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Downside of Hiring an Injury Lawyer?

April 18, 2018 by Ken Levinson Leave a Comment

I recently met with a potential client who was seriously injured. She had been working on trying to obtain a settlement with the responsible party’s insurance company before meeting with us. After exchanging some information, the liability insurance company made an offer to settle the case. The client did not feel the settlement offer was adequate, so she contacted us.

The client was concerned that she might be in a worse position even with a larger offer, by hiring a lawyer. After all, wouldn’t attorneys fees and other costs come out of her settlement

Although there are no guarantees in pursuing a case, the likelihood of being in a worse position hiring an injury law firm is slight. Let me highlight a few reasons why.

Experienced Injury Lawyers Have Experience in Calculating the Value of Your Case

An experienced injury lawyer will make sure that all factors that increase the value of your claim will be considered. For example, you might need future medical care, such as an expensive surgery, that needs to be factored in for a settlement.

Additionally, the insurance company may be discounting the settlement offer based on their false assertion that proving liability will be difficult. Sometimes the insurance company even picks an arbitrary percentage of fault, like 50%, to reduce their offer by that percentage.

An experienced injury lawyer will make sure to gather all of the relevant facts that prove your case – such as independent witness statements, photographs of the scene, surveillance videos, and other physical evidence.

Negotiating Medical Bills and Liens

Although your gross settlement amount is usually the number clients focus on, the most important factor in a settlement is the net amount a client receives. For example, your lawyer might be able to negotiate the medical liens or health insurance company reimbursements so that the client’s recovery far exceeds even a larger offer. And most law firms do not charge any additional attorneys fees to work on getting medical reimbursements decreased, even if they have to argue the issue in court.

Your Lawyer Should Work With You

Most lawyers will make sure that any previous settlement offers are factored into your fee agreement. For instance, a lawyer may discount their fee if there was an offer before they were hired. Additionally, some lawyers will only take a fee on any funds above and beyond the current offer. If not, ask why. Make sure that you discuss this issue with your attorneys before signing a fee agreement with an injury law firm. It is important to be on the same page with your attorneys from the first meeting and throughout the case.

Of course, if you have any questions or concerns about a settlement offer or any aspect of your injury case, call us for a free consultation.

Distracted Driving Is About More Than Just Cell Phones

November 28, 2017 by Jay Stefani Leave a Comment

Man texting while driving.

Distracted driving is a problem. Excellent organizations, like EndDD.org, are working hard to raise awareness, including sending people to high school driver’e education classes to tell new teen drivers about the dangers of using their cell phones while driving. I’ve been fortunate enough to speak to several high school classes, and I can say it has been a rewarding and eye-opening experience. I came away impressed by the overwhelming recognition that using a cell phone while driving is dangerous — and many of these teenagers see their own parents doing it on a regular basis. But one significant distraction is being ignored: passengers.

Maureen Salamon recently wrote a great article, “Help distracted teens keep focused on the road,” that shines a light on the top distraction for teen drivers. According to a 2016 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study, passengers, not cell phones, were the top distraction for teen drivers. Being a chauffeur-parent, it might be difficult to remember, but there was a time when it was exciting to be able to drive your friends around town. I have many great memories of shuttling friends to movies, games, each other’s houses, all the while laughing and discussing the “important” issues of the day. But an honest recollection of those days also involves moments of near misses due to focus on friends as opposed to the roads and traffic. In fact, many states (including Illinois) limit the number of passengers a teenaged driver can have in the car.

I’ve been helping victims of car crashes for over a dozen years now, and I’ve taken the depositions of over one hundred drivers who injured my clients. In every one of those depositions, I ask if there were passengers in the car. It’s not always a sign of careless driving, sure, but as the studies show, it might be. When we take our cars out on the roads, be sure to focus on avoiding all the potential distractions. This isn’t to say don’t drive with passengers. Be cognizant that your friends or family can pull your attention from the task at hand. And please be sure to monitor any young drivers in your household. Make sure they understand when they are driving, driving safely is the focus.

Chicago Distracted Walking Ordinance?

November 14, 2017 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

People walking while looking at cell phones.

