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Personal Injury Lawyer Discusses Workers’ Compensation

workers compensation


 

 

Workers’ Compensation Overview

My name is Attorney Keith Schindler, I’m coming to you with another edition of Claim Your Justice via Facebook Live on workers’ compensation. These video sessions aim to give our viewers and the rest of the Facebook community valuable and helpful information on personal injury cases and related personal Injury topics. We welcome positive comments and questions. You can always call us at Claim Your Justice, visit us on the web, or call 847-434-3555.

Today I want to discuss the nuts and bolts of a workers’ compensation case. You go to work, you intend to do your job, and unfortunately, you’re injured while doing your job, within the scope of your employment. Many workers are injured every day. The range of injuries can be from a simple soft-tissue type of back injury where you get physical therapy and injuries requiring surgery. It could be a significant back injury, where you have a herniated disc or related type of spinal condition and need surgery.

Rarely, but it happens, there are cases where a worker is permanently restricted from working. We have a worker’s compensation case where our client suffered an injury at work and is unfortunately in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Then there are also those sad cases where a worker is injured, and the injury results in the worker’s death. These incidents are unfortunate with different degrees of severity, but no one deserves to go to work, be injured on the job, and not get compensated for their injuries.

How Workers’ Compensation Got Started

From a quick historical perspective, workers’ compensation cases grew out of the type of working conditions in the early 1900s when they were building, for example, the Empire State Building. There weren’t many rules regarding worker safety, and workers were being injured, maimed, and killed without getting fair compensation, or for that matter, any compensation for their injuries. That’s the basic evolution of these workers’ compensation cases.

Workers’ Compensation Laws Are Different in Each State

Workers’ compensation laws vary from state to state. Essentially, they have their court system to administer the workers’ injury claims. Those cases do not make it to a court or a judge as we understand them in everyday conversation unless they’re appealed outside of the workers’ compensation venue. In Illinois, workers’ compensation cases are filed in the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development in Wisconsin hears worker’s injuries. I’m licensed in both Illinois and Wisconsin. In Kentucky, where one of our attorneys is licensed, those injury cases are heard within the department of workers’ claims. The general rule is that an injured worker is entitled to a few elements of damages. First, they are entitled to compensation for the time they missed from work. Generally, that’s at two-thirds of their regular salary, which is determined by having taxes withheld from your paycheck when you work.

When you’re not working, you don’t have to pay employment taxes, your employer doesn’t have to pay employment taxes, so you get roughly two-thirds of your check. You’re also entitled to get your medical bills paid. That makes sense. There are often disagreements between the worker and the doctors treating the worker and what type of services are needed. That is a discussion for another time, but you’re entitled to get your medical bills paid.

Finally, you’re entitled to compensation for the permanent nature of your injury. Suppose you went to work one day, went home from work, and were no longer able to walk anymore, or now walk with a permanent limp, or experience any permanent injury. In that case, you are entitled to compensation for the permanent nature of those injuries.

You Must Communicate the Injury to Your Employer

When injured on the job, it’s necessary to communicate the injury to your employer. Some people don’t do that. They’re injured on the job and don’t want to miss their paycheck. They don’t understand workers’ compensation rules. They worry that they may be fired if they make a claim.

So, the worker decides to continue going to work. The pain continues to ache throughout their back, shoulder, and ankle daily, but they decide to continue to go to work because they want to get paid. Then a few weeks later, the worker realizes the injury is too severe to work through it and that they need to report it now. They go to their supervisor and explain that they were injured. When the supervisor asks when the injury occurred, and the worker says five weeks ago, it is more complicated.

You can still assert the claim, but it is more difficult to protect the claim. My advice is that when you’re injured, make sure you report it to your supervisor. The best way to do so would be to send an email. Most injuries are reported orally to a supervisor. Then there is typically a report that’s made, and you may be contacted, depending on the size of your company, by the workers’ compensation representative.

Seek Medical Treatment Immediately

The next thing is to seek medical treatment, this is obvious, but there’s a push and pull because companies want to preserve their expenses. The companies don’t necessarily want their workers’ compensation premiums to go up. So, there is sometimes a prejudice, let’s call it, where the employing medical group may say, “Do a little less medical work, maybe take a couple of Advils for a week, let’s see if that fixes your pain.”

Well, that will benefit the employer, not you, the employee. When you get medical treatment, and assuming it’s authorized, it will get paid. If it’s not authorized, the argument points to necessity. If the employer disputes that it was necessary, there are hearings that you can motion up before the commission and present your argument as to why the employer should pay your medical bills.

Follow The Doctor’s Instructions

When you go to a doctor, the doctor will evaluate you and give you a doctor’s work authorization. It could say no lifting more than five pounds, only light work if you’re a truck driver, no driving for more than five miles. Well, that’s not realistic, but it could say that. Your job as the injured worker is to make sure you follow that doctor’s advice.

If the doctor says you should go to work and feel you can’t go to work because you’re too injured, the doctor didn’t authorize you to miss work, and you risk getting fired by your job. You don’t have a valid reason to be missing work. You have a doctor who’s treating you. He’s an expert. He’s a medical doctor, he’s licensed, and he says there is no reason for you not to be working. You, as the employee, say, “I’m injured. I can’t go to work”.

You may face a situation where you get terminated from your job and have difficulty seeking relief for future employment. Remember, it’s not going to affect your workers’ compensation claim, but it could affect your status as an employee with the company. That’s the risk of not following the assignment. There’s also light-duty work. The problem with light-duty work sometimes is that not every job has light-duty available. If you’re a laborer and you’re lifting materials from one part of the warehouse to another part of the warehouse, and your doctor says no lifting over 10 pounds, the employer may not have any light-duty work for you to do.

Make sure you follow the doctor’s advice regarding the work restrictions. Generally, when we get to a settlement on a workers’ compensation case, my clients have completed their treatment. The doctor has determined that the client had something that we call MMI, maximum medical improvement. At that point, I, as the lawyer, can review the medical records and make a proper evaluation as to the entitled compensation for my clients.

If I have a client who requires many more weeks or months of treatment, the employee is not at maximum medical improvement. Therefore, I’m not able to settle their case. Of course, the lawyer and the client have some push and pull because the client wants to get the settlement money right now. I understand that, and we work as quickly as we can. But I’m also not in the business of selling my clients short. I want to make sure I get the maximum compensation for each of you who are my clients.

Contact Our Workers’ Compensation Lawyers Today

Please know that workers’ compensation cases can be complex. Many rules apply. I do not recommend that you try to handle workers’ compensation by yourself. There could be a medical treatment that you’re entitled to that you’re not getting. So please call us so you don’t make any mistakes that could cost you your compensation.

If you’re injured in any work, accident, car accident, trip, fall, medical malpractice, or wrongful death, let Claim Your Justice help you. Call 847-434-3555. We’re here to help you Claim Your Justice. Thank you. This has been Keith Schindler, have a successful rest of your week.

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How Do I Protect Myself From a Lawsuit For An Injury On My Property?

personal injury

Anytime you have people into your home or business, you risk the chance that you could get sued for negligence if one of those people is injured. Negligence, by definition, means an accident. That means that you can have the best intentions, and still, someone can get injured. Under Illinois premise liability statutes, you could be liable for injuries, and thus, have to pay for the damages that a person suffered on your property.

Although you can’t plan for every contingency and event, there are things that you can do, as a homeowner or as a business owner, to keep your property safer, and minimize the risk of accidents. The goal is to make those accidents that cause injury, less likely to happen.

Warning of Dangerous Conditions

Not every part of your property can be safe, all the time. For example, in private homes, there may be cracked pavement that juts out, causing an obstruction to someone who walks in the area. You may have an object, like a vacuum cleaner, that may protrude into a walkway.

