Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

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On July 14, 2007, 16-year-old Eric Jones went to the city of Springfield’s public beach with his brother and cousins. The public beach is located on Lake Springfield. Eric did not know how to swim. He was in the water at least chest-deep when he disappeared beneath the surface. His relatives, brother and cousins did not report him missing for an unknown number of minutes. The nearest lifeguard had not noticed Eric’s disappearance.

As soon as the lifeguards were notified, they began searching the lake for Eric. It took several minutes to find him in the opaque water. They were unable to resuscitate him.

Eric was survived by his mother and brother. The family filed a lawsuit arguing that the city lifeguards violated the city’s internal guidelines regarding where the lifeguards would be located, chose not to immediately form a line search in the area where Eric was last seen, and were guilty of willful and wanton misconduct for those failures. It was alleged in conclusion that the city’s actions or inactions were the cause of Eric’s drowning death.

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a jury’s wrongful death verdict regarding the death of a woman who was hit by a truck as she stood on the side of a road next to her disabled car. The woman’s husband filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the truck driver, the truck’s owner, the trucking company that hired both of them and the logistics company who arranged for the shipping.

The woman’s family was successful at trial against all of the defendants in obtaining a jury verdict. On appeal the defendant’s argument centered on trial errors and agency issues.

The truck involved in the incident was in a supply chain routed for a major automaker. The automaker had arranged a particular supply change to reduce the time it would take to buy and hold parts, getting them only when the parts were needed.

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Caterpillar Inc. purchased a factory owned by Bucyrus International located in Milwaukee. That facility was making strip-mining equipment. Because of the purchase, Caterpillar assumed the labor contract Bucyrus previously had negotiated with the United Steelworkers Union.

About two months after the July 2011 purchase, a 36-ton piece of machinery called a “crawler” crushed and killed a union worker at the Caterpillar plant.

The crawler apparently had shifted suddenly while being rotated by a crane, resulting in the fatality. Caterpillar reported the death to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and to the local police.

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Jimmy Hill was 66 years old and was unloading a truckload of chicks at a farm when an employee of the transportation company J.B. Hunt drove a forklift over Hill’s ankle. Hill underwent surgery to repair the broken ankle and later died of post-operative sepsis. He is survived by his adult son.

Hill’s son sued J.B. Hunt claiming its employee, the forklift driver, chose not to follow the company’s safety policies and safety training. The lawsuit did not include a claim for lost income. The jury’s verdict of $3.4 million found the defendant J.B. Hunt 98% responsible and a non-party 2% liable for Hill’s injuries and untimely death.

The attorneys representing the Hill family were John P. Zelbst and David Butler. For trial the plaintiff engaged the expert services of an internal medicine physician and engineering expert, both of whom testified at the trial.

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Daniel Orr died in a motorcycle accident in August 2012. His beneficiaries, who were his daughters, Hailey and Daniell, filed claims seeking benefits payable under a group life insurance policy governed by ERISA. The insurance policy was issued by Union Security Insurance Co. to Orr’s former employer.

The policy provided accidental death and dismemberment benefits to a participant and his or her beneficiaries, subject to certain exclusions, including exclusion on a loss resulting directly or indirectly from intoxication.

In December 2012, Union Security notified the Orr daughters that it had denied their claims on the ground that Orr’s death resulted from his intoxication. The notification explained that autopsy and toxicology reports showed that Orr’s blood alcohol level at the time of the accident was above the legal limit.

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In the aftermath of the recent Philadelphia Amtrak derailment, which cost the lives of eight individuals and severely injured more than 200, it came to light that the U.S. Congress had passed an act in 1997 to limit or cap Amtrak’s total payouts to train crash victims to $200 million. In an Associated Press report by writer Eileen Sullivan, it was reported that the cap may be too low for the injured and killed in the Philadelphia Amtrak crash.

The $200 million payout cap was for a single passenger rail incident was part of a late effort in 1997 to pass legislation that would help Amtrak financially, which was on the brink of bankruptcy at that time.

