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Recent Blog Posts
My Child Slipped at a Swimming Pool and Suffered a Debilitating Injury. Can I Sue?
As schools let out for the summer, children all across Illinois will spend much more time swimming in public and private pools. For the most part, time spent swimming is a great way to keep kids occupied and with proper supervision, training, and equipment, swimming can be a safe activity.
However, swimming pools in Illinois must strictly adhere to legal construction standards. The expense and labor involved in maintaining swimming pools mean cracks, uneven or slippery surfaces, and other hazards may go unaddressed. In turn, this exposes people - especially children - to the risk of slip-and-fall injuries that can be serious and even lethal.
Common Swimming Pool Accidents
By far, the most common swimming pool injuries occur when bathers slip or trip and fall on surfaces that do not have proper anti-slip resistance or are uneven because of poor construction or maintenance. The location and speed of the slip can vary, and children who fall while running can suffer serious injuries and even death.
Tainted Baby Food Poisoned My Baby. What Can I Do?
It seems like nearly every day there is a news headline describing the recall of a widely-distributed food. Reports of nameless people in distant cities falling seriously ill and even dying are sad to read but easy to forget. But when a food poisoning incident happens to someone you love - especially to your child - the consequences can be life-altering.
Just last year, a government report alleged that major baby food companies had dangerous levels of heavy metals in their products. These chemicals and elements can have serious neurotoxic effects, especially on developing brains. Even when heavy metals are not present, other toxic substances like salmonella can make a child very sick and potentially threaten their life. If your child developed a food illness after eating baby food, an Illinois personal injury attorney may be able to help you recover damages.
Can I Sue an Illinois Daycare If an Employee Abused My Child?
Busy parents with hectic schedules must do extensive research to find the perfect Illinois daycare center for their child. Leaving your little one in the hands of a third party all day may be a harrowing experience for some parents, and it is one which takes a leap of faith in the skill and compassion of the daycare staff.
Unfortunately, daycare staff do not always live up to the expectations parents have of them; worse, they sometimes abuse the children in their care. Any kind of daycare abuse is unacceptable. If your child has been abused in their childcare center and injured or even killed, know that you have options.
Types of Daycare Abuse
It is often difficult for children to share or talk about daycare abuse, either because they are too young or are afraid of their teachers or caregivers. An estimated 60 percent of child sexual abuse victims never tell anyone. But where there is abuse, there are often subtle signs of abuse. These include, but are not limited to:
What Can I Do if My Doctor Wrote Me a Birth Control Prescription That Made Me Seriously Ill?
For most women in Illinois, the invention and widespread availability of birth control have made it much easier to make safe, informed decisions about when to start a family. For other women, birth control has meant finally being able to control painful, unpredictable menstruation cycles.
While birth control is well understood and its risks are low, it is not without risks altogether. Many women who use birth control have suffered from serious and even life-threatening health conditions, including heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms. If you started taking birth control and experienced an adverse health condition, you may want to speak with an Illinois birth control injuries lawyer.
How Does Birth Control Work?
Different birth control works in different ways. Birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives contain a small amount of human estrogen and progestin hormones. These hormones prevent a woman’s body from ovulating and also change the consistency of the cervical mucus so sperm cannot reach an egg as easily. Non-hormonal methods, such as a copper IUD, change the way sperm cells move so they cannot reach an egg to fertilize it.
I Lost My Spouse Because an Insulin Pump Was Defective. Can I Take Legal Action?
A couple of years ago, a prominent medical device company issued a massive recall of over 300,000 insulin pumps. The pumps had defective retainer rings which could break, causing the pump to dose insulin improperly and potentially send users into diabetic comas. The U.S. Food and Drug administration categorized this recall as a Class I recall, in which there is a reasonable probability that using the recalled defective medical product could result in serious injury or death.
When situations like this occur, people can suffer catastrophic injuries and death through no fault of their own. The sudden loss or grievous injury of a spouse or a child can cause incalculable grief and suffering and survivors may rightfully wonder if there is anything they can do. If you or someone you love has been hurt because of a defective medical device, a personal injury attorney may be able to help you secure fair compensation.
How Can I Prove a Car Accident Happened Because of a Manufacturer’s Defect?
A few years ago, a story made national news headlines when a family driving together in their car realized that the foot pedal was jammed in the floor mat. Tragically, the entire family died as the car accelerated unstoppably and crashed. Following an investigation, the manufacturer recalled nearly four million vehicles to replace the accelerator pedals.
