Articles Posted in Pedestrian Accidents

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Sandra Gibbs hired the defendant Blu-Sky Industries to do work on a septic tank on her property at 30658 S. Ashland Ave. in Beecher, Ill. The Village of Beecher is located in Chicago-area suburbs in Will County, Ill. On Dec. 8, 2009, Gibbs, 31 years old at the time, stood in her driveway supervising the work as the defendant Blu-Sky Industries’ workers completed the project. She was walking back toward her house when a Blu-Sky employee, Jacob Courtney, began backing up his truck, which was attached to a trailer.

Courtney did not see Gibbs and hit her twice, causing her to fall onto the trailer with a direct blow to her outstretched right arm. The truck continued in reverse with Gibbs halfway on the trailer and halfway on the ground for 10 additional feet before the truck finally stopped.

Gibbs suffered a right shoulder impingement with a partial thickness tear of the supraspinatus tendon in the rotator cuff, requiring injections and eventually surgery that consisted of arthroscopic distal clavicle excision and subacromial decompression. A subacromial decompression of the shoulder is a surgery designed to increase the size of the subacromial, which is designed to reduce the pressure on the muscle. In order to make room, the surgery involves cutting the ligament and shaving away the bone spur on the subacromial bone. This permits the muscle in that space to heal.

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Allen Zunner got out of his car to pump gas at a convenience store gas station when he fell on black ice and diesel fuel, which had settled on the concrete pavement around the gas pump. Zunner, 53, suffered a massive torn right rotator cuff injury and underwent two surgeries.

Zunner’s medical expenses were more than $44,000. Although the second surgery was a success, Zunner has limited range of motion in his right shoulder. He also has scarring at the surgical site.

Zunner sued the convenience store claiming that it chose not to warn customers about the known leaky gas pump. The lawsuit also claimed a failure to maintain the gas pump and the surrounding area around it. There was no lost income claimed by  Zunner.

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On May 8, 2011, Mason Brandstedter was driving on Route 59 in West Chicago, Ill., around 1:30 a.m. It was then that he discovered what appeared to be a dog, which was lying on the road and had clearly been injured. Brandstedter, 21, stopped his car facing southbound in the median turn lane and exited his car to see if he could help what amounted to a dying dog. Brandstedter recognized the dog and thought it belonged to a friend. Brandstedter and the dog were both partially in the northbound left lane and partly in the center turn lane.

Brandstedter was crouched down next to the dog talking on his cell phone with the dog’s owner, who Brandstedter knew, and with his back to approaching northbound traffic. He was hit by the defendant Richard Aubert’s car, which was northbound.

Brandstedter suffered a partially torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder and a partially torn labrum in his right hip, both of which required arthroscopic surgery. In addition to $85,776 in past medical expenses, he lost six months of work as a cabinet maker because of his injuries.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago has affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a lawsuit against a Wal-Mart store for injuries suffered by Kristen Zuppardi. She went to the Wal-Mart store in Champaign, Ill., with her brother and her son on June 15, 2010. When she entered the store, Ms. Zuppardi took a shopping cart from the front of the store and then walked down one of the main aisles of the store. Ms. Zuppardi was on her way to the back of the store to purchase milk. As she was walking down the aisle she slipped and fell in a puddle of water on the store’s concrete floors. She filed a complaint against Wal-Mart in state court in June 2012. The case was removed to the Federal District Court by Wal-Mart for diversity of citizenship jurisdiction.

One of the Wal-Mart store’s assistant managers, George Steward, stated that he did not witness the fall, but that he knew that because the fall occurred in close proximity to the store’s back doors, Wal-Mart personnel would have promptly dealt with the puddle even if the plaintiff had not fallen.

Wal-Mart was unable to locate the customer’s incident file of this occurrence and was accordingly incapable of producing any documents related to the investigation other than five photographs depicting the location of the fall and a report submitted to Wal-Mart’s casualty claims administrator. There was no video footage available.

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On Nov. 27, 2008, Galissa Brown walked out of the Nitro Nightclub in west suburban Stone Park, Ill., at about 1 a.m. She began walking with some of her friends to their car. The police had already been called to this nightclub because of 4 or 5 stabbings. It had been a violent night.

Two blocks from the nightclub, Brown was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Brown was taken to Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., and pronounced dead at 1:58 a.m. Neither the vehicle nor the individual driver was ever identified.