Businesses may need to clean the floors, which entails having part of the floor slippery for a short period of time. Also, with customers coming in and out, a dangerous condition, like mud or water being tracked through the store, can be expected and result in a negligence claim.

You should try, if possible, to warn other people of potential dangers that you know exist, even if they are out in the open. This can be done verbally, of course, which is an okay strategy for private homes. But, it may also be better just to block areas off, or rope areas off, temporarily, if it seems that they may present a danger. Businesses should invest in ropes, cones or signage to be used for this reason.

Signage should also be used to warn people where they should not go. For example, a sign can avoid a curious customer from going into a store’s stock area to look for an item or from going into a car repair garage area. All areas that could be potentially dangerous.

Although it is not always a guarantee, having clear, obvious warnings can go a long way to protecting you from liability. To learn more about premise liability in Illinois, please reach out to the Illinois premise liability lawyers at Claim Your Justice.

Keep Clean

Businesses don’t always have to keep their property safe every single minute, but they do have to take actions and measures to show that they are diligently and properly monitoring their area.

Businesses should keep employees who monitor cleanliness on a set cleaning schedule and have a cleaning schedule that allows for an employee to scan for dangerous conditions regularly. Employees should have a log or some way to document when each area of the store was observed or cleaned.

There is no bright-line time limit that says that you need to observe or clean your home or business every 3, 5, or 10 minutes. How often is enough to protect you from liability, depends on the circumstance. Sweeping or mopping every hour may be fine on the average Tuesday, but on a Saturday or the day before Christmas, it may be too little. For private homes, if you have a party with 20 people, you may need to clean more often than you would if you just had 1 or 2 close friends over.

Pay Attention When Watching Others

This may be more applicable to private homes. In homes with children, you may find your home ends up as the meeting grounds for play dates with your child’s friends. Too many times, homeowners see playdates as temporary babysitters or the adult’s time to rest. As a result, the kids “play on their own.”

However, this is irresponsible and dangerous, especially for younger kids. Younger kids should never be left alone, unattended. You, as the supervising adult, may be held liable for failure to supervise young kids who are injured on your watch.

This becomes especially dangerous when kids are unsupervised while doing dangerous (or potentially dangerous) activities. For example, swimming, motorbiking, or playing physical games, all require your constant supervision as an adult. This is aside from the fact that young children can often be friends one minute, and physically fight the next. In this case, it takes you, as an adult, to stop this from happening.

A business doesn’t have a general duty to watch over or supervise its patrons. This is unless it is in a business where it is foreseeable that danger, harm, or violence could occur. Bartenders and other associated workers may need to watch over bar patrons to avoid violence and overserving of alcohol, for instance. Another situation could be if your business handles vulnerable populations, like younger kids or the elderly.

Keep Walking Areas Clear

This may sound like common sense, but it is often very easy that a business-owned ladder, forklift, box, or another item, large or small, ends up obstructing somewhere people will walk. Do not rely on the belief that someone will surely see the item, and thus, could not fall on it. Although something being out in the open is a valid legal defense, it is not foolproof, and should not be relied upon.

Businesses should have written policies, and employees should be trained. Often, accidents happen when untrained employees leave obstructions in walkways for just seconds. Think about someone stocking a shelf. Should they walk away from the stocking cart for a few minutes, it becomes a hazard in the walkway. That could lead to an unsuspecting patron being harmed by tripping over the cart.

Homes should also make sure that there aren’t items on the floor or walkways. This can be more difficult with homes that have children. A small toy in a doorway or jutting out from under a cabinet can end up being a dangerous item that causes someone else to fall.

Use Security

Certainly, crime is random, and a business cannot always ensure that visitors don’t end up as crime victims. However, there are things a business can do, to ensure that the people who visit the business are free from crime.

Consider your property and whether you need human security guards. This could be either inside the premises or around it. Additionally, think about how many you need, and whether that security needs to be trained as security. Potentially, it may be necessary to hire professional guards from an actual security company. In other situations, maybe security can be taken care of using one of your employees equipped with a phone or walkie-talkie to communicate with authorities if needed.

Even if you decide that you don’t need human security, other things can be done, to make it harder for you to be sued if someone is the victim of crime on your premises. For example, lighting in parking lots and video cameras on the premises can go a long way to minimizing the risk of a crime event happening on your property.

Fix What’s Broken

The physical items around us break down and need repair or replacement over time. You should be aware of the things on your property that may need repair and handle them accordingly. If something needs repair and can’t be repaired for some reason in a reasonable amount of time, you should take measures to warn other people of the dangerous condition.

Some things that tend to break down, which we may or may not notice include:

  • Stairway handrails can get shaky or unhinged from whatever they are affixed to.
  • Parking lot bumpers, where the cement can deteriorate, or where the paint can fade.
  • Any painting on your floor that is there for safety, such as stripes on the edges of stairs.
  • Shelving that may hold up items that, if the shelving were to collapse could land on your customers.
  • Walkways or pathways that may buckle or crack, or tiles on a floor that may start to lift.
  • Carpet or floormats that get worn down, and which may roll up or stick up on the edges.
  • Shopping carts that may have sharp edges on them.

Consider the Elements

You can’t control if it rains or snows, or if a customer tracks mud from outside, inside your property. But there are things you can do to address and minimize the danger.

For example, some types of flooring are more slippery when exposed to ice, snow, or rain, than other flooring may be. Some types of flooring are just naturally slick.

Often, your flooring can be coated or treated in ways that give it more friction.

If it is raining or snowing, businesses may want to assign an employee to regularly monitor the area around the doorway to keep it clean and dry. Of course, a mat or carpet at the doorway can also help ensure that snow or ice doesn’t get tracked inside the property.

Use Common Sense – and Maybe an Expert

No matter what kind of problem you are trying to avoid, some of these problems require common sense application of policies and procedures, while others may require some kind of consultation with an expert in a safety or security field.

The good news is that you may be able to lower the cost of your insurance or get other tax benefits, from the money that you spend on these security measures or improvements to your store. That’s not to mention the peace of mind that you will have knowing that if something were to happen on your property, you will have a solid defense to any claim that may be brought against you.

Call our Schaumberg personal injury attorneys at Claim Your Justice to schedule a free consultation if you are injured on someone else’s property at 847-434-3555.

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How Your Medical Bills Are Paid During A Personal Injury Case

medical bills


 

 

How Medical Bills Get Paid

Hello, thanks for visiting us on another edition of Claim Your Justice personal injury Q&A, this one is on medical bills. My name is Keith Shindler. I’m an attorney at Claim Your Justice. Over the past couple of months, we’ve had an opportunity to discuss different areas of personal injury law, what to do when a personal injury occurs, how to deal with liability issues, etc.

Today I want to talk about dealing with medical bills in the event of an injury. It could be a small number of medical bills somewhere in the range of several hundred or several thousand dollars. Or, in many of our cases, it’s 10s of 1000s of dollars. The question is, what are you going to do, and how will I help you settle your medical bills?

I want to talk with you about a real-life example. A case recently settled for $100,000, which was the policy limit on the case, and our client had $47,000 of medical bills. My job is to make sure that I maximize the amount of money that I put back into my clients’ pockets. My job is not to collect money and pay the doctors every dollar they billed to my client.

Illinois Health Care Services Lien Act

In Illinois, there’s something called the medical health care services lien act, which gives medical providers certain rights. We want to assume for this topic today that my client did not have any health insurance. All the bills are now the responsibility of my client. I need to make sure that I do my best to satisfy the bills without paying every dollar that the medical providers are claiming.

In this case, we have a $100,000 settlement. My goal is not to pay the medical providers more than one-third of the settlement, which would be $33,000. I want to make sure that my client at least gets one-third of the settlement. Of course, my goal is for the client to get more than that, but under the health care services lien act, medical providers have certain rights.