The 1997 legislation did not adjust the payout cap for inflation. If that were considered today, the payout cap might reach somewhere in the area of $300 million in 2015 dollars.

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Tracy Morgan, the actor/comedian, has settled his lawsuit against Walmart. In June 2014, Morgan and three others were involved in a truck crash on the New Jersey Turnpike when their limousine was struck by a Walmart truck. Morgan’s close friend and mentor, James “Jimmy Mack” McNair was killed. Morgan suffered serious injuries, which included head trauma, a broken leg and broken ribs. He is still recovering from his injuries. McNair grew up with Morgan in New York City; his two children survive him.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Newark, N.J. Details of the settlement were not disclosed as the case was settled on the basis of the confidential agreement.

The truck driver for Walmart, Kevin Ropert of Jonesboro, Ga., faces criminal charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Daniel DiNardi was a State Department of Transportation supervisor who was pulling his orange Department of Transportation pickup truck onto the right shoulder of a highway to remove debris. Before getting out of his truck, he activated the emergency lights and yellow strobe lights on his truck. After he placed the debris into the pickup truck bed and was walking to get back into his truck, Gina Davis, driving a tractor-trailer for PTX Services LLC, drifted off the road and struck DiNardi. He suffered multiple blunt-force trauma injuries and died shortly thereafter. DiNardi was survived by his parents and two minor children.

Davis pleaded guilty of misconduct with a motor vehicle and was sentenced to five years in prison, which was suspended after two years.

DiNardi’s family sued Davis and PTX Services claiming that Davis was negligent in choosing not to pay proper attention to her driving, keep a proper lookout and remain in her lane of traffic. The family also made a claim that Davis was fatigued from driving and had falsified her truck’s log book. The family presented evidence, including Davis’s own admission, that she had falsified her logs for the two days leading up to the collision. Davis also admitted at deposition and at trial that she drove onto the shoulder.

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It has long been law in Illinois that, “a judgment against two or more defendants, whether in contract or tort, was indivisible, and could neither be vacated by a trial court or reversed by a reviewing court as to one defendant alone, even though it was not erroneous as to the others, “ Chmielewski v. Marich, 2 Ill.2d 568 (1954).

In this wrongful death case, Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. (CCIC) argued it was justified in dropping the estate of Joseph Sperl and Thomas Sanders as defendants in a Will County interpleader case.

CCIC covered $1 million in liability coverage to Dragon Fly Express and DeAn Henry, who were claimed to have caused the car crash that killed Sperl and Sanders, seriously injured William Taluc and injured several others. There was also a significant amount of property damage as a result of this collision.

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The Illinois Appellate Court for the Second District has reversed a Lake County, Ill., dismissal of a personal-injury and wrongful-death claim against Rene Melbourn who was dismissed on motion under the Illinois Code of Civil Procedures, Section 2-615, for failure to state a cause of action. The plaintiffs appealed the dismissal with prejudice of their second amendment complaint against Melbourn. The trial judge had found that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim for wrongful-death based on an “in-concert” theory of liability and the negligent infliction of emotional distress. Melbourn was the only defendant involved in the appeal.

The facts of the case were that on Dec. 13, 2013, the Borcia family, including Antonio Borcia, was out boating and tubing on Lake County’s Chain of Lakes. The defendant, Melbourn, was sued along with David Hatyina, Spring Lake Marina Ltd. and Fox Waterway Agency over the death of Antonio. In this boating accident, which killed Antonio, it was alleged that Melbourn was liable for in-concert liability for the wrongful death as well as negligent infliction of emotional distress for a bystander who witnessed the collision.

The incident involved Hatyina’s 29-foot cigarette boat, named “Purple Haze,” which struck and killed Antonio on Petite Lake, in Lake Villa, Ill. Melbourn was a passenger on the boat; it was alleged she contributed to Hatyina’s consumption of alcohol and cocaine. Hatyina was impaired as he operated the boat at speeds in excess of 40 mph. Hatyina struck Antonio with the boat. Antonio suffered severe injuries that resulted in his death on July 28, 2012.

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