Analysis of immunity under Illinois’ EMS Act after Hernandez v. Lifeline Ambulance, LLC: Preparatory conduct and travel v. transport
Illinois appeals court holds that statute on allowing only one substitution of judge applies only to the immediate case
Illinois appeals court denies marital privilege of text massages in part due to wife’s original consent stated messages same on both phones
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” –Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part III
Al Pacino probably doesn’t know it, but his iconic line from The Godfather Part III encapsulates the plight of hospitals pulled into medical malpractice suits due to negligent credentialing claims. That’s because plaintiffs sometimes assert this claim when they cannot prove a deviation from the standard of care on the part of any hospital employee or agent—so even if a hospital thinks that it’s out of the suit, plaintiffs can sometimes pull it back in by alleging that it ...
A person injured by another’s negligence is entitled to recover the reasonable value of the necessary medical care she received for her injuries. Although most injured parties have their medical care paid for by a third party—either health insurance or a government program—which settles the medical bills for a significantly discounted amount, in Illinois the injured party can submit the actual billed charges with a proper foundation to seek recovery of more than was actually paid for her care. In Willis v. Foster, 229 Ill. 2d 393 (208), the Supreme Court of Illinois held that ...
A wide variety of employment-related statutory changes went into effect in Illinois this year. These include important amendments to the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA), such as P.A. 101-0430, which, effective July 1, 2020, expanded the definition of an employer to cover any person employing at least one (not fifteen) employee(s). Additionally, P.A. 101-0221—which enacted the Workplace Transparency Act, the Sexual Harassment Victim Representation Act, and the Hotel and Casino Employee Safety Act and which amended the IHRA, the Victims’ Economic Security and Safety Act ...
Any defense practitioner who frequently litigates in Illinois state court has seen this situation before. You are defending an action, and at some point, and for whatever reason, the plaintiff moves for a voluntary dismissal under 735 ILCS 5/2-1009. The dismissal order includes language giving plaintiff “leave to replead, with costs to be repaid upon refiling, etc.” Oftentimes, plaintiff does in fact refile the action within one year, pursuant to 735 ILCS 5/13-217, in the form of a new complaint with a new case number. The defendant is served in the new suit, and the litigation ...
In Graham v. Lakeview Food Pantry, 2019 IL App (1st) 182003, the First District affirmed summary judgment for defendants, including the Catholic Bishop of Chicago (“the Archdiocese”), on plaintiff’s negligence complaint following a fall at defendant’s church. Ultimately, the court found that plaintiff’s claim against the Archdiocese was time-barred by the Illinois statute of repose for construction (735 ILCS 5/13-214(b) (West 2016) (“the statute”).
Case Summary
On January 17, 2015, plaintiff went to the Archdiocese’s church to accept food donations from ...
Most lawyers are keenly aware of Illinois’ Attorney Registration Commission’s (ARDC) role in the attorney registration, licensing, and continuing education processes. However, many are unaware of the processes involved in the investigation and prosecution of attorney discipline matters. Here are three tips (and a bonus!) for things you should consider if you are faced with a complaint to or Request for Investigation from the ARDC.
- Don’t delay, but don’t fire off an emotional response.
Rule 53 of the Rules of the ARDC requires lawyers practicing within the state of ...
In general, Illinois law requires that a lawsuit be commenced “(1) in the county of residence of any defendant who is joined in good faith and with probable cause for the purpose of obtaining a judgment against him or her and not solely for the purpose of fixing venue in that county, or (2) in the county in which the transaction or some part thereof occurred out of which the cause of action arose.” 735 ILCS 5/2-101. For venue purposes, the residence of a corporation, such as a hospital, is in the county where it has any office or is doing business. 735 ILCS 5/2-102. Because hospitals ...
In Illinois, statutes provide protection to a disabled person with respect to the time within which a cause of action for personal injury will accrue. Under traditional legal thought, the cause of action begins to accrue and the statute of limitations begins to run immediately on the date of injury. In cases where the injury is not obvious enough to be discovered the moment it occurs, the date of accrual begins on the date the injured person “knows or should have known” a cause of action exists. Under the discovery rule, the plaintiff has the burden of establishing facts to support the ...
We’ve all heard of, or even litigated, those cases where someone does something ridiculous on another person’s property, injuring him or herself in the process, then sues the property owner as if it was somehow the owner’s fault. Rest assured, Illinois’ Second District Appellate Court was having none of this in its recent decision in Lee v. Lee, 2019 IL App (2d) 180923. The decision is noteworthy not only because the court applied the open and obvious defense to an ordinary negligence case, but also because the court sua sponte held as a matter of law—based solely on the ...
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Responsibility (IDFPR) is the state agency that oversees licensure and discipline of various health care practitioners, including physicians, nurses, and dentists, among others. The IDFPR is charged with overseeing enforcement of the various healthcare practice acts, and it typically investigates matters brought to its attention, primarily from patient complaints. With the advent of electronic communications, dissatisfied patients can pursue complaints with far greater ease. The simplicity of electronically ...
