Articles Posted in Auto Accidents

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In the Illinois auto accident lawsuit of Corinne Thompson v. Christie Gordon, et al., No. 110066 (IL Sup. Ct.), the Illinois Supreme Court held that an engineer does not have to be professionally licensed in Illinois in order to qualify as an “expert” witness in an Illinois civil lawsuit. The Supreme Court’s decision affirmed the decision made by the appellate court; however, it reversed the circuit court’s ruling that the civil engineer hired by the plaintiff needed to be licensed in the state of Illinois in order to testify as an expert witness in the pending civil suit.

In Illinois, qualifications for various types of trial witnesses are established under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 213. A civil engineer, such as the one in Thompson, who is hired to testify as to the standard of care within his or her professional field, would be handled under Rule 213(f)(3). This section deals with “controlled expert witnesses,” i.e., the party’s retained expert, and requires the party to provide the expert’s qualifications to provide opinions on the specialized subject matter.

In Thompson, it was these qualifications that were up for debate. While the plaintiff held that its civil engineer was qualified to testify based on his experience and education, the defendants held that without being professionally licensed in Illinois he could not provide opinions as to the standard of care required of the defendants’ engineers and contractors. The defendants brought a motion to strike the civil engineer’s testimony as to the design defects of a highway intersection, which was granted by the circuit court. Plaintiffs appealed this decision; without the civil engineer’s expert testimony it would be almost impossible for the plaintiff to prove her claims against the defendants.

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The Illinois Court of Claims awarded $8 million to the surviving family of two sisters who died after an Illinois state trooper crashed his patrol car into the teens’ car in November 2007. Former-State Trooper Mitchell was found guilty of reckless driving and to have breached his duty of exercising reasonable care while on the job, a breach which the court held was the cause of the two teens’ deaths. Kimberly Dorsey, as Executer of the Estates of Jessica Uhl and Kimberly Uhl v. State of Illinois, 08-CC-2945.

At the time of the Illinois auto crash, Trooper Matt Mitchell was talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend and emailing another trooper for directions, all while driving 126 mph on his way to another accident. At the time of the Illinois car crash, 18 year-old Jessica Uhl and 13 year-old Kimberly Uhl were driving in the opposite direction along Interstate 64 near Illinois Route 158. Mitchell lost control of his vehicle, which then jumped the median and crashed into the Uhl’s car. Both girls perished in the fiery crash.

Mitchell testified that another vehicle had cut him off before he lost control, which was the real cause of the Illinois car crash. However, there were no other witnesses to collaborate his testimony and the Illinois Court of Claims was reluctant to believe his testimony after Mitchell affirmed that he had lied under oath just three days earlier during the criminal trial that resulted from the Illinois highway accident.

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Failing to yield the right of way at an intersection can often lead to auto accidents. In the best case scenario, these types of car crashes lead to minor injuries and are simple fender benders. However, there is also the chance that these types of car accidents can lead to severe and permanent injuries. The Illinois personal injury lawsuit of Burke v. Weller d/b/a Plainfield Limousine, et al., 08 L 361, is an example of an Illinois car accident that resulted in permanent injuries for one of the drivers involved.

The Illinois auto accident occurred when Casey Stryganek, a limousine driver, was turning left at the intersection of Route 52 and Interstate 55 in Shorewood, Illinois. Stryganek had a green light, not a green turn arrow, and elected to make his left turn despite the approach of a car driven by the plaintiff, Donald Burke. Unfortunately, this decision by Stryganek led to the collision with Burke’s vehicle.

The Illinois car crash left Burke with a fractured left radius and ulna. The severity of the fractures necessitated an internal fixation surgery to repair the fracture. An internal fixation surgery is a fairly extensive surgery that requires the surgeon to insert metal rods and screws into the bones in order to repair the fracture.

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An Illinois jury recently returned a $4.5 million verdict for a Chicago truck accident lawsuit that resulted in severe spine and back injuries to the plaintiff in Dorman v. Sysco Food Services – Chicago, Inc., et al., No. 07 L 10296. The verdict followed a two-week trial held in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The Illinois truck accident occurred when the plaintiff, David Dorman, was stopped at a red light in Chicago. While he was sitting at the light, Dorman’s vehicle was rear-ended by a truck owned by Sysco Food Services – Chicago, Inc. The defendant truck driver claimed that his breaks failed as he approached the plaintiff’s car. The high speeds at which the impact occurred were due to the fact that the defendant was exiting the Kennedy Expressway immediately prior to the truck accident.

The impact caused the truck to land on top of the plaintiff’s car and crush his roof, leaving the 31 year-old Dorman with severe neck and back injuries. Dorman required a two-level spinal fusion, two-disc replacement surgery, and a lumbar discectomy to repair the four bulging cervical discs and herniated disc he sustained during the Illinois auto crash.

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An Illinois personal injury lawsuit recently received a jury verdict of $4 million; the case involved an Illinois highway accident that left both the defendant truck driver and a little girl dead. The verdict was against a truck driver, Wayne Garfoot, and his trucking company, Garfoot Trucking, Inc. in The Estate of Santos v. Garfoot Trucking, Inc..

In January, 2005, Richard Santos was driving on Interstate 90 with his two-year old daughter, Amanda, in the passenger seat. The Santos’ vehicle was approaching an Illinois toll plaza when it was rear-ended by the defendant, Wayne Garfoot, who was driving a tractor-trailer truck. The truck drove over the car, crushing and killing two-year old Amanda. Garfoot also died as a result of the Illinois truck accident.

