Chicago Accident Lawyer Blog

A 2 year old Aurora girl was hurt in her home over the weekend when a TV fell on top of her. Unfortunately such stories have been in the news much too often recently. The toddler, Aurora police said, had a boxlike TV fall from a bookshelf onto her in the 100 block of South Union Street. The girl’s 18 year old uncle was babysitting her and 3 other children at the time. The uncle was also looking after an 18 month old boy, a 17 month old girl, and a 6 year old boy said Police spokesman Dan Ferrelli. The uncle was looking after the 17 month old in the living room while the other children were in another room. He then heard a loud noise and went to check on the children, he found the 2 year old lying under a 20 inch TV. The TV was on top of a cabinet and was not bolted to the wall. The girl was taken to an area hospital around 2:50 p.m. and was later airlifted to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Thankfully the hospital determined she had no fractures and her injuries were not life threatening. Police do not suspect foul play and will not charge the uncle. Thankfully this child was not seriously hurt but it’s an incident that has become too common. There have been other victims of falling TV’s including Gianna Hadjis, 4, the girl was killed in January after a television in her home fell on her head. A 1 year old boy from the Roseland neighborhood also died when a TV fell on him the afternoon of February 7th. Arvey Levinsohn of A&H Childproofers said TVs and dressers can be dangerous no matter how sturdy they appear to be. Although accidents such as these are preventable victims should take the time to learn their legal rights. Expert attorneys Zneimer & Zneimer can guide you through learning your legal rights should you experience a similar situation. Contact Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. for a free consultation.

Wednesday morning around 4:20 a.m. two people were injured in a wrong-way crash on the outbound Kennedy Expressway. The crash was located in the northbound lanes of the Kennedy Expressway south of North Avenue, as stated by Illinois State Police District Chicago Trooper Mark Hall. A third vehicle had its side-mirror clipped however the driver of that vehicle was not injured. The driver of the car headed in the wrong direction and the driver of the vehicle he crashed with were taken to area hospitals in “very bad shape,” Mark Hall said. This accident occurs just weeks after 4 men were killed in another unrelated wrong-way crash on I-80 in south suburban Hazel Crest. Unfortunately police were not able to get to the drivers before the accidents unlike the video included above. The accident in Hazel Crest caused the I-80 to be closed as firefighters worked to control the fire and investigate the incident. If you or someone you know have been involved in a car accident contact expert attorneys Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. for a free consultation.

Continue reading "Wrong Way Drivers Continue to Wreak Havoc in Illinois " »

Over the weekend 80 year old Anibal Calderon was beaten to death at an Oak Park nursing home. Police said that another resident of the Oak Park nursing home is responsible. Police are still investigating the incident which occurred at the Oak Park Healthcare Center located at 625 N. Harlem Avenue in Oak Park. A nurse found Anibal Calderon lying unconscious Sunday night in the nursing home’s Alzheimer’s and dementia ward. He was taken to Rush Oak Park Hospital and was later transferred to Rush University Medical Center. He later died early Tuesday. Police believe a 66 year old man, who is also a resident at the Oak Park Healthcare Center, beat Calderon in the head with an object. Police say the incident began with an argument between the two residents and the 66 year old man ended it by beating 80 year old Calderon. An autopsy report determined Calderon died from head injuries and blunt trauma from an assault. Anibal Calderon’s death has been ruled a homicide by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. Incidents such as these can be prevented if nursing homes take the necessary precautions to keep their residents safe. Victims should understand their legal rights. Our expert attorneys Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. can help victims know their rights. If you or a loved one experienced a similar situation please call our office and schedule a free consultation.

Earlier this week Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill allowing the City of Chicago to use cameras to catch speeding drivers near schools. The bill known as S.B. 965 will go into effect on July 1 and allows speed enforcement cameras within 1/8 of a mile, or one city block, around schools and parks between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. each weekday. The speed enforcement cameras are to be used within 1/8 of a mile around parks from one hour before the parks open to one hour after they close, which means cameras will be shut off only between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. It also allows using existing red light cameras and mobile cameras to catch speeders within 1/8 of a mile of schools and parks in Chicago.
The Expired Meter website issued a Freedom of Information request on all calls, emails and letters from the public to the governor’s office to learn about the response to the legislation. So far it has been negative; of the 224 calls, letters, and emails about the speed camera bill, an overwhelming 91 percent were opposed to it. Governor Quinn’s response was, “You may get letters, perhaps emails. You know, you study each communication, but… I’m not sure that’s a scientific sampling of all the people of Illinois, I think there are some people who are for the bill and some aren’t for it and, you know, that happens in a lot of situations.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel released a statement on Monday morning thanking Quinn.
“Since day one as mayor, my top priority has been to ensure that Chicago’s children can focus on their studies, not worry about their safety… I am grateful to Governor Quinn for supporting one more step in our comprehensive strategy to keep Chicago’s children safe.” The mayor stressed that this is one of many measures taken to improve children’s safety. He cited previous measures such as stronger curfew laws, after school and safe passage programs, as well as more cops and crossing guards at schools. The Chicago accident and injury firm Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. handles cases involving a reckless driver.