Nursing Home litigation has increased significantly in Illinois in recent years in large part due to the failure of Illinois to institute damages caps and eliminate attorney’s fees from their nursing home statute. Attorneys’ fees are recoverable under the Nursing Home Care Act. In fact, the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act provides for fee shifting and specifically states that “The licensee shall pay the actual damages and costs and attorney’s fees to a facility resident whose rights, as specified in Part 1 of Article II of this Act, are violated.” 210 ILCS 45/3-602. An ...
With what many have described as a historic Illinois legislative session having recently concluded, and with the focus having been on the budget, gaming, cannabis, and infrastructure, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there weren’t many significant changes to Illinois’ environmental laws. But you would be wrong. Several environmental bills of interest to the regulated community made it to Governor JB Pritzker’s desk and have either already been signed by the Governor or will be in the next few weeks. A quick recap of that legislation follows.
Ethylene Oxide: This issue ...
The question of what constitutes “apparent agency” in the context of alleged medical malpractice continues to be analyzed by the Illinois appellate courts. The issue was first addressed by the Illinois Supreme Court in the case of Gilbert v. Sycamore Municipal Hospital. 156 Ill.2d 511 (1993). In Gilbert, the Court set forth a multi-factor test to determine whether a hospital could be held vicariously liable for the alleged acts of its independent contractor physicians. Id. at 525. Specifically, in order to hold a hospital liable under the theory of “apparent agency,” a ...
The Nursing Home Care Act (“Act”) was born of concerns about reports of inadequate or improper treatment of residents in such facilities and provided residents with a cause of action against those facilities. To encourage residents, residents’ families, and attorneys to bring claims against nursing homes, the Act originally provided that a resident whose rights were violated could recover “3 times the actual damages . . . and costs and attorney’s fees.” 210 ILCS 45/3-602. That rather draconian remedy was subsequently challenged as being unconstitutional but was ...
Illinois law provides specific rules that nursing homes must follow when discharging or transferring a resident when the resident does not agree to the discharge/transfer (an “involuntary discharge/transfer”). 210 ILCS 45/3-401 et seq. If the resident requests a hearing on the discharge/transfer, an attorney must represent the nursing home during the hearing/appeal process if the nursing home is operated by a corporate entity or limited liability company. Stone Street Partners, LLC v. The City of Chicago Dept. of Admin. Hearings, 2014 IL App (1st) 123654. Before the ...
Are you considering retaining an expert, in a medical malpractice case, who has a history of medical malpractice suits being filed against him or her? Have you just deposed an expert in a medical malpractice case and learned that they have been previously sued for medical malpractice? In either situation, you will likely have to determine whether the expert’s prior lawsuits will be admissible at trial. A recent Illinois appellate court ruling, Swift v. Schleicher, suggests that circuit courts should bar any evidence of medical malpractice lawsuits filed against the expert.
The ...
Environmental contamination lawsuits frequently involve polluting activities which took place decades ago – long before the advent of computers and before it was possible for businesses to store information in an electronic format. When these lawsuits arise and a claim is tendered to an insurance carrier for defense and indemnity, the parties often struggle to verify the existence and terms of any applicable insurance policies in light of the ease with which paper documents can be misplaced over the years. The inability of the parties to locate complete copies of all potentially ...
In a recent decision, the Illinois Appellate Court, Third District, considered what should and should not be considered by a trial court when making a determination on a motion to stay a declaratory judgment action on insurance coverage pending resolution of the underlying litigation. Pekin Insurance Company v. Johnson-Downs Construction, Inc., 2017 IL App (3d) 160601. The underlying suit in Johnson-Downs concerned an injured employee of a subcontractor who sued the general contractor. Originally, the plaintiff employee alleged negligence and premises liability theories ...
Illinois courts have long made clear that when a conflict of interest exists between an insured and its insurer, the insured is entitled to independent counsel of the insured’s own choosing and at the insurer’s reasonable expense. See Maryland Cas. Co. v. Peppers, 64 Ill.2d 187, 193 (1976). What is less clear, however, is when exactly a conflict of this nature arises.
We know that a conflict giving rise to independent counsel does not exist simply because the insurer provides a defense under reservation of rights. We also know that certain types of cases, such as those involving ...
As we have learned in recent days, we all need to be careful with the things we say, for sometimes those things we say can be used against us. But the life lessons do not end there. We also need to read things carefully, for the things we fail to read can be used against us as well, especially holders of insurance policies.
A recent opinion from the Illinois Appellate Court, Third District, in Laurent v. Johnson, 2017 IL App (3d) 160627, shows just how far an insured’s duty to read his or her insurance policy can reach. The Laurent plaintiff sued the lawyer of her deceased husband’s estate for ...
It is commonplace in construction projects for a contractor to require its subcontractors to purchase liability insurance that protects against certain claims and that includes the contractor as an additional insured. The problem is that many times the policy that the subcontractor purchases does not on its face meet the requirements set forth in the written agreement between the contractor and subcontractor. For example, the construction agreement may require liability insurance with higher limits of liability than that actually provided by the subcontractor’s policy, or ...