Amanda’s estate alleged that the defendant truck driver was driving too fast for conditions and did not maintain a safe speed as he was approaching the Illinois toll plaza. Because the defendant truck driver had died in the Illinois truck accident, an Illinois state trooper was called to testify as an accident reconstruction expert at the trial.

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A recent Illinois wrongful death lawsuit was awarded $1 million by an Illinois jury that found the defendant, William Barham, guilty of the negligence that led to his friend’s death in Estate of Isom v. Barham, 00 L 63. The case arose out of an Illinois car crash involving the defendant and the decedent, Jerry Isom. Barham was allegedly driving when the car ran off of the road and collided with a tree, killing Isom on impact.

Barham and Isom were the only two people in the vehicle and subsequently the only two injured as a result of the Illinois car accident. Both men were employed at the Shawnee Correctional Center, and were in fact driving an Illinois Department of Corrections vehicle at the time of the Illinois car crash. There was evidence that Barham had been drinking prior to the car accident.

The Illinois wrongful death lawsuit was brought by the estate of the decedent, Jerry Isom; he was survived by a wife and four children. The estate claimed that as the driver of the vehicle that Barham should be held responsible for Isom’s death. However, Barham claimed that he was not the driver, but that Isom had in fact been driving at the time of the Illinois car crash.

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In a recent Illinois personal injury lawsuit involving injuries sustained during an Illinois car crash, the Illinois jury returned a verdict of $500,000 in favor of the plaintiff. The case of Verhaegen v. Bill Smith Auto Parts, Inc. involved an elderly plaintiff, Harvey Verhaegen, who was struck by a tow tuck owned by Bill Smith Auto Parts, Inc. after his vehicle stopped in traffic. The Illinois auto crash verdict was reduced by 50% because the jury found that the plaintiff was 50% responsible for his own injuries.

When there is an issue of comparative fault or negligence, i.e. that the plaintiff’s own negligence also contributed to his or her injuries, Illinois juries are instructed to consider the degree of fault when coming to a decision on a personal injury lawsuit. If the jury finds that the plaintiff is more than 50% responsible then he or she is barred from receiving any reward. However, if the plaintiff is found to be 50% or less responsible for his or her own injuries, then the ultimate award is reduced by the percentage of responsibility. Therefore, in Verhaegen, the award was reduced by 50% because the jury found the plaintiff to be 50% responsible for his own injuries.

In order to determine each party’s degree of liability, the jury must carefully analyze the case facts. In this Illinois auto crash case, the 74 year-old plaintiff was driving on Illinois Interstate 74 when he stopped his vehicle suddenly in the outside lane of traffic. He later testified that the reasons for stopping his car were not clear to him; the plaintiff sustained head injuries and suffered cognitive defects as a result of the Illinois car accident.

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In a closely watched case involving federal preemption of product defect claims that a minivan was defective because its aisle seat lacked a lap/shoulder seat-belt, Williamson v. Mazda Motor of America, Inc., is angling its way to the Supreme Court. Williamson seeks to hold Mazda responsible for the death of Thanh Williamson, who was killed in a head-on collision in her family car, a 1993 Mazda minivan.

The Mazda minivan that Williamson was riding was equipped with lap/shoulder harness seat-belts except for the rear aisle seat where she was seated at the time of the crash. All of the other passengers in the van survived the incident. They were all harness seat-belted.

The United States has filed an amicus brief in support of the Williamson family, arguing that the lower courts have misread a similar Supreme Court case decided in 2000, Geier v. American Honda Motor Co, and that the family should be allowed to pursue their product liability case to its end.

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The number of bicyclists on our streets and roads have increased significantly over the last several years as more people have begun to rely on this means of transportation than to commute to work, to shop, and go to school. Cities and towns have responded to the increased number of bicycles on the road by increasing bicycle accommodations, such as bike paths along streets.

However, this increase in bicyclists also means there is more competition between bicycles and motor vehicles for control of the road. When an auto accident occurs involving a bike and car, the bicyclists are much more subject to severe injury with a motor vehicle than the other way around. Bike riders have been injured in Illinois car/ bike accidents and Illinois trucking/bike accidents much more frequently now than in the recent past.

One such example of this increase in bicycle personal injury cases is a September 2008 bicycle-auto accident that occurred when a 56 year-old woman was riding eastbound on her bicycle in the crosswalk with the walk signal. The defendant driver was driving southbound on Western Avenue turning onto westbound East Westleigh Road in Lake Forest, Illinois when he struck the bicyclist.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a warning to users of 15-passenger vans to take specific safety steps in keeping its occupants safe. There had been two recently reported fatal truck crashes, one in New York and one in Georgia involving 15-passenger vans that have rolled over and resulted in ten deaths.

NHTSA has warned that tire maintenance is essential in preventing rollover crashes. Users of 15-passenger vans are cautioned to make sure that the vehicles have appropriately-sized tires that are inflated to the correct level before each trip. NHTSA has also recommended that spare tires not be used as replacements for worn tires. Fifteen-passenger vans have a history of tire wear that necessitates rotation of tires and/or replacement on a regular basis. Many tire manufacturers recommend that tires older than ten years old not be used at all.

Many of these vans are used for church groups, non-profit organizations, colleges and public schools.

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