Kreisman Law Offices Professional Corporation
An Illinois jury awarded $2.84 Million to a painter who fractured his heel after falling approximately 15 feet while working at a construction site. His injury required multiple surgeries, resulting in a long period of time off of work and a hefty medical bill.
The painter had been working on a lift at a school in Hanover when the Illinois construction site accident occurred. The plaintiff sued Hoffman Corporation, the general contractor overseeing the construction job, claiming that Hoffman was in charge of the job site safety.
Plaintiff claimed that his injury was of an alleged lack of a front guardrail on the lift he was working on and that Hoffman permitted workers to use those lifts without the guardrail. And while the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff, the verdict of $2.84 million was reduced to $1.8 million after accounting for comparative negligence.
Comparative negligence questions whether or not the injured party contributed in any way to the accident. If the answer is yes, then the jury must then determine how much each party contributed to the outcome. If the jury found the plaintiff to have contributed 20% to his or her own injury, then any award they receive for their injury would be reduced by 20%.
So the reduction in the painter’s award indicates that he was partly responsible for his accident, but that the majority of the fault lied with the construction firm.
Chicago’s Kreisman Law Offices has been handling Illinois construction site injury lawsuits for over 30 years, serving areas in and around Cook County, including Skokie, Elmhurst, Orland Park, and Blue Island.