First, I need to contact each provider and propose a settlement of the medical bill. I want to make sure that any money paid to the provider will completely clear the bill for my client. The last thing I want is to have an $8,000 hospital bill, pay the hospital $4,000, and then my client gets an envelope in the mail from a collection agency saying that they owe another $4,000. I’m not going to let that happen. That’s part of the services we provide to our clients. We ensure protection in many different areas, including medical bill collections.

In this case, we have $47,000. Some clients think, okay, if I have to pay my attorney a third, that’s $33,000, I pay another $47,000 in medical bills, that is $80,000, and now the client may be thinking they are only going to get $20,000. That’s not how we roll here. We work aggressively for our clients to make sure we can reduce their medical bills as efficiently as possible. In this process, it’s not so easy because, as we know, they may have a hospital bill, then a radiology bill, on top of an emergency room bill, all separate from one another. Our staff needs to make sure we contact the right person, negotiate the proper settlement, and get a complete release from each of the providers so that my client knows they are clear of any future collection. Then I can distribute the money.

Health Insurance Companies

Now, let’s take an example where a client has health insurance. Hopefully, most people have health insurance. If your health insurance company pays for your medical bills, which is very frequent, then I need to make sure that the health insurance company gets protected because they have something called subrogation. Subrogation is where the health insurance company makes a payment, but in the policy document, it says when the payment is made for a personal injury case, the health insurance company gets back their payout.

In that situation, I will communicate with the health insurance company. As a quick footnote, if you’ve been in an accident and gone to the hospital, one of the questions they will ask you is, “Are you here as a result of an accident that someone else was responsible for?”. This question is because the provider wants to make sure they communicate with me to get their bill paid.

Going back to the health insurance example, you could have $47,000 in bills, and the health insurance company doesn’t pay the total amount of the bill. The $47,000 may be billed to the health insurance company. The health insurance company has a specific formula they calculate and payout that amounts through their insuring agreements with the providers. In that case, let’s say the bills are satisfied by the health insurance company for $20,000. It seems great, right?

Now, here’s where I come in to help. I’m going to try and negotiate that number down even further. If I can negotiate the $20,000 health insurance subrogation lien down to, let’s say, $15,000, then I pay $15,000 Out of the $100,000. I will pay $15,000 to the health insurance company as reimbursement. I’m going to take our fee of a third, $33,000. Now you have $48,000, and my client can get $52,000 out of the settlement for their injuries.

This topic is not always discussed because it comes up on the back end of a personal injury case when a case has settled, and the attorneys disperse the money to the client for their entitled recovery.

Contact Our Illinois Personal Injury Lawyers To Make Sure Your Medical Bills Are Paid

One last closing message. We’ve had cases where there has been $300,000 worth of medical bills or $250,000 worth of medical bills. The process is generally the same. The reductions are sometimes larger when you have more extensive medical bills. The fact is, I and Claim Your Justice needs to protect our clients once the case has settled to ensure no medical bills hanging over their heads. Thank you for listening. Remember when you or a loved one are injured in an accident, let Claim Your Justice help you. Contact Illinois personal injury lawyer Keith Shindler at 847-434-3555. Have a lovely afternoon, and thank you!

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What is the Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury Claims in Kentucky?

personal injury claims in Kentucky

You hear Louisville personal injury lawyers say this all the time: “Act fast, or your personal injury lawsuit could be forever barred.” Or you may have heard advertisements warning you that you have a “limited time” to file your lawsuit. But are all these assertions actually true? Is there really a time limit to file your personal injury lawsuit?

What is the Statute of Limitations?

These calls to action are in fact true. There are time limits to file personal injury claims, after which time, you lose the chance to file your lawsuit forever. These laws are called statutes of limitations.

Statutes of limitations are not unique to personal injury cases. Every kind of civil case, and even many criminal cases, has time limits. All people are subject to filing their lawsuit within a specific amount of time, as stated by the statute of limitations.

After the deadline expires, if you have not already filed your lawsuit, you will not ever be able to file your lawsuit. In other words, your ability to obtain financial compensation from the liable parties will be forfeited. So, Act fast and call Claim Your Justice.

Why Is There a Statute of Limitations?

The law has statutes of limitations because the law recognizes that a defendant at some point, must feel safe from being sued. There must be a time when a business or person is safe throwing away records, or destroying what would be evidence without worrying whether they could be sued later on. People cannot go their entire lives worried about whether they will be sued for something that happened 3, 5, 10, or 20 years ago.

The law also recognizes that as time goes on, witnesses’ memories fade, die, or they move away. Evidence disappears. It is hard to get to the truth of what happened in each accident when an accident happened 20 years ago.

How Long Do You Have to File?

Every state has its own statute of limitations, so you should not rely on just anything you read on the internet to figure out how long you have to file your case. A good Louisville personal injury lawyer can analyze your case, and explain to you Kentucky’s statute of limitations for how long you have to file your case.

Compared to other states, Kentucky has a shorter statute of limitations. You only have one year to file your personal injury claims in Kentucky. The one-year time applies to cases like slip and fall accidents, medical malpractice, intentional harms, negligent security claims, or products liability claims.

The “clock starts ticking” on that one-year time, on the day of your accident. Note that this is the day of the accident and not the day that you discover you may be injured. Although there are situations where the delayed discovery of your injuries could extend the statute of limitations, as discussed below.

You protect the statute of limitations, by filing a lawsuit in court. Making a claim with the defendant’s insurance company or sending demand letters, does not protect the time deadlines of the statute of limitations.

Injuries that arise from car accidents get some extra time. If you are injured in a car accident, you will have two years to file your lawsuit. Even better, that two years either starts on the day of the accident, or on the day that you received the last insurance payments from your own personal protection insurance coverage, whichever date happens later. Kentucky Revised Statutes 304.39-230 Limitations of actions.

Although car accidents can have a statute of limitations that goes a bit beyond two years, that is still a short amount of time to file a lawsuit.

Exceptions and Extensions to the Statute of Limitations

All of Kentucky’s statutes of limitations have some exceptions which can extend the time stated in the laws. If someone is:

  • Underage, that is, under the age of 18.
  • Incapacitated.
  • Is of “unsound mind”.

The time to file the lawsuit is extended to one year after the removal of the infirmity.

Practically, for minors, this will mean the lawsuit has to be filed within one year after the minor hits adulthood, age 18.

If someone’s injury is due to a defective product, or because of medical malpractice, and they are not aware that the injury is caused by a product or a doctor’s negligence, the law may provide some extended time. The one-year time limitation for products liability claims is extended in these cases, up to 5 years.

However, the time limit to file a lawsuit for medical malpractice will only be 1 year from the date that the injury or negligence was discovered.

There are also some extensions that the courts will provide, if the defendant hides from being served, or is absent from the state of Kentucky for an extended period. Some defendants “hide” from being served with personal injury lawsuits in Kentucky. As a result, the court will allow you some extra time to file your lawsuit, if you were delayed by a defendant’s trying to conceal himself.

You can also try to get the insurance company for the defendant, or the defendant itself, to agree to extend the statute of limitations. Sometimes, the defendant will agree to this. In instances where you are making meaningful headway towards resolving your case and the statute of limitations is quickly approaching. However, you should not rely on this. An insurance company often would rather take the chance that you don’t file, and thus that you miss the statute of limitations deadline.

What if You File After the Deadline?

If you try to file your personal injury lawsuit after the expiration of the deadline set by the statute of limitations, you can expect that the defendant will ask the court to dismiss your case. If the court finds that your case was filed too late, it will be dismissed by the judge. That means that you will not get to a jury or have your day in court.