$500 fine for “distracted walking?” That’s what Chicago pedestrians could be facing if a new proposed ordinance becomes law. The ordinance, as reported by Dick Johnson at NBC Chicago, says:

No person shall cross a street or highway while using a mobile electronic device in a manner that averts their visual attention to that device or that device’s activity

This may strike some as ridiculous. However, there’s little doubt that distracted walking in Chicago is a real problem. You don’t have to be a safety researcher to recognize that people have their faces buried in their screens.

As reported by the National Safety Council:

Distracted walking incidents are on the rise, and everyone with a cell phone is at risk. According to federal data on highway fatalities, there were 5,987 pedestrian fatalities in 2016 – the highest number since 1990. This represents an increase of 9% over the 2015 totals.

In fact, Honolulu, HI has already implemented a distracted walking ordinance. As reported by NPR, in Honolulu:

Fines start at $15 and go as high as $99 for a third-time offense in the same year.

As advocates for injury survivors, we regularly see the consequences of distractions.

It seems that, as a society, we’re really just beginning to understand the impact of smartphones on safety. We already know that distracted driving is big problem that is only getting worse. While collisions resulting from distracted walking seem like they’d be much less severe, the data on injuries from distracted walking are limited.

According to Safety.com, citing data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA):

Nearly 5,000 pedestrians were killed and an estimated 76,000 injured in traffic collisions in the United States in 2012. That’s one death every 2 hours and an injury every 7 minutes. While it’s not clear how many of these are a direct result of distracted walking, the total rate of pedestrian fatalities compared to overall road deaths is getting worse each year.

While it’s not clear how many of these are a direct result of distracted walking, the total rate of pedestrian fatalities compared to overall road deaths is getting worse each year.

Would an ordinance actually deter distracted walking? I suppose the first answers will come out of Hawaii. With respect to Chicago, it seems that such an ordinance might create an enforcement nightmare. While that’s not necessarily are reason not to have the ordinance, it certainly should give us all pause. Do we want valuable Chicago resources directed toward stopping people from distracted walking?

So, what do you think Chicago? Is a distracted walking ordinance a good idea?

Can I use the employee restroom?

May 26, 2017 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Alana Pilotto v. Urban Outfitters West LLC, 2016 IL App (1st) 160844

In Illinois, businesses must provide all employees, within each place of employment, restroom facilities and drinking fountains. Ill. Admin. Code tit. 77, § 890.810. However, not all businesses are required to provide restrooms for patrons, nor must they allow all patrons to use its employee restroom(s). But in August 2005, Illinois enacted the Restroom Access Act (also known as Ally’s Law) mandating that a business grant access to its employee restrooms to people with Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory bowel diseases if a public restroom is not nearby.

More importantly, the 1st District Appellate Court ruled that the state Restroom Access Act allows for both a common law and private right of action against businesses who refuse to let customers use a non-public toilet. The court came to its conclusion after Alana Pilotto embarrassingly defecated in public because she was denied access to the employee restroom at an Anthropologie store in Oakbrook Center.

Section 10 of the Act sets forth the duty imposed by the Act and provides, in full:

A retail establishment that has a toilet facility for its employees shall allow a customer to use that facility during normal business hours if the toilet facility is reasonably safe and the following conditions are met:

The customer requesting the use of the employee toilet facility suffers from an eligible medical condition or utilizes an ostomy device
Three or more employees of the retail establishment are working at the time the customer requests use of the employee toilet facility
The retail establishment does not normally make a restroom available to the public
The employee toilet facility is not located in an area where providing access would create an obvious health or safety risk to the customer or an obvious security risk to the retail establishment
A public restroom is not immediately accessible to the customer.” 410 ILCS 39/10 (West 2014)

Pilotto and Anthropologie satisfied the statutes’ touchstones. The court reasoned that the language of the Act expressly contemplates civil liability for violations of the Act through section 15, which provides limited immunity for injury caused by a retailer’s compliance with the Act. See 410 ILCS 39/15(a) (West 2014).

There would be no need for immunity if there was no civil liability for a retailer’s conduct under the Act. Therefore, “it would make no sense for the statute to be read in such a way that a retailer can be held civilly liable for its actions when complying with the Act, but could not be held civilly liable for not complying with the Act at all.” Under this implied theory of a private right of action, the case was reversed.