Continue reading "Children’s Safety Will Hit Your Wallet" »

As reported in CBS' Historic Auburn-Gresham Building Torn Down After Partial Collapse, shortly after noon on Tuesday, January 31st, four people were injured when a three story historic building partially collapsed. The building, located on the northeast corner of 79th and Halsted, has been vacant for 20 years and was originally constructed in the 1880’s. It is owned by the city of Chicago. The debris falling from the building injured people on the street and caught two others under scaffolding.
Firefighters worked to remove the victims and searched under the rubble for an alleged fifth victim. According to the Chicago Fire Department it appears the top of the building’s brick façade collapsed along the roofline causing it to fall below. The scaffolding surrounding the building buckled as the roofline collapsed, trapping several pedestrians. Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Robert Hoff included that a tree had grown through the building’s roof and believes years of neglect, along with recent weather conditions, and the age of the building led to the building’s collapse.
Three victims were taken in fair-to-serious condition to local hospitals while a fourth victim was taken to St. Bernard hospital in good-to-fair condition. Their injuries were not life threatening. As of yet no fifth victim has been found and officials stress that news on the alleged fifth victim are unconfirmed. Carl Dean who was walking under the scaffolding around the building when he was thrown to the ground described it as, “I heard just a little crackling noise, you know, like pebbles falling onto the tin roof. Before you know it, the whole thing came down. I was trapped under it.” Tuesday night crews worked with a crane to bring down the upper floors and demolish the building.
Victims should know their legal rights. Thankfully no one was critically hurt but shame on the property owner for letting the building get to such condition. Since there was a tree growing through the building it is fair to say that the responsibility falls on the property owner for not keeping up with the building. Blaming recent weather conditions hardly seems to justify the tree growing through the building.
If you or a loved one have experienced a similar situation and need to know your legal rights contact expert lawyers Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. for a free consultation.

As reported in Speeding Car Causes Multi-Vehicle Crash on Far South Side, a driver traveling at a high rate of speed south on Ewing Avenue caused a 4 vehicle pileup. Witnesses say the 1992 Oldsmobile Sierra possibly reached a speed of 100 mph. The Oldsmobile collided with a Dodge Durango headed east on 106th Avenue. Police News Affairs officer John Mirabelli said, “That set off a chain reaction that included a Cadillac CTS and a Chevrolet Malibu.” The accident which occurred at the intersection of 106th street and Ewing Avenue left two people in serious to critical condition. One of the injured was the driver of the Oldsmobile.

The car accident which occurred around 7:30 Sunday morning caused major traffic delays. The streets were blocked to allow police to conduct an investigation and as a result the CTA South Chicago bus route, No. 30, had to be rerouted. According to the CTA the No. 30 buses were back on schedule as of 10:25 a.m. Police investigated the crash and no citations or charges have been issued as of 10:30 a.m.

Victims of accidents should learn about their legal rights. The law provides that the negligent driver, responsible for the accident, is liable for the victim's personal injuries, pain and suffering, loss of a normal life, and other damages. If you or a loved one have been in a car accident or injured as a result of a car accident please contact accident injury attorneys Zneimer & Zneimer P.C. for a free consultation.

Accidents such as these can be avoided if drivers reduce speed to one that is reasonable for the road conditions, and abide by the rules of the road.

Continue reading "Speeding Driver on Chicago’s Far South Side Causes Pileup " »

In relation to our last post about fire ordinances, there was a fire early Tuesday morning at an 3-story complex on 130th street, near the far south side of Chicago. Sergeant Mike Saladino, a veteran of 11 years, was on a routine patrol early Tuesday morning around 3:15 a.m. when he heard there was a fire about two blocks from his location. He responded immediately and arrived in a matter of minutes. A tow truck driver, who was originally there to repossess a car, was already on the scene and had just smashed open the jammed door of the first floor apartment. The tow truck driver had a fire extinguisher in hand and was attempting to put out the blaze. Two small children were reportedly trapped in the burning building. The American Burn Association state that there are approximately 1.1 million burn injuries in the United States each year severe enough that they warrant medical attention. Experienced accident and injury attorneys Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. understand the immediacy and sensitivity required in handling cases that involve burn injuries.