It also means that any offer that the insurance company may have made to settle your case before you filed the lawsuit, will be withdrawn.

Why Time is So Important in Personal Injury Lawsuits

Although these time frames may seem lengthy, they in fact are not lengthy at all. In most cases, you cannot just walk into your Louisville personal injury attorney’s office, and have your case filed the next day. Your attorney will need time to get your documents and records and evaluate your claim.

In a car accident case, your attorney may want accident reconstruction experts to recreate the accident. This often happens when there are disputed versions of who caused the car accident, or how it happened or in very serious injury car accident r car accidents causing fatalities.

In some cases, like with products liability or medical malpractice cases, your attorney may want to get an expert to review your documents and evaluate the merits of your lawsuit.

In fact, Kentucky law requires, in malpractice cases, that a victim files a certificate of merit that says that an expert has reviewed the victim’s medical records. This accounts for further action that must be done by your attorney before your malpractice lawsuit can be filed.

You may also need time for follow-up medical treatment, or to find additional defendants who may be liable for your accident.

Additionally, the last thing you want is to be “under the gun,” facing an expiring statute of the limitations time limit, while you are negotiating with the insurance company. The insurance company will know the deadline is approaching. That likely will lead them to give you lower offers.

Suing Everyone Can be a Problem If You’re Too Late

You can also run into problems with unknown defendants if you file your lawsuit just before the statute of limitations has expired.

For example, you slip on the floor of Store A, and you sue Store A within the one-year statute of limitations. But then in the lawsuit Store A says that its cleaning company is the one who was liable. In this case, it could be too late to sue the cleaning company. Because you waited until the last minute you have now lost the opportunity to sue defendants who you did not know were liable, but actually were liable in full or in part for your injuries.

Speak to a Louisville Personal Injury Attorney Today

It is true, you should act fast and Call us Now if you have been injured in an accident so that your personal injury attorney in Louisville can help you. Putting yourself in the best position to secure maximum recovery means connecting with an experienced legal professional soon after your injury accident happens.

There are several steps that are necessary during the personal injury claim process, and anything can change or cause delays. Taking full advantage of the time that is defined in Kentucky’s personal injury statute of limitations is in your best interest.

Call our experienced, talented, and proficient Schaumberg personal injury attorneys at Claim Your Justice today to schedule a free no-obligation consultation at 847-434-3555.

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Personal Injury Attorney Keith Shindler On Slip & Fall Cases

slip and fall accidents


 

 

 

Slip & Fall Accident Cases In Illinois, Wisconsin, & Kentucky

Good afternoon, I am Keith Shindler coming to you for another edition of personal injury and Facebook Live, this one will cover slip & fall accidents. I do these sessions to try and bring to the community information about how you can help yourself recover damages and perfect your personal injury case. We welcome positive comments and questions. You can always call us at Claim Your Justice at 847-434-3555.

In our first episode, we discussed who pays for costs when a client is pursuing a personal injury case. In the second episode, we discuss what to do in the event of a car accident. In the third episode, we discussed chain reaction types of accidents.

Slip & Fall Accidents Are Common

Today I want to discuss slip & fall and trip and fall cases. Very basic, right? Someone is walking, they slip, fall, and injure themselves, or someone is walking, and trip and they fall and injure themselves. With the winter here, slip & fall accidents are prevalent. Even without the weather conditions, it could happen in a store. It could happen in a parking lot. It can occur when walking from a parking lot into a store.

This past week alone, I received three calls regarding slip & fall accidents. The first call was from a woman who fell at the Greyhound station in downtown Chicago. She had a severe injury where she broke her foot and required surgery. Another person tripped outside of the hospital. She fractured her hip and required surgery. Another prospective client slipped on ice coming out of the apartment building and fractured their leg.

Pictures Are Crucial To A Slip & Fall Accident Case

As you can see, these types of accidents frequently lead to severe injuries. If the victim properly documents and constructs the incident’s scene, the cases can succeed. However, the common element of the three cases that I just mentioned is that they had no pictures. Why do we need pictures? I’ll get to that in a second.

When I ask a person if they had pictures of an incident where they tripped and fell or slipped and fell, and they say no, I find it a little bit unusual because in our everyday lives if someone sees a fight, what’s the first thing they do? They whip out their phone. If someone sees a car accident, what’s the first thing they do? They whip out their phone. If someone sees anything that may be newsworthy or interesting to them from a social media perspective, they’re all over their phones.

They don’t even think of it when something happens personally, such as these three callers. I understand they were injured. They were in pain and needed help. But the fact of the matter is if you don’t get a picture of the area where you fell, send a family member back to get photos at the time of the fall. Or ask someone at the hospital, ask the ambulance driver. It’s a critically important part of building the case.

I, as your attorney, need to establish that there was some defective condition that the property owner or the company that takes care of the maintenance of the building did not properly address, and therefore it caused you to fall. It’s challenging and sometimes impossible for me to file a slip & fall lawsuit without this kind of evidence. Let’s look at the Greyhound station case. I go after the Greyhound station. I said my client fell in your facility. The first question is, where did they fall? Well, my client doesn’t have an exact location. She said it was on my way to the bathroom. Look at the other case, a person trips coming out of a hospital. There could be sidewalks that aren’t properly maintained. There could be sidewalks under construction, and there’s no proper signage—or cordoning off the construction site.

Those are all beneficial things that could help support a case, but I’m helpless without a picture. If it’s ice, those are complex cases. However, if there was what’s called in the law an ‘unnatural accumulation of ice, it helps me. I can help you recover substantial money with the correct facts.

In any personal injury case, you need a duty, a breach of the duty, a proximate cause, and damages. We’ll discuss duty and breach of duty in a later session. Damages are easy to understand. Someone’s injured, they fracture a bone, and they have surgery. Those are damages. Proximate cause. In law school, they taught us it’s called the “but for.”

But if the property owner had not properly maintained their property, this person would not have been injured. But for the company in charge of maintenance, the person wouldn’t have been injured. But the person wouldn’t have been injured if the construction company’s negligence in taking care of a repair job on a particular site. It’s called proximate cause. It’s a substantial element, a necessary element of a personal injury case.

How do we prove “but for”? Pictures, pictures, pictures. I had a recent case, we discussed it with you at the end of January, and I’ll touch on it again today. Our client was walking on a city street on a sidewalk that had something that’s called an uneven slabbing. So you have one high slab, another slab that is sunken down low. If they’re very close, it’s difficult to maintain a case, and this was not very close.

The client fell and fractured her wrist. She had surgery, and she called us right away. The first perfect thing they did was to help us represent them properly. In the case they talked to me, I said, please get someone out there to take pictures, they sent a relative out, took pictures, and we were able to establish the depth of difference, which was approximately three and a half inches. The images helped me confirm that “but for” the negligence in maintaining that particular sidewalk, the person would not have fallen.

I don’t mean to be redundant. I apologize if you think you’ve heard this five times already in the eight minutes we talked. It’s necessary. Once you get pictures, I can use those pictures to establish where the accident happened, how the accident happened, etc.

Sometimes, if a facility has security cameras, those security cameras’ videos could have captured the actual fall. It’s hard to get video. If it’s a neighbor’s video from like a Ring doorbell, it may be possible. If it’s a video from the person who’s maintaining the store, the house, or the other type of structure, they’re never going to turn it over voluntarily. I can get through litigation to discovery. But it’s difficult to put together a case that way.

On the issue of a Ring Doorbell, we can go around to the houses that may be around the incident scene. Everyone seems to have a ring doorbell or other type of doorbell that records these things. We take the time to knock on the door of those houses or other businesses and say, “Hey, can we get a copy of the video? If I get the video, I can help you.

