Posted on October 05, 2016 in Firm News

We live in an era of specialization. Football teams have special squads. In health care, there are insurance plans that seek to manage the care process in hopes that costs can be kept under control. Just what the level of management should be and how well it works remains the subject of a lot of debate here in Central Illinois and across the country.

In general terms, if an attorney graduates from law school and passes the bar, he or she is deemed qualified to practice. But the law has its areas of specialty, as well. One attorney might focus on estate planning; another on family law. Yet another might provide criminal defense services. Personal injury law encompasses such a broad range of potential issues that protection of client rights warrants special commitment.

Whether you suffer injury in a city or a rural setting, whether your issue involves a slip and fall, a work injury or the loss of a loved one due to negligence of others, you want to have confidence that the attorney you enlist will be prepared to deal with your matter from start to finish.

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 Posted on September 30, 2016 in Firm News

Forced arbitration is a term many people might not be too familiar with, but it is something that anyone in central Illinois who might have a beef with a business entity needs to be aware of. The reason is simple. Even if you have a legitimate legal claim that you feel entitles you to your day in court, it might not be possible to obtain if your agreement with the offending entity includes a clause requiring going to arbitration.

The move toward mandatory arbitration agreements is one that has been underway for about 30 years. Many observers trace the origin back to the 1980s. That's when the U.S. Supreme Court reinterpreted a 1925 federal law in a way that granted corporations to shift possible legal claims by employees and consumers from civil court to forced arbitration.

The negative effects of the trend are now notable across a whole array of industries. But this week, the administration issued a new rule that some say will tip the scales more in favor of those who have claims of abuse, harassment or wrongful death due to nursing home negligence.

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 Posted on September 23, 2016 in Firm News

Anyone with a measure of experience with construction knows it can be dangerous. On-the-job injury may be common across the central Illinois region, though regulators would argue that wouldn't be the case if employers fulfilled safety obligations to their workers from the outset of every project.

Unfortunately, that doesn't occur all the time. In some cases, it's not a matter of a one-time oversight. Sometimes, the problem can be chronic. That's the allegation the Occupational Safety and Health Administration makes against one Belleville roofing company.

OSHA observes the contractor has a "long history of putting his workers in danger." One area director describes the contractor as having "a callous disregard" for worker safety and "utter indifference" to the law.

That statement follows a probe this year in which investigators found five employees lacked fall protection at one site as they worked 13 feet off the ground. But OSHA notes that the company's record of violations goes back to 2006. It is delinquent on paying nearly $270,000 in penalties and regulators are seeking another $89,000 in citations for the latest infraction.

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 Posted on September 15, 2016 in Car Accidents

The way we talk about collisions on the road is misleading. We discussed this in a post back in June. The position we offered then is that, in most cases, what we call accidents are really disasters caused by someone's negligence or reckless behavior. As such, seeking compensation for victims and holding someone accountable isn't merely justified. It's demanded.

Vehicle crashes are major causes of catastrophic injury and death in central Illinois. Contributing factors can be many. Agriculture is big business here and large machines lumbering slowly along are common. Their presence can lead drivers to get antsy at the wheel and make deadly decisions. Speeding, drunk driving, texting and other forms of distraction are problems, too.

One potential crash factor that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves would be driving drowsy. According to a report by the Governors Highway Safety Association, there are nearly 84 million sleep-deprived individuals behind the wheels of vehicles every day. Its estimated crashes involving these drivers resulted in about 5,000 fatalities last year. The cost to the nation comes in at more than $100 billion. That doesn't include property damage.

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 Posted on September 01, 2016 in Firm News

The concept of interstate commerce might not be something most people around Springfield give much thought to. Routines might be restricted to waking up, getting the children to school, getting to work and getting everyone home safely at the end of the day. It's only when extraordinary events occur that we might have to confront broader issues.

Truck accidents involving interstate haulers certainly would seem to fall into that category. Crashes with semitrailer trucks typically injure or kill individuals in the smaller vehicle. And the process required to hold all the possible liable parties to account can be complicated if there are multiple entities from many different states involved. Recovery of due compensation could take the skills of an experienced attorney.

The issue of licensing of long-haul truckers alone provides a glimpse into the possible difficulties someone might encounter. For example, there was a recent case out of Florida that is now casting a shadow over the commercial licenses of a large number of truckers.

