American Access filed for a declaratory judgment against Erica, Reese and Griffin seeking a judicial declaration that American Access owed no duty to defend Erica because the car was not a “non-owned automobile.”

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Carolyn Catchot slipped and fell at a shopping mall called the Shops at North Bridge in December 2008. She claimed that she had not noticed water on the floor before she fell, but as she lay there she found her hands and pants were damp with water and noticed a maintenance worker holding a mop and a bucket nearby.

A housekeeper for UNNICO, Sead Hodzic, was responsible for patrolling the area of the mall where Catchot fell. Hodzic’s rounds would have taken him through the area about 10 minutes before the fall and again about 2 minutes before it. As was his practice, after he passed through the area, he walked about 60 feet farther to the end and then returned and noticed Catchot on the floor.

Catchot filed a lawsuit against UNNICO, which was the maintenance and janitorial service for the mall. She also named as a defendant Macerich Management Co., which manages the mall. Catchot claimed in her lawsuit that both defendants were negligent in their maintenance of the premises and that their negligence was the cause of her injuries.

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