Continue reading "Attempted Rescue: Police Officer and Tow Truck Driver " »

By now, many of you Chicagoans have heard about the 7 teenagers that beat up and robbed an Asian high school senior this past Sunday. This is mainly because one of the teens recorded the beating with their cell phone and the video has gone viral via Youtube. The teens involved in the beating were all under the age of 18. There was one 17 year old boy, two 16 year old boys, three 15 year old boys, and a 15 year old girl. The girl allegedly lured the victim into the alley on the 2700 block of South Shields, where the boys waited to beat him. All the teens, except 17 year old Raymond Palomino, are being charged with juvenile delinquencies. While accident injury attorneys Zneimer and Zneimer do not typically handle these types of cases, they do handle personal injury cases caused by assault. Typically, insurance companies will not cover these types of acts unless the act is forseeable

Continue reading "Bridgeport: Teen Youtube Beating" »

It is not a secret that pharmaceutical companies use doctors and other medical professionals to promote certain drugs. The idea of a doctor receiving dollars from a drug company for prescribing its pills raises a lot of ethical questions, and one wonders whether in prescribing a certain pill, the doctor has the patient's best interest in mind. The drug companies have long been rewarding doctors with fees for speaking engagements (promoting the drug), consulting fee, or research grants. However, until recently, what goods and dollars were exchanged was not public information.

According to ProPublica reporters Dan Nguyen, Charles Ornstein, and Tracy Weber, some of the drug companies have begun publicizing the details of payments they make to physicians, hospitals, in other health professionals for promoting their drugs. The payments are usually in the form of consulting fee, speaking engagement fees, or research fees. Most of the money goes to physicians, however, nurses and pharmacists also work with pharmaceutical companies. ProPublica has pulled the disclosures made by the pharmaceutical companies into a searchable database. Check if your doctor has received benefits from the drug companies.

Many patients suffer personal injuries from defective drugs. The list of recalled drugs by the FDA is rather long. A lot of the drugs on this list were recalled after many patients have suffered personal injuries.

If you have been injured by a defective drug, call the Chicago Law Office of Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. or contact us online.

Chicago Tribune Deborah L. Shelton reported that experts from the University of Illinois at Chicago issued a scathing report about the dangerous conditions of pediatric and adolescent psychiatric hospital Hargrove. This report is eerily similar to the one released on March 30, 2009, slamming the conditions at Riveredge Hospital and other psychiatric facilities owned or run by Psychiatric Solutions, and to another report released in May 2011 documenting inadequate care in Lakeshore Hospital. Back in 2009 as well as in the current reports, the UIC experts reveal that the most vulnerable patient population, pediatric and adolescent psychiatric patient are subjected to sexual assaults, physical attacks, threats, and unacceptable conditions.

According to the current report between December 2010 and mid-June 2011, there were over 100 cases of children and adolescent psychiatric patients subjected to physical attacks, threatening behavior, and sexual assaults at Hartgrove. The report on psychiatric care in 2009 on Riveredge and Psychiatric Solutions identified a similar longstanding pattern of egregious quality failures, failure to protect patients from sexual abuse, failure to provide patient care in a safe environment, failure to ensure patients are adequately monitored, failure to ensure adequate staffing for patient care, failure to adequately train and supervise staff. The current report on Hartgrove paints a similarly unacceptable picture of vulnerable population placed at unacceptable risk. The reports also reveal that the hospitals are understaffed or are staffed with unqualified personnel. Most of the children in these facilities are there because they are danger to self or others and need specialized care. When the hospitals hire personnel with lack of qualifications the hospitals put the children and staff at risk. Our law firm represents victims of psychiatric and hospital negligence in cases involving sexual assaults or inadequate supervision in psychiatric facilities. Sexual assaults are usually a result of inadequate staffing, improper supervision, or failure to follow physician-ordered precautions and observation levels. Personal injuries that result from inadequate staffing are easily preventable. Keeping psychiatric patients safe should be a priority to any mental health hospital. Patient safety is a prerequisite of any therapeutic environment for a psychiatric patient. Failure to prevent assault and abuse of psychiatric patients represents gross negligence and should not be tolerated.

A study conducted by Transportation of America based in Washington D.C. from 2000 to 2009 found that although people 65 and older represent 13% of the population, they represented 22% of the pedestrian deaths. Cities like New York and Chicago are taking aim to make cities safer for elderly pedestrians to reduced pedestrian injuries and deaths. The Chicago personal injury attorneys of Zneimer and Zneimer note a high percentage of pedestrian injury clients are elderly and almost all of the crashes that caused the pedestrian injuries occurred in a cross walk.