Call Slip & Fall Attorney Keith Schindler Now

So let’s sum it up. I know you’re injured. I know people can get seriously injured in these trips and falls. My sister-in-law was very seriously injured, and it’s critical to take the pictures, please. Remember if you’re injured in a slip & fall accident, car accident, trip, fall, medical malpractice, or wrongful death. Let Claim Your Justice help you. Call 847-434-3555. We’re here to help you. Thank you. This has been Keith Shindler. Have a successful rest of your week.

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Be Aware of Common Nursing Home Injuries

Nursing Home Injuries

Nursing homes care for the most fragile and vulnerable members of our society and our families. This makes it critical that nursing homes take all the precautions necessary with our loved ones. But the fact is that the care provided does not always reach the appropriate level. Plus, your family is not there 24/7 to monitor the care and treatment that our elderly relatives are getting.

This is very different from when a child gets care, for example. We are with our children while they are receiving that medical treatment and because of this, we can monitor everything that is happening and ask questions online.

Why Nursing Homes are Unique

Nursing homes also must balance residents’ need for freedom, as well as the need to protect them, given the residents’ own limitations. Nursing home residents are not prisoners, nor are they school children. They are free adults with rights, and they deserve to lead full lives while maintaining the necessary quality of healthcare.

On the other hand, many may need special care or may need to be kept safe from themselves, and that often may require certain restrictions on their freedoms.

Nursing home residents are also unique because the care they receive is a mixture of non-medical and medical care. Nursing homes are often staffed with doctors. Residents’ day-to-day treatment often involves the administration of medicines, physical therapies, or diagnosing injuries and disease.

That means when there are nursing home injuries, there are several things that can go wrong. But, there are some accidents and injuries that are more common than others. It may help you to know what to look for if a loved one is injured in a nursing home, and what the most common types of nursing home injuries are.

Decubitus and Skin Ulcers (Bedsores)

Many nursing home residents are active, and able to get around on their own power. But many are not and are bedridden.

It may seem that laying in bed stationery is a pretty harmless activity. But, there is a hidden danger when a human body is sitting in a bed for an extended period of time: decubitus ulcers.

Ulcers of the skin happen when the skin is rubbing against a surface, such as a bedsheet, for an extended period without moving. The pressure of the skin on the surface below, and the lack of airflow can open gaping wounds on the skin.

These wounds can be superficial, simply scraping off the top layer of skin. They can also be more serious. In some cases, so serious that they expose layers of tissue, muscle, and bone.

Aside from the obvious pain, these are open wounds. As such, the patient is susceptible to infection. Decubitus ulcers can and often are deadly.

Thankfully, many nursing homes have beds that automatically move the patient’s body. Otherwise, many homes are trained to have staff simply move or reposition the patient’s body periodically to avoid any one part of the body from being in contact with the surface underneath for an extended period.

But often, patients are overlooked. The hospital staff in a nursing home may be poorly trained. A resident can be left in one position for too long. Making matters worse, the ulcer is often underneath the patient’s body, out of eyesight. That means that nurses and other staff can easily overlook a decubitus ulcer in its early stages, making the nursing home injuries worse.

Bed Rails

Bed rails are meant to protect residents from falling out of bed. Also, bed rails can serve to prevent the patient from getting up and walking around during periods where there is not enough supervision to keep them safe.

But those same safety measures can also cause harm. In fact, bed rails can be so dangerous that the FDA reports that 50% of bedrail injuries end up being fatal.

Most bed rail injuries involve residents becoming lodged between the bed itself, and the bed rails. Unable to get themselves up, their body weight pushes their bodies further down between the bed and the bed rail. Eventually, they may be crushed or be unable to breathe.

Other injuries happen when a resident tries to get over the bed rails. Because the bed rails are higher, the fall from going over the bed rail, all the way down to the floor, can end up being deadly.

Falls

The good news for many nursing home residents is that if they are walking and able to transport themselves, they have a certain level of independence and quality of life. The bad news is that a mobile elderly resident can also be a resident in danger. Specifically, if he or she is allowed to go into areas where residents are not permitted to go or move about without proper supervision or assistance.

Many of these areas are intended for staff. The same staff that are aware of, and who can avoid, things on the floor, or items on shelves, or who can maneuver cluttered areas. Nursing home residents cannot do this, and when they venture into these areas, nursing home injuries such as falls can easily happen.

Like any business or hospital, nursing homes can have fluids on floors, or objects that obstruct walkways. When you or I encounter these situations, there may be no incident. When elderly nursing home resident does, they may be too unstable to keep themselves from falling.

The injuries to an already frail nursing home resident can be devastating. Many do not have the agility or musculature to brace themselves from the impacts of a fall. These falls can lead to serious fractures.

Abuse

Sadly, abuse is a fact of life in many nursing homes. However, it is illegal, and victims can sue for damages that are sustained when they are abused in nursing homes. Abuse can come in many forms:

  1. Nursing home staff, untrained to deal with residents, may use excessive force in trying to handle residents. They may also become frustrated with residents not following instructions, and resort to violence or improper restraining.
  2. Nursing home staff may not do anything intentional at all, but may simply use too much force when handling or managing residents.
  3. Abuse can happen from other residents. Sexual assault and physical abuse from other residents is a common problem in nursing homes. It is the nursing homes’ obligation to recognize these dangerous situations. If they are identified, the nursing home must do whatever can be done to minimize or avoid them. A nursing home cannot take a “blind eye” to relative-on-relative abuse.

Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice in a nursing home is much the same as it would be for anybody. If a relative’s condition is not getting better or is getting worse, or if there is some condition, accident, or injury that appears to be untreated, it may be an indication of medical malpractice.

Many nursing homes may be slow to order needed tests or diagnostics or may not get residents the medications that they need in a timely manner, or may administer the incorrect medications.

If your loved one has been sitting with a nursing home injury or condition for an extended period without any medical attention at all, it is possible that he or she is a victim of medical malpractice.

Nursing Home Abuse or Neglect: How Can You Tell?

It is very likely when you visit a loved one in the nursing home you will not personally see or observe your loved one being abused, neglected, or ignored. Making matters more difficult, many of our loved ones may be suffering dementia or other conditions that don’t make them very reliable when retelling what may have happened to them.

A Schaumburg nursing home neglect lawyer can help you Claim Your Justice and determine if a nursing home has abused or neglected a loved one. Here are some ways that you can tell if there is abuse going on in the nursing home.

The obvious sign of abuse is physical injury. Often, seemingly small injuries can lead to discoveries of larger cases of abuse. For example, a loved one that has a small bruise may actually be a victim of abuse. For the bruise you see, there may be others you don’t see, or which have since healed.

Loved ones may complain of feeling sick. It may be a slight head cold, nothing serious. But that also could be the start of infection caused by a major decubitus ulcer.

If your loved one is communicative, monitor changes in mood and affect. Depression, or a change in personality, can often signal pain, or abuse, that is happening when you’re not there. Whenever an outgoing person becomes withdrawn, or people start demonstrating abnormal personality traits, it could be a sign that something is going on.

Remember that these personality changes could also indicate a concussion which is a common result of falls. You may want to ask if your loved one has received any diagnostic scans to see if there is an underlying cause for these personality changes. You may want to look at your loved one’s head, for any visible signs of head trauma.

Doing an Investigation

As a family, you are entitled to see your loved one’s records. You may want to look at both the nursing home records, as well as medical records. Many medical records may be kept separately at the offices of the attending physicians.

Your Schaumburg nursing home neglect lawyer can get records for you, and often have an expert review the records to see if there has been neglect or abuse.

You can also speak to a resident’s attending doctors. Many only have knowledge of their medical treatment, but not the care the nursing home is giving when they aren’t there. This still can help you get an idea of what injuries or ailments the doctor has been treating. Then, you can have a broader picture of what has been going on with your loved one while you weren’t there.