While the vast majority of car accidents are caused by human error, accidents involving manufacturer’s defects do happen and the results can be life-changing, if not deadly. Serious accidents can be caused by defective vehicle equipment and when these accidents result in catastrophic injury or death, it is important to hold the responsible party to account. If you have been injured in an Illinois car crash because of a defective automobile part, speak with a product injury attorney as soon as possible.
Can I Sue a Driver Who Hit Me on My Bicycle?
Illinois’ flat landscape and beautiful scenery make it an ideal location for bicyclists who ride their bike for commuting or recreational purposes. And while Illinois is making great strides in bicycle safety lanes and trying to increase motor vehicle operators’ awareness of bikes on the road, great risks still exist to bicyclists. Bicycles are much smaller and lighter than motor vehicles, making them hard to see and susceptible to serious injury and death in even minor car accidents. If you have been injured by a car or truck while riding your bike in Rockford, a personal injury attorney can help you decide whether you want to pursue a lawsuit.
Common Bicycle-Motor Vehicle Accident Injuries
Life-threatening injuries and death are regrettably common in accidents involving bicycles and motor vehicles. Frequent injuries include, but are not limited to:
What Can I Do If My Child Was Seriously Injured in a Dog Attack?
While dog attacks are relatively rare, they can be a scary and dangerous experience, especially for young children. Dogs are often much larger and stronger than a child, and because of their similar height, children are at greater risk of sustaining serious and even life-threatening head and neck injuries in a dog attack. Winnebago County does not have any restrictions against owning pit bulls, but parents of young children should know that pit bulls are, statistically speaking, the most dangerous breed of dog when it comes to dog attacks on children and exercise particular caution around an unfamiliar pit bull. If your child has been attacked by a pit bull or any breed of dog and sustained injuries, you may be able to sue the owner to recover the cost of your child’s medical expenses and emotional trauma.
Are Dog Owners Responsible for Injuries Caused By Their Dogs?
As with most legal issues, the answer is, “It depends.” If a child wandered onto someone else’s property and accidentally or intentionally provoked a dog attack, the dog owner is probably not liable for any injuries the child sustained. However, if a dog is allowed to wander off private property and it attacks a child at a park or on your family’s property, the owner will likely be responsible. Likewise, if you are invited to a friend’s house and their dog attacks your child unprovoked, especially if the dog has a history of aggression or biting people, your friend may be responsible.
My Elderly Parent Has Bedsores. Is This the Nursing Home’s Fault?
As our parents and loved ones grow older, moving independently and making everyday decisions about finances or healthcare can become extremely difficult. Physical illness, intellectual degeneration, and other ailments of aging can make caring for a family member at home impossible and the decision to place someone in a nursing home, while difficult, may be the best option.
We should all be able to trust a nursing home to provide the best care for our aging parents. Unfortunately, understaffing, poor training, and efforts to cut corners all happen sometimes in nursing homes. When nursing home abuse and neglect takes place, residents can suffer - and one of the first signs that residents are getting inadequate care is the appearance of bedsores.
What Causes Bedsores?
Bedsores, also known as pressure ulcers, are injuries that appear when skin is damaged because of prolonged pressure on one or more areas of the body. Bedsores are particularly prone to developing on protruding areas like hips, ankles, heels, the back of the head, and the tailbone when someone has difficulty moving and spends most of their time in bed or in a chair.
Can I Sue a Fraternity if My Child Was Injured or Killed in a University Hazing Accident?
Parents who live in Winnebago County, Illinois, send their children all over the state and country to attend college. As university attendance levels continue to rise and more young adults seek to obtain a higher education, exposure to certain behaviors and risks also increases. One well-known risk of university attendance is the binge drinking that often occurs at campus parties.
Unfortunately, binge drinking is often a mandatory part of joining a fraternity or sorority, and young adults with little experience can suffer serious injuries and even death in campus hazing incidents or university house parties. If your child was attending college and was injured, assaulted, or killed after being provided alcohol by another adult, you may be able to take legal action.
Common Injuries From College Binge Drinking
Research suggests that college students drink substantially more than their peers who do not attend college. Binge drinking, or drinking to the point of getting drunk, is especially common at universities with fraternities, sororities, and prominent sporting programs. Binge drinking places young students, who are often without parental supervision for the first time in their lives, at significant risk of catastrophic injury, including:
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