On Nov. 23, 2009, Reginald Brown, Galissa’s father, filed a lawsuit against Nitro under the Liquor Control Act of 1934, which is also known as the Illinois Dram Shop Act.

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On June 4, 2008, 70-year-old Edward Wasik, a retired school teacher, was a customer at Ridgeway Chevrolet, an automobile dealer located in Lansing, Ill. Wasik was walking behind the service bays in the service department when he was struck by a car backing out of the service bay.

The car that hit Wasik was driven by the defendant, Barry Boer, a mechanic at the dealership. Boer was operating another customer’s car, but apparently was looking forward while moving in reverse. Boer struck Wasik with that customer’s car, injuring him.

Wasik sustained injuries to his lower back, ribs and left knee, which resulted in arthroscopic surgery, physical therapy and continuing injections to the left knee as well as physical therapy to his back.

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Carolyn Catchot slipped and fell at a shopping mall called the Shops at North Bridge in December 2008. She claimed that she had not noticed water on the floor before she fell, but as she lay there she found her hands and pants were damp with water and noticed a maintenance worker holding a mop and a bucket nearby.

A housekeeper for UNNICO, Sead Hodzic, was responsible for patrolling the area of the mall where Catchot fell. Hodzic’s rounds would have taken him through the area about 10 minutes before the fall and again about 2 minutes before it. As was his practice, after he passed through the area, he walked about 60 feet farther to the end and then returned and noticed Catchot on the floor.

Catchot filed a lawsuit against UNNICO, which was the maintenance and janitorial service for the mall. She also named as a defendant Macerich Management Co., which manages the mall. Catchot claimed in her lawsuit that both defendants were negligent in their maintenance of the premises and that their negligence was the cause of her injuries.

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On June 25, 2007, 37-year-old Latroy Haynes maintained that he was walking eastbound along Cicero Avenue in the crosswalk on Archer Avenue in the city of Chicago.  He said he had a green light when he was hit by Leonarda Gonzalez’s speeding southbound car.

The impact caused Haynes’s leg to get caught in the vehicle’s wheel well.  He suffered displaced tibia-fibula fractures in his left leg.  This required open reduction internal fixation with placement of rods and screws.  Haynes had more than $32,000 in medical bills.

The defendant, Leonarda Gonzalez, contended that she had a green light and that Haynes darted out south of the crosswalk from between two vehicles in the adjacent southbound lanes to the right. Gonzalez, age 54, said she did not see Haynes before the impact.  The contact between Haynes and the Gonzalez vehicle occurred on the passenger side of her car.

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On Aug. 13, 2011, Roland P. Wilson was crossing the street after leaving the tavern, Hot City Lounge, 7342 S. Racine Ave., Chicago, Ill., when he was hit by a vehicle that fled the scene. Wilson,  66, suffered a fractured right leg and required surgery.  Wilson believed the hit and run vehicle belonged to Sammie Cooper, who had been another patron at Hot City Lounge. Wilson was not clear as to whether Cooper was the driver, however.

Wilson told the police in December 2011 that he had obtained a license plate number.  The license plate was traced to Cooper who had subsequently become incapacitated due to an unrelated medical condition.  The police did not conduct any investigation.

Wilson filed a negligence lawsuit against Cooper and a Dram Shop Act claim against Hot City Lounge and its individual owner. 

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Ana Reyes was the owner of a motor vehicle and was the sole named insured.  She purchased auto insurance from American Access Casualty Co., and  the policy specifically said there would be no liability coverage for any accident in which she was operating a motor vehicle.

On Oct. 30, 2007, Reyes allegedly drove the Chrysler sedan she owned and hit two pedestrians, killing a 4-year-old boy and injuring his mother.

The Jasso family, who were the injured mother and fatally injured child, had uninsured motorist coverage with State Farm Insurance Co.  The question for the Illinois Supreme Court in this case was the dispute between American Access and State Farm as to whether public policy as established under §7-317(b)(2) of the Illinois Vehicle Code serves to block insurance companies from excluding coverage for a policy’s sole named insured. With Justice Thomas Kilbride dissenting, the Illinois Supreme Court concluded “an automobile liability insurance policy cannot exclude the sole named insured since such an exclusion conflicts with the plain language of Section 7-317(b)(2) and, therefore, violates public policy.”

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