Do you believe that a loved one may have been a victim of abuse or neglect in a nursing home? We can help. Call our Schaumburg nursing home abuse attorneys at Claim Your Justice to schedule a free consultation at 847-434-3555.

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Personal Injury Attorney Discusses What To Do After Car Accident

car accident


 

 

 

Claim Your Justice Live Session January 25th 2022

What To Do In The Event Of A Car Accident

Hello, good afternoon, attorney Keith Shindler coming to you for our second Facebook Live. The purpose of these live sessions is to give our viewers and the rest of the Facebook community valuable and useful information on personal injury cases, and personal injury topics. We welcome positive comments and questions, you can always call us to Claim Your Justice™ at 1-888-88-Keith. We are here to help you Claim your Justice™.

Last week, we covered the topic of who pays for the cost when a client has to pursue a personal injury case, it was basic information, but we’re going to start basic. So we covered that item. Today we’re going to cover what to do in the event of a car accident. What’s the first thing necessary to do, you’re going to be shaken up, in pain, concerned about your injuries, and so on.

Make Sure Your Surroundings Are Safe

The first thing you want to do is make sure that your surroundings are safe. Sometimes when an accident happens, there’s a secondary accident because the parties didn’t secure their safety. I do not recommend that you move your car. If you can exit the car and walk out of the car, under your strength, I suggest you do that. If you can, make sure your hazards are on, and you’re giving approaching traffic any possible notice that there’s an accident ahead.

Of course, if you’re injured, the first thing you need to do is call the ambulance. The second thing you should do, if you can, is call 911. I understand these are all very basic pieces of information, but I need to relay this information to you. Although we know what to do in this calm setting that we’re in now, sometimes when there’s an accident, you’re nervous, you’re not going to remember what to do.

Hopefully, my reminding you of these things will help penetrate them into your memory so that you’ll know what to do in the event of an accident. Once the ambulance comes, they’re going to give you the medical attention you need. Of course, if they take you to a hospital because you’re injured, you’re not going to be able to do this next piece that I’m going to talk about.

Take Pictures If Possible

It’s very important to take pictures of the area where the accident happened. If you could take pictures of the car that struck you, or the truck that hit you, do that. Take pictures of any important street indicators, if they’re under construction, you may want to get a brief couple of pictures of the construction site.

Why is that important? Sometimes the car that hit you may move, and you may not be able to secure the pictures, or the mechanics of how the accident happened can be reconstructed through the pictures that you take.

Don’t Worry About Your Car

My job is to make sure my clients get the treatment that they need. So if you need to go to the emergency room, you should go to the emergency room. The ambulance, of course, will ask if you need to go to the emergency room? How do you feel? Many times a client will say I don’t need to go to the emergency room. In part maybe because they’re not injured, but they’re also very worried about their car.

Clients have asked me in the past if I go to the emergency room, what’s going to happen in my car, it’s going to get towed, I’m not going to find it, that was a new car, and so on. Very real-life things. However, your health, and dealing with your injuries are critical. If you don’t go to the emergency room with the ambulance, then you may go after you secure your car. Sometimes if you’re injured, the ambulance driver may not give you the choice because they’re going to make the assessment you need to go.

Let’s say the accident happens and you tell the paramedics that you don’t need to go to the emergency room. A couple of hours later at night, or the following morning, you’re in a lot of pain. You can either go to the emergency room then or if you can get in to see your doctor, you can get the follow-up treatment that way. Sometimes clients call me and say what do you think, I had an accident happen, should I go to the doctor? That’s not a decision for me to make, that is a decision for you to make. If you’re injured you should go get the treatment that you need.

Don’t Talk To The Other Party’s Insurance Company

Sometimes after an accident happens, you’re going to get a call, it could be the same day, it could be the next day, it could be a couple of days later from the responsible party’s insurance company, be very careful here. They’re going to ask you how you’re doing, they may offer you a $500 settlement right away to settle your case. They’re also going to ask you to give a recorded statement.

I do not suggest or recommend that you give a recorded statement.

Get Experienced Legal Representation

Of course, the final thing you should do is make sure you get the proper legal representation. That’s where the attorneys at Claim Your Justice™, come to your rescue and help you prosecute your case. Again, you can reach Claim Your Justice™ at 888-88-Keith, my name, Keith Shindler.

One of the other things I want to do with each Facebook Live session on the 2nd of each month, is I want to talk about a real case. So I’m going to start with that today.

It’s cold, it’s snowy, it’s windy. Lots of ice. Well, slip and fall cases happen all the time. Many of them are very difficult to prosecute, and many of them aren’t eligible for recovery because you may have to watch where you’re walking, you may slip and it was no one’s responsibility.

However, we recently signed up a new case two days ago, where a client tripped and fell over an uneven sidewalk. It was about four inches separated, and it was at night. Interestingly enough, around the sidewalk were painted indicators of upcoming construction. However, there was no warning, no construction lights, there was no indication to walk on the other side of the street. Our client tripped and fell at night. It was not a well-lit street.

The client had surgery on her broken wrist and also had to have staples in her head. So I’m going to track this case as it goes along through the prosecution. I will keep you updated. It takes a lot of time, but we’ll have lots of time to share.

Remember, if you’re injured in any type of accident, car accident, trip, and fall, medical malpractice, or wrongful death. Let us help you Claim Your Justice™, call 847-434-3555. Thank you. This has been Keith Shindler, have a successful rest of your week.

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What are the Most Common Personal Injury Claims in Illinois?

Personal Injury

Personal injury cases are everywhere. They are reported in the news, in movies, and certainly, in advertisements that you see and hear every day. But what is a personal injury case, and what are some of the more common personal injury claims in Illinois?

What is a Personal Injury Case?

Personal injury law is a type of civil law. In a personal injury claim, a jury or judge will award money damages. Unlike criminal cases, there are no criminal penalties, jail, or state prosecutor involvement in a personal injury case.

At its core, a personal injury lawsuit says that somebody did something careless, negligent, or in a way that other people, acting diligently, would not do. To see if someone was negligent and caused your injury, the attorneys at Claim Your Justice look to see if the other person, or company, or worker acted the way other reasonable people would act.

Carelessness that can lead to negligence in a personal injury claim can be the act necessary to make a successful claim. For example, if a product is stacked improperly in a store and then that causes an item to fall on a customer’s head, it can injure them. Driving a car too fast that  causes an injury or deadly accident. Injuries can also result from an omission. If there is a failure to warn of a slippery floor and then someone can slip and sustain injuries or failure to install handrails along a stairwell can also cause a fall.

What are Common Personal Injury Claims in Illinois?

Any situation where someone suffers an injury, mental or physical, can possibly lead to a personal injury lawsuit. That means that personal injury lawsuits can happen in more ways than can be listed in any one place. But despite the wide variety of personal injury cases, there are some types of claims or cases that tend to occur more often than others.

Here is a short description of the most common types of personal injury claims that tend to happen in Illinois.

Cars and Car Accidents

Almost any kind of car accident can lead to a personal injury case. Given the number of cars on the road, it’s no wonder that car accidents account for a large percentage of personal injury claims.

Car accidents tend to increase from year to year. From 2017 to 2018, there were over 7,000 more car accidents, for a total of 319,146 car accidents in Illinois.

The most common types of car accidents include things like:

  • Rear-end accidents.
  • Lane change accidents.
  • Intersection accidents.
  • Distracted driving.
  • DUI-related accidents.
  • Car accidents where a car collides with a pedestrian, motorcyclist, or bicyclist.

Car accidents can be caused by individual drivers, but also corporate drivers, such as when commercial trucks or business delivery cars cause accidents.

