Chicago Personal Injury Law Blog
A lawsuit recently filed in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois alleges that the National Hockey League is responsible for the wrongful death of former player Derek Boogaard. He was 28 when he died. During his six seasons with the NHL, he played for the Minnesota Wild and the New York Rangers. After his death, it was determined that he had sustained severe brain trauma throughout his career. This brain trauma--allegedly caused by the many fights he was involved in on the ice--may have led to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain ailment that could have contributed to his death.
It was well-known that Boogaard was not intended to score goals or create plays. Instead, he was there to protect his teammates with his massive build. A lawyer that helped file the lawsuit for Boogaard's family said that the NHL drafted him for this reason alone, giving him pain pills once he became hurt. His stats reflect the fact that he was not brought on to score. During the 277 regular season games he played in, he scored just three goals but was involved in 66 fights. According to the lawsuit, he received more than 1,000 prescriptions during the 2008-2009 season.
The death of an 88-year-old woman in 2011 was the center of a lawsuit filed against the nursing home where she was living. The case of nursing home neglect was brought before a court that sided with the woman's daughter and awarded her $3.7 million. The nursing home will likely challenge this in efforts to have it dismissed or reduced.
According to records, the elderly woman was admitted to the nursing home on May 4, 2011. Less than two weeks later, she died. She had entered the facility in order to rehabilitate her two broken ankles. The lawyer for her daughter said she had a catheter at the time and no urinary tract infection. But reports indicate that that she developed complications from a urinary tract infection and had increased doses of pain medication. She developed the urinary tract infection sometime between May 4 and May 8. During that same time, it seems the amount of Percocet she was given was increased.
When people go to the hospital, they usually do not think twice about the possibility that a medical professional may make a mistake that could cost them the health they are trying to preserve. Residents of Cook, Illinois, should understand that medical errors happen and how harmful these errors can be to patients. Many of these medical errors will end up as the basis of a medical malpractice lawsuit. What is the most common kind of medical error resulting in a medical malpractice claim? According to a recent study, it is missed diagnoses.
Researchers used the National Practitioner Data Bank to determine their findings. The NPDB was helpful because it keeps track of any actions taken by state licensing authorities against medical professionals. This means any physicians who had their licenses suspended or revoked would be present in these records. After analyzing the NPDB, experts working on the study reported that 28.6 percent of malpractice awards were related to improper diagnoses.
On April 30, 2013, the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune released a special publication featuring Chicago's leading lawyers. Cavanagh Law Group was chosen as one of the featured firms and received special recognition as the publication's cover story.
On April 22, 2013, Benjeman Nichols, an attorney at Cavanagh Law Group, obtained a $280,000 verdict on behalf of Richard and Kimberly Girden.
According to reports, more than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Plaintiffs believe that the company knew that a diabetes drug called Actos -- a product that Takeda manufactures -- could increase the risk of a patient getting bladder cancer. Due to this, many people have filed product liability claims.
If allegations against the company are true, then Takeda may have known that the drug contributed to bladder cancer as early as 2004. Despite this knowledge, the company did not alert the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to this risk until 2011. Plaintiffs believe that the company hid this information so that it could continue generating billions of dollars in sales per year. Data published by Bloomberg determined that Takeda made $4.5 billion from sales of Actos in the fiscal year ending March 2011, making up more than a quarter of the company's revenue.
Sometimes people get caught up in trends without knowing the potential effects of the new item. That may be what has happened with robotic surgery, a relatively new realm for health care. According to data, there were 367,000 robotic surgeries last year. Compare that to the 114,000 that occurred throughout the U.S. in 2008 and the growing trend is easily visible. The problem is that physicians are reporting issues with the only robotic system approved by the FDA, some contributing to the deaths of patients. Some have filed medical malpractice cases because of the consequences of these problems.
According to reports, one in four hospitals now has a robotic surgeon system in place. The only one approved by the FDA is the Da Vinci system and it costs about $1.45 million with additional fees each year. This high cost forces hospitals to advertise the fact that they possess this instrument so they can recoup their losses. This has led to a rapid adoption of the robotic system, even though many physicians are not properly trained in operating it.
Cavanagh Law Group client, Kathy Kuk, was recently quoted in a Chicago Tribune article urging Metra officials to install a safety system that railroad experts say could potentially prevent injuries and save lives.
Benjeman L. Nichols, an attorney at Cavanagh Law Group, was a featured speaker at the Chicago Bar Association's Tort Litigation Committee meeting on April 10, 2013.
Some parents in Illinois do not often consider the dangers of allowing their children to play contact sports. Many will cheer their child on, never expecting it to be their own child who might be injured. Brain trauma is a frequent injury in sports such as football and at least one individual in the state has had that injury to his body because of his time spent playing the sport in high school.
The football player has now passed away. He became a quadriplegic in 2000 during a football game in which he was a running back for Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Illinois. According to experts, most quadriplegics die within the first decade after they have become paralyzed. This is usually due to kidney or lung failure. Despite these odds, the young man lived on until 2011.
