Articles Posted in Work Injuries

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                                                  A $2.24 million verdict was entered in favor of a 36-year-old electrician working as a groundman for an aerial lift truck at a booth at the International Machine Tool Show at Chicago’s McCormick Place in August 2006. The plaintiff, William Purnell, came upon a steel beam that was blocking the path of the aerial truck.

The steel beam was 22 feet long, 3 feet high and weighed 1,800-2,000 pounds. The beam was located in an area that was prohibited as a “no-freight” aisle. The beam had been left there by riggers working for the defendant GES Exposition. 

When Purnell attempted to move the beam out of the way, the beam toppled over and landed on his left foot. He suffered severe crush injuries to the foot causing compartment syndrome, which led to a surgery and foot fusion. 

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On Sept. 30, 2006, Kathleen Nelson slipped and fell on a wet floor while walking down a hallway at the Merchandise Mart.  She was employed there in one of the showrooms. The floor was wet from water that had dripped from a mop used by a maintenance worker employed by the defendant, Millard Group.

The fall was captured on a surveillance video, which showed that the Millard employee left a washroom with the mop, but no bucket. That procedure violated the company policy on mopping floors. A security guard employed by defendants had walked right past the spot where Nelson fell, just a minute before. Apparently the maintenance worker did not see water on the floor until plaintiff showed him after she fell.

Nelson, 54, sustained soft tissue injuries to her neck and back and required 6 months of physical therapy. She also suffered anxiety and panic attacks for two weeks following the incident. Nelson developed post-traumatic stress disorder from the occurrence along with arm tremors. She claimed $48,824 in medical expenses and $10,000 lost time for four months when she was unable to work as a part-time showroom salesperson.

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Clanton Pitchford, a truck driver, was in Tucson, Ariz., in 2006 and spent a night in his semi-trailer truck parked at a truck stop. The accident that caused this lawsuit was the collision with the rear end of Pitchford’s truck and a Knight Transportation truck traveling at about 5 mph.

Pitchford, 59, was sleeping in a raised bed behind the driver seat of his tractor when the collision took place.  He was tossed around, but did not fall out of the bed.  The accident caused Pitchford low back pain, which he did not have before this incident.

Pitchford went to a local emergency room five hours later and was diagnosed with a lumbar strain.

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In a record setting jury verdict, $4.16 million, Joshua Jaeger, age 26, was severely injured when he fell 16 feet from a forklift and personnel platform.  Mr. Jaeger was a garage door serviceman who went to the Public Works garage for the City of Elmhurst to give an estimate for repairing a broken garage door spring.

An employee of the City of Elmhurst used a forklift and personnel platform to lift Mr. Jaeger 16 feet into the air to take a look at the spring. After Jaeger reached the proper height, he stepped from one side of the platform to the other when he fell to the concrete floor.  He fractured his right femur, which required open reduction internal fixation surgery.  He also suffered soft tissue injuries to his back.

Mr. Jaeger claimed at trial that he was no longer working as a garage door serviceman because of his injuries.  He claimed past and future lost earning capacity in that job totaling $2,480,794.

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Christopher Sojka was working as a carpenter on Chicago’s Trump Tower as it was under construction in 2008. While standing on the upper floors of the construction project, Sojka attempted to fix a steel cable when the wind knocked him back and a piece of metal struck him in the eye causing serious injuries. Although Sojka was wearing safety glasses, they did not fit his face correctly. A small gap was left at the top of his eyes, allowing the debris to penetrate.

Sojka brought a lawsuit against Bovis Lend Lease in the Circuit Court of Cook County for recovery of his injuries. The case was removed to the federal district court in Chicago because the parties had complete diversity of citizenship in that Sojka was domiciled in Illinois and Bovis was a Florida corporation with its principal place of business in New York. The amount in controversy to make the jurisdictional level exceeded $75,000.

The complaint that Sojka filed contained one count for construction negligence, a cause of action recognized in Illinois law. It was also alleged in the complaint that Bovis had a duty to provide a safe workplace; Sojka listed seven theories about how Bovis had violated that duty. One of the first theories was that Bovis knew or should have known that the weather conditions at the site were unsafe at the time of Sojka’s injury.

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