Remember that car accident victims are not just the drivers of the vehicles. Passengers can also have personal injury claims after a car accident. So can spouses of injured victims when the victim is injured so badly it affects their ability to take care of their spouse or otherwise affects their marriages.

On-Premises Accidents

Accidents often happen on business premises, which is why these cases are often called “premises liability” cases. The most common of these types of cases are called slip and fall accidents. Although this category can also include objects falling on people’s heads or any other type of accident that happens while you are a customer or visitor on someone else’s property.

Businesses must keep their premises safe. Although substances on the floor that cause people to fall are quite common, there are also other kinds of injuries that can happen on a business’ premises. These include:

  • Objects left in customer walkways that cause people to fall.
  • Poorly stacked objects on shelves that fall on people, injuring them
  • Attacks or assaults by business employees
  • Failure to provide warnings of conditions on the property that may be dangerous.
  • Failure to maintain safe stairways, escalators, and elevators

One common form of premises liability cases is negligent security. This is where a criminal injures you while you are on someone else’s property. Although the property owner didn’t directly attack or injure you, the business owner may have created conditions that made it easier for you to become a crime victim.

This often happens when landlords or shopping mall owners don’t provide human or video security monitoring, gates, proper lighting, or other elements that tend to deter crime.

Note that in most cases, you will have to be an invited guest, or a customer of the business to sue for your injuries. Trespassers often will have a difficult time suing for damages that happen on others’ property.

Nursing Home Abuse

The population or elderly people living in our nursing homes is amongst the most vulnerable in our society. Not only are they often sick, infirm, and unable to care for themselves, but their family is not there to look after them and to make sure they are being taken care of.

Many nursing homes are understaffed or use staff that is untrained to do their jobs. Many don’t have proper practices and procedures, to ensure the safety of their residents. They may allow abuse to happen to residents, whether at the hands of staff, or other residents. They may allow residents to roam and wander into areas that they should not be, leading to injury.

As many nursing home residents also need medical attention, often negligence claims include basic personal injury claims, as well as medical malpractice claims, if a patient is injured while getting medical attention

Because of residents’ advanced age, and often frail health, even the slightest failure to exercise caution and diligence, can lead to catastrophic injury, and even death.

Supervision of Kids

When kids get injured, we often dismiss the injuries as being “horseplay,” or as “kids being kids.” But there are a lot of scenarios where kids are supposed to be supervised by adults, but are not, such as in schools, after-school care, or daycare.

Even if the supervision is not  being provided by an institution, another adult who was supposed to monitor a child, but did not, can be sued for negligence. For example, a parent who allows young kids to play in a pool, without watching the kids, can be liable for a personal injury claim. This is true if one of the children gets injured while the adult is not monitoring them

Dangerous Products

Whenever a product injures someone, the manufacturer and retailer can be liable for the injuries that you sustain.

Often, products are just manufactured poorly, and inconsistently. Potentially, 100 of the same product can be fine, but the 101st can be dangerous. This is because the 101 product was not manufactured like the first 100 were.

Other times, even a product that is perfectly manufactured is dangerous, simply because of the way it is designed. For example, medical device manufacturer 3M was recently sued for selling defective earplugs to the military, causing injuries to servicemembers. The earplugs worked exactly as they were designed to work. The problem was that the way they were designed, made them ineffective in protecting against hearing loss.

Often, experts need to be employed by your personal injury attorney to evaluate a product or its design. Then it can be better determined whether or not a product was defective or designed in a dangerous manner

Medical Malpractice

Not every bad medical outcome is a result of medical malpractice. However, sometimes doctors do something or fail to do something that should be done in the process of our medical care. When that medical error causes an injury, you may have a claim for medical malpractice.

According to the national practitioner data bank, medical malpractice claims, and payments went up significantly around 2019-2019. There was a decline in 2020, likely due to COVID reasons. Just from 2015-2019 in Illinois, there were close to 2,000 medical malpractice claims yearly.

However, this is an accounting of reported claims and errors but not actual lawsuits, which are likely much higher than those numbers. These numbers also don’t include settlements that may have happened, before any lawsuit was filed.

Any medical provider can be liable for malpractice, including nurses, therapists, radiologists, or acupuncturists, virtually any profession that renders expert and professional medical skill, aid, and treatment can be held accountable for errors.

Malpractice claims can include failure to diagnose injuries or symptoms, or diagnosing the wrong illness or disease. Doctors can prescribe the wrong medicine, ineffective medicine, or may fail to recognize your symptoms as needing treatment at all.

Damages for Your Personal Injury Claim

With all of these personal injury claims and lawsuits, you can get damages for out-of-pocket expenses, such as medical bills, lost wages, or the cost of necessary medical devices. These costs can be awarded for current expenses, but also for expenses that you may incur in the future, for longer-term or more catastrophic injuries.

You can also get damages for your emotional or mental injuries. The law recognizes that many types of injuries can cause depression, loss of the enjoyment of life, or cause fear or anxiety. That’s in addition to the pain that you may have suffered because of the accident, your injuries, or the procedures that you had to undergo, in treating your injuries.

Whether your injury is common or not, we can help with your personal injury claim. To see if you may be entitled to compensation or payments for your accident or injuries, call our Schaumburg personal injury attorneys at Claim Your Justice to schedule a free consultation at 847-434-3555.

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Personal Injury Attorney Discusses Personal Injury Cases

personal injury law


 

Claim Your Justice Live Session

Welcome to the Claim Your Justice Facebook Live Stream, I’m attorney Keith Shindler. I look forward to providing you with valuable and useful information regarding personal injury cases, and personal injury topics. Throughout future live stream sessions, I’ll discuss some information that you may consider basic.

However, I’m also going to discuss information that is a bit more complex. I welcome your positive feedback and questions, and I can be reached at 888-88-Keith, or you can email us here and message us on Facebook.

Who pays for the costs associated with a personal injury case?

There are two components of these costs. One is the attorney fee that would be paid to our firm for achieving a recovery for your injury case. The second component is the costs related to developing and winning your case. Let’s talk for a second about the attorneys’ fees.

With personal injury cases, the attorney fee is based on a contingency fee arrangement. What does that mean? It means that my fee is contingent upon winning your case, I only recover my fee after we win your case. That’s the contingency component of it. I don’t view that as a cost. It pays to have an attorney, it doesn’t cost to have an attorney.

The next piece of developing and winning a personal injury case is the cost involved in gathering your medical records. That’s somewhat of a basic cost, but sometimes it adds up. It can be thousands of dollars, depending on how much treatment a person had, how many doctors they went to see, how many surgeries they may have had, etc. So that cost generally adds up into the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Cost of Litigation

You also have a cost if we’re going to have to litigate a case. Litigation can get very expensive. Our firm advances those costs. They include such costs as filing a lawsuit, well, that’s obvious. Then there are other costs involved in taking a deposition, getting a deposition transcribed, hiring someone to go out and take photographs of a scene, hiring an expert witness, and so on. These are costs that sometimes aren’t considered. They add up quickly and are advanced by our firm for the pure goal of winning your case.

Medical Evaluation

There is also a cost involved in perhaps getting our clients evaluated by a medical specialist. For instance, let’s say a client has PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If that were the case I would want to send them to an expert who can evaluate them, test them, and then write a report. That’s a cost as well.

Or, my client could have an orthopedic injury and I want to understand what the permanent nature of that injury is, so I send them to an orthopedic specialist to have their medical records reviewed, get them examined, and then have a report written. That’s an additional cost. We work as a team here, together with our clients.

At Claim Your Justice, we care about our clients and we look to maximize the recovery the client can secure. The court costs are something every client worries about, and my goal is to help the client understand every step of the process as I work on their case. The goal is always to win for the client, and to recover the max amount of money for the client.