As a response to studies showing that elderly pedestrians are at risk, cities like Chicago and New York are making changes. These changes include "countdown" signals at intersections, speed bumps, extended curbs and medians in the middle of wide intersections. One of the biggest changes advocated by Transportation for America are for walk signals to be made longer to allow enough time the elderly to cross. The assumption is that a pedestrian can cover 3.5 to 4 feet per second but the elderly typically can cover only 2.5 feet per second.

In 2006 Jose Alvarado promised Cesar Gamboa, Ruben Nava, and Mauro Lopez, who were unlawfully in this country, that for $15,000 apiece, he could get them United States citizenship papers. Alvarado promised that he could deliver “authentic citizenship documents” for them through a contact at the US Consulate office in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He told them that he had contacts that could influence the immigration authorities to expedite the application process but would need to pay employees in the different departments to obtain the necessary releases. Alvarado stated that he and his brother were obtaining their citizenship documents through the contact and invited Gamboa, Nava, and Lopez to join the group. The latter agreed and began paying in installments to Alvarado. Alvarado issued them receipts for the payments through his business, Marco’s Digital Video and Photography, Inc., to prove that the payments were legitimate. They say that Alvarado used “high-pressure tactics” to get the payments, calling them weekly until they had paid in full.

Once he received the money, however, Alvarado became less communicative. He did not deliver the promised “authentic citizenship documents” but delivered various excuses. In March 2009, he told the group that they were all swindled by the Mexican contact. Alvarado asked the group to contribute additional $200 each to hire a Mexican lawyer to pursue restitution from the swindler in Mexico. These additional payments did not fare any better than the first payments. Soon Alvarado informed the group that the legal challenge was not an option but proposed a new strategy. The new plan was to hire thugs in Mexico to kidnap the swindler and to get their money back. If the swindler would not return the money, the thugs would kill him. However, in October 2009, Alvarado told the group that the kidnapping plan was also on hold.

The thug-and-kidnapping plan having failed, Gamboa, Nava, and Lopez decided to try their luck with the Circuit Court of Cook County. They filed a lawsuit against Alvarado and his business for fraud, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The trial court dismissed the complaint, finding that the contract between the plaintiffs and the defendants were illegal and could not be enforced by the court. The plaintiffs appealed. The appellate court reversed.

The appellate court noted that plaintiffs’ complaint alleged that defendants engaged in numerous instances of unfair and deceptive practices in the conduct of trade or commerce in violation of the section of the Consumer Fraud, which governs private providers of immigration assistance services. The appellate court noted that there was no question that the verbal contract between defendants and plaintiffs was illegal and involved a “scheme” wherein the five members of the group agreed to obtain their citizenship documents “by circumventing the normal, legal process that the public follows in obtaining such documents” such as by paying bribes and paying off government officials in violation of assorted criminal codes. The appellate court agreed that the courts would not enforce an illegal contract.

However, the appellate court noted, the plaintiffs were not seeking to enforce the contract. What they were seeking with the lawsuit was to get their money back from the defendants on the basis of the fraudulent contract, costs they incurred as a result of the contract and assorted punitive damages including those provided for by the Consumer Fraud Act. The appellate court noted:

We do not find, notwithstanding defendants’ argument to the contrary, that allowing plaintiffs to proceed with their claims would be tantamount to allowing them to enforce an illegal contact. Plaintiffs seek compensation for defendants’ actions in violating the Consumer Fraud Act and in misleading them, in promising something they had no ability or intent to deliver with full knowledge that plaintiffs would be harmed financially and emotionally by their actions. We do not find that allowing plaintiffs’ case to proceed would, as defendants assert, give “the parties’ meeting of the minds legitimacy.” Nor do we find that it will “send a message to those who lawfully engage in the process of obtaining immigration papers that if you do not accomplish your goal legally and through proper channels, then it is okay to do it by illegal means such as bribery and paying off corrupt officials within a government.” On the contrary, allowing plaintiffs’ claims to proceed will send a message to those unscrupulous individuals who mislead and prey on others by promising them immigration services they cannot deliver that there are ramifications for this antisocial behavior. These individuals cannot be allowed to use the very illegality of their agreement as a way to avoid the consequences of their actions.

You can read the entire court’s decision here.

If you have been victim of a fraud and have suffered injuries, contact the Chicago attorneys Zneimer & Zneimer p.c. for advice.