Southern Illinois was recently in the national spotlight as the path of a total solar eclipse passed across the state. This rare occurrence brought hundreds of thousands of people to a thin path of the state to experience a natural phenomenon that, if not experienced correctly, could cause serious and permanent eye injuries. It also created opportunities for some to profit from this influx of celestially motivated travelers. This event provided a reminder of the potential uses of exculpatory language in contract; namely to limit or eliminate liability by an express assumption of ...
As most business law practitioners are aware at this point, the Illinois Limited Liability Act has been amended by HB 4361 and the amendments were effective July 1, 2017. The amendments to the Limited Liability Company Act include numerous provisions regarding member managed companies. This article will address some of the concerns regarding the amendments as they relate to member managed Limited Liability Companies ("LLC").
The Amended Limited Liability Company Act ("ALLC") institutes major changes to the "statutory apparent authority" previously granted to member managed ...
The Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, 745 ILCS 10/1-101, et seq.—commonly known as the Tort Immunity Act—provides certain statutory immunities to local public entities. These protected entities include, but are not limited to, counties, townships, municipalities, school districts, park districts, and other local governmental bodies. See 745 ILCS 10/1-206. The Act sets forth those circumstances in which an entity is entitled to immunity, but many of the Act’s provisions expressly except immunity when an entity’s conduct is ...
Does your company monitor its network or devices for network security or data confidentiality? Does your company have any policies or practices that seek access to any employees’ personal online accounts? If so, a recent amendment to Illinois’ Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act (“Act”) may require your company to adopt or revise its policies or practices to comply with the law.
Expands the scope of protected content. The amendment has shifted the focus from social networking accounts or profiles to personal online accounts (POAs). A POA is “an online account, that is ...
In insurance coverage litigation, does an insurance company have to identify and produce documents regarding the company’s handling of prior unrelated claims?
Insurance companies often object to such requests on the grounds that they are irrelevant, overly broad, unduly burdensome, and even protected by a privilege. In the Illinois Appellate Court Fifth District’s recent decision in Zagorski v. Allstate Ins. Co., 2016 IL App (5th) 140056, however, the appellate court rather emphatically held that the insured could seek such discovery, at least under the facts and ...
A new Illinois law requires employers with at least 50 employees to provide FMLA-eligible employees up to 10 workdays of unpaid leave to attend a child’s funeral (or its alternative), to make necessary arrangements resulting from the death of a child, or to grieve a child’s death. The new law, aptly titled the Child Bereavement Leave Act, took effect on July 29, 2016
The Act defines “child” as “an employee’s son or daughter who is a biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child of a person standing in loco parentis.” There is no age limit in the ...
Have you ever seen a corporation walk down the street? Or maybe you’ve shaken hands with a corporation lately? Perhaps you’ve witnessed a corporation do The Wiggle? Over two hundred years ago, Chief Justice Marshall wrote that a corporation is “an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.” More recently, Justice Stevens wrote in dissent that “corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires”. Others disagree.
For example, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney famously told a crowd of ...
The backbone of insurance is risk. It is assessing risk, allocating risk, pricing risk, and insuring risk. The insurance industry is – in a word – one of risk.
To help calculate risk, the industry has built sophisticated models and algorithms, designed to measure the likelihood of certain events and scenarios. These predictive models quantify the odds of your car getting wrecked, your home being damaged, or – as Nationwide so morbidly reminded us – the odds that your child might die from a preventable accident.
The insurance industry, of course, insures risks beyond the home ...
Illinois’ former eavesdropping law was unconstitutional because it was too broad to protect the fundamental interest in conversational privacy. When the former law was held unconstitutional, many wondered how the General Assembly would respond. By enacting this new law on December 30, 2014, Illinois made clear that it was going to stay the course and protect its citizens’ private conversation.
The cornerstone of Illinois’ eavesdropping law is the policy that the people of Illinois should not fear that what they believe to be private conversations are being recorded. That ...
As defense counsel in the trucking industry have seen in recent years, broker liability is a burgeoning area in which plaintiff’s attorneys are beginning to explore as a means to reach the elusive “deep pockets” of many of our broker clients. Much of the lure of broker liability began with the $23.8 million judgment against a freight broker that was upheld by an Illinois appellate court in Sperl v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 946 N.E.2d 463 (Ill. App. Ct. 2011). At the most surface level of the issue, the court’s decision in Sperl rested primarily upon the significant ...
Although it might seem like a clear-cut argument—“my client cannot be bound to a contractual provision when it was not a party to the contract”—courts have routinely rejected it. In doing so, these courts have often ordered that a defendant is then bound to a forum selection clause found in a co-defendant’s agreement with the plaintiff. In order to reach this result, however, the court must conclude that the nonsignatory defendant is sufficiently “closely related” to the dispute in the underlying action, such that it was foreseeable that the nonsignatory defendant ...
The Illinois Supreme Court recently reiterated its position that common law retaliatory discharge claims should be treated the same as any other tort claim when it comes to the issue of causation. In Michael v. Precision Alliance Group, LLC, 2014 IL 117376, the state’s high court reaffirmed its prior rulings on the elements of retaliatory discharge, and again declined to apply the burden-shifting framework used for other employment cases to a claim of retaliatory discharge. The Court also drew an important distinction between proving a “causal nexus” for purposes of ...