Contact Our Personal Injury Attorneys

This is just our introductory Facebook live stream so I don’t want to get too complex, or talk for too long (hopefully I didn’t put anyone to sleep out there). Please remember, for any personal injury case, for your friend, for your family, for yourself, or your coworker, call the attorneys at Claim Your Justice at 847-434-3555. Thank you and I’ll see you in two weeks with another live session.

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What You Should Know About Illinois Dog Bite Laws

Dog Bites

Dogs are part of our families. We love dogs and care for them like they are our children. But unlike children, dogs are animals and can cause serious injuries to others. Sometimes, personal injuries are caused out of anger, temper, or aggression. Other times, the injuries people sustain by dogs are totally accidental.

If you are injured by a dog in Illinois, our Illinois dog bite lawyer in Schaumburg can do many things including explaining your rights, explaining the law so you can have a better understanding of it, and recovering money for damages related to your injuries.

The following is a short explanation of what the law says as well as the rights that victims have when they are injured by dogs.

Damage By Dogs

Regardless of a dogs’ motivation or intentions, dogs can do a lot of damage to a child or adult. Dog bites can cause:

  • Skin and tissue damage, massive bleeding, and related infection to skin and tissue
  • Nerve damage
  • Scarring and deformity
  • Fractures to limbs
  • Damage to tissues
  • Septicemia
  • Crushing-type injuries

How Common Are Dog Bites?

There is a lot of debate as to why a dog bites. Some dogs are genetically prone to biting. Others may bite out of play, fear, being sick. Some dogs bite because of poor socialization or exposure to society at a young age.

Although dogs are man’s, and women’s, best friends, dog bites are still very common in Illinois and Nationally. Sometimes it’s an aggressive bite, and sometimes it’s a playful nip. Those teeth in your dog’s mouth can do severe and real damage to the human body.

The statistics bear out how dangerous dogs can be. There are between 4-5 million dog bites every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A study by the U.S. Postal Service ranked attacks on postal workers as a good indicator of dog bites in general. The study found that Chicago, Illinois had the fourth-highest number of attacks on postal workers. The most recently updated statistics from WorldAnimalFoundation.org posted on March 12, 2024, the number of dog bites nationwide is 4.5 million and half involve children.

Most of those dogs are not spayed or neutered, according to the ASPCA.

According to a CDC study, pit bulls are the dogs most responsible for dog bite deaths. Then, Rottweilers, Shepherds, and Huskies are also all high on the list for breeds that can inflict deadly bites.

Controlling a Dog

Like many states, Illinois requires that all dogs be leashed when out in public. However, the law goes beyond that. It also requires that dogs on private property, like a private home, be contained by a fence or wall that is at least six feet high.

The owner of a dog that escapes a leash or enclosure is liable for damage caused by the dog. This is true even when property damage results that is unrelated to any kind of personal injury.

Strict Liability

Often when someone’s dog bites another person, the owner’s first reaction is that the owner never knew the dog would bite. Or the owner may explain the dog has never bitten anybody else. The dog may even look sweet and harmless. However, in Illinois, none of this is a defense.

That’s because unlike in some states, and popular myths, Illinois dog bite laws have no “one free bite rule.”

This “one free bite rule” is a rule that allows a dog owner to escape liability if this is the first time the owner’s dog bit someone. This doesn’t apply in Illinois. You do not need to prove that the victim had any prior knowledge, or that the owner should have known, that the dog was dangerous, or that the dog could bite.

It doesn’t matter what the owner of the dog did or didn’t do, or what the owner was doing at the time of the bite. The owner is automatically liable for injuries caused by his or her dog. This is called “strict liability,” and it makes a dog bite case easier to prove for an injured victim.

It also doesn’t matter what kind of dog, the dog’s size, or what the dog’s breed is.

Criminal Liability

Although in civil court and in a personal injury case, there is no need to prove someone knew in advance that their dog was dangerous, that knowledge does matter in criminal court. Illinois dig bite laws say that someone who knows their dog is dangerous and still allows the dog to bite someone can be convicted of a felony.

However, someone does not have to have broken any criminal laws, to be liable to pay you damages for a dog bite in civil court.

More Than Bites

We all know that dogs can injure people in ways other than their mouths and teeth. Sometimes, dogs are just being playful such as when they jump on someone and knock them over. Illinois dog bite law holds owners responsible for all injuries caused by a dog, not just bites.

That means that the owner is liable, and may owe you money damages for your injuries, so long as the dog did something that caused your injury. The dog may not have even touched you. Imagine a situation where a dog chases you, even playfully, but as you run away you slip and fall. You could still sue and seek compensation for your injuries under Illinois dog bite law if the dog’s chasing caused you to run and fall.

Even if the dog is on a leash, the owner is still liable. Just like with actual bites, what the owner knew in advance, or what the owner was doing at the time the dog caused injury, doesn’t matter. An Illinois dog bite lawyer in Schaumburg can help you determine if your injury was caused by a dog.

Who is the Owner?

When someone gets sued for allowing their dog to bite or injure someone, a common defense, or attempted defense, is that the person sued doesn’t own the dog.

At the time of the bite, the dog may have been under the control of a friend, relative, or dog sitter. Maybe the dog is shared between spouses, significant others, or parents and adult children.

Under Illinois dog bite law, victims do not need to prove who was the actual, legal owner of the dog. That would be near impossible, given that dogs don’t have ownership titles the way that other property, like cars, often do.

So long as someone is watching a dog, handling a dog, or has the dog in the person’s possession at the time of the bite or attack, that person is liable. It is no defense that the person is not the actual legal owner of the dog.

Where there is both an owner, and someone different that was controlling or who possessed the dog at the time of the accident, both the owner and the other person controlling the dog, may be liable to you for your personal injuries.

The dog does have to have an “owner,” as defined by the law. In other words, the dog can’t be a stray dog. Although if you are bitten by a stray dog, you could have a personal injury lawsuit against the owner of the property that may have allowed stray dogs to roam free.

Defenses to Dog Bite Cases

There are some defenses to a dog bite case under Illinois dog bite law. These are things you can expect the insurance company or the defendant to argue in your dog bite case.

The first common defense is that you did something that provoked the dog, or which caused the dog to bite or injure them. Sometimes this is obvious. There are things that we do that can antagonize, taunt, or rile up an otherwise non-dangerous animal.

Other times, this defense requires a bit of “dog psychology.” Your Illinois dog bite lawyer in Schaumburg may hire an expert witness to prove testimony, as to what exactly is provoking behavior and what isn’t.

Also involving a bit of dog psychology is the defense of protection. If a dog is acting to protect itself, its offspring, or another human, you cannot sue for injuries caused by a dog bite.

As in other types of personal injury cases, if you are a trespasser, even if you were not a trespasser, but were doing something illegal on someone else’s property, you cannot sue if a dog injures you.

Time Limits

You only have two years to file a lawsuit for any injury caused by a dog. You should act quickly, as often, your Illinois dog bite lawyer in Schaumburg attorney will need to do some research before simply filing your case. Also, you want to make sure that there is time to do that before a lawsuit is filed. An exception to the two-year rule is when the victim is a minor.

Compensation

Remember that if you are a dog bite victim, you can receive compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, or other financial losses you’ve suffered.

You can also recover from fear, anxiety, pain, suffering, or other mental or emotional trauma that was caused. These are all-natural reactions to being attacked by an animal. Illinois dog bite law, and in fact, Illinois personal injury law in general, allows victims to recover compensation for mental pain and trauma, including PTSD, where there is also some type of physical injury suffered by the victim.

Have you been bitten or injured in any way by a dog? We can help. Contact an Illinois dog bite lawyer in Schaumburg to help investigate your case and see if you are entitled to compensation for your pain, suffering, and other damages.

(Updated 3/12/2024)