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 Posted on August 25, 2016 in Firm News

When a car and a tractor-trailer truck collide, one generally expects the car and its driver to come out on the wrong end of the stick in terms of injuries or death. Statistics suggest that expectation is reasonable. And when you think about workers dying on the job, most in Illinois probably don't put truck drivers high on the list.

That is not how the U.S. Department of Labor sees things. While many might see firefighting, police work or even construction as the leaders in terms of risky businesses, officials say truck drivers deserve to be counted. By the DOL's numbers, truckers account for one in six of all deaths among U.S. workers every year, and the rate of trucker fatalities is generally on the rise.

Most of the deaths are due to truck accidents on the road. Not only that, but the DOL says truckers tend to suffer more injuries that force them off the road for recovery than all other occupations. In 2014, the number totaled more than 55,000 in the industry. And officials say the nature of the injuries is such that truckers wind up requiring a lot more time to heal.

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 Posted on August 19, 2016 in Firm News

Controlled environment -- if ever there is a phrase that ought to describe what we should find in an Illinois assisted living or nursing home setting that would probably be it. These are places we depend on to provide care for some of the most vulnerable members of our community. When that trust is violated and a loved one suffers neglect or abuse, seeking remedy is a right. It can sometimes be a challenge to obtain.

Unfortunately, the abuse in nursing homes isn't as uncommon as we would like it to be. Home employees can be one source of the problem. But what if the source of the abuse is not home employees? What if the perpetrators of the abuse are other residents?

We think most experts would agree that it shouldn't matter. Abuse is abuse, regardless of the source. What's more, it seems logical to expect that if homes have a duty to keep residents safe from employee abuse, the employees also have an obligation to keep their charges safe from abusive behavior by other residents.

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 Posted on August 12, 2016 in Firm News

Anyone in Illinois who is injured on the job has a right to expect to have their medical treatments and related health care needs covered by workers' compensation benefits. That's why the system exists. However, the science behind the medicine sometimes can come into question. When it does, the result can be a denial of benefits can result.

Every case is going to be different. That's why a detailed assessment of the facts and the circumstances in any given situation is crucial. The importance of having a skilled attorney working on your behalf can't be overstated.

This may be something on the mind of one man after a recent decision by the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court's Workers' Compensation Commission Division, based in Springfield. According to a news report, the man has been seeking to obtain workers' compensation coverage for a claim dating back to October 2004.

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 Posted on August 04, 2016 in Firm News

If we really took time to think about all the ways we could be hurt or killed in everyday life we might never get out of bed. That would not be good for the Illinois economy or our own well-being. We have to work. Indeed, as social animals, there's a certain instinct for us to engage with the world somehow.

No, most of us want and need to be active. Still, life has its risks and injuries in the workplace are bound to occur. When they do, workers' compensation insurance is the means by which individuals are supposed to get the treatment they need and to get back on their feet, without any delay due to disagreements about who might be to blame.

When most of us ponder the possibility of getting hurt at work, we might imagine a few common scenarios. In construction, it might be a fall from a scaffolding. In factory work, it might be injuries from repetitive activity. Of course, there are always back injuries.

Injuries due to violence in the work place probably doesn't even register, but there are good reasons why the issue deserves focus. For one thing, injuries resulting from workplace violence should be covered by workers' compensation, but some insurance companies have just stopped offering policies.

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 Posted on July 28, 2016 in Firm News

It's hot out. That's to be expected. It's summer across the country, including here in central Illinois. Folks often call these the "dog days." While it's commonly thought that the phrase came into being to describe days so hot that even dogs couldn't bring themselves to stir, its roots are actually more astronomical.

To the ancient Greeks, the hottest days of the summer were marked by the appearance in the heavens of Sirius, the Dog Star. When it appeared before the sun's rising, it meant the arrival of the hottest season and raised fears of fevers and catastrophe.

We don't associate summer with Sirius today. We just know it's hot. But concern about the heat is something farm operators should be taking seriously to avoid possible injury to farm workers.

Long-term weather forecasting isn't particularly accurate, but that doesn't stop meteorologists from making the effort. According to the National Weather Service, the outlook from August to October indicates that temperatures in the region will be higher than normal. The outlook for precipitation is less clear, but it's thought that crops will probably be all right.

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