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Recent Blog Posts
What are Common Forms of Dental Malpractice in Illinois?
Going to the dentist is an unpleasant experience for many people. The general discomfort is often compounded by legitimate concerns about a dentist’s competence and ability to fix a situation, rather than make it worse.
Unfortunately, visits to the dentist can result in treatment that does not meet an appropriate level of care. Physical pain and great financial expense can result from substandard dental treatment, to say nothing of the emotional turmoil patients experience. Sometimes, poor dental treatment can rise to the level of medical malpractice. When this happens, an experienced personal injury lawyer can help you determine if you have a case for damages.
Common Types of Dental Malpractice
Dental malpractice can cause harmful consequences, especially during more complex procedures like surgeries and extractions. Common types of dental malpractice include, but are not limited to:
Can You Sue an Anesthesiologist for Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice cases are often appropriate when a medical professional causes harm to a patient by providing substandard care. A significant subset of medical malpractice cases results from anesthesiologist errors during general anesthesia (anesthesia that makes the patient completely unconscious).
Anesthesia is inherently risky and requires extensive training and expertise on the part of the anesthesiologist. Sometimes adverse effects take place that are out of the control of the anesthesiologist. However, errors are often caused by negligence by an anesthesiologist who fails to provide a proper standard of care. When this happens, the victim may have grounds to file a civil lawsuit.
What Are Common Anesthesia Errors?
Anesthesia malpractice can occur during a medical preview before the operation, during the procedure itself, or following the procedure with improper follow-up care. Some of the most common anesthesia errors include:
Are Drivers in Illinois Liable for Car Accidents in Bad Weather?
It is still early in the fall, but the Midwest’s famous weather events will begin happening more frequently, and Illinois drivers should be prepared. Rain, snow, and sleet reduce visibility and make road conditions much more hazardous, increasing weather-related car accidents. All this may leave Illinois drivers wondering: If a car accident happens that is directly or indirectly caused by bad weather conditions, who is responsible?
Negligence and Bad Weather Conditions
Whether or not a driver is responsible (or “liable,” in legal terms) for causing an accident is largely dependent on whether the driver acted negligently. Negligence occurs when someone fails to do something that a reasonably careful person would do - or when someone does something that a reasonably careful person would not do - under similar circumstances. If a driver does not act reasonably in bad weather, they could be held liable for causing a car accident.
Illinois Nursing Home Fined $25,000 After Resident Found Wandering
In January of this year, an 81-year-old woman with dementia left her Illinois nursing home residence and wandered away, eventually slipping on ice and falling. Police found her after a neighbor heard her calling for help. She was not wearing winter clothing in 25-degree weather, and her pants were soaked through with water.
Fortunately, this woman’s life was saved due to the help of a watchful neighbor, but stories like hers do not always end well. This incident illustrates one of the most dangerous risks inherent in inadequate nursing home care: Residents wandering into unsafe areas or eloping from the facility and getting hurt.
Negligence Can Lead to Residents Wandering Into Danger
One of the most common behaviors of individuals with dementia or other memory-related illness is that of wandering or elopement. Wandering refers to when residents walk around the nursing home facility itself; elopement is when residents leave the premises altogether.
Major Brands Face Recall Over Sunscreen Carcinogen Concerns
In July, several brands owned by pharmaceutical and consumer goods giant Johnson & Johnson issued recalls of sunscreen products over concerns that the products contain low levels of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical. These brands included products from Neutrogena and Aveeno. Johnson & Johnson’s actions were not required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but rather were voluntary and done “out of an abundance of caution.”
Researchers have asked the FDA to issue recalls for more brands after they found evidence suggesting octocrylene, another carcinogenic chemical, may be present in sunscreens produced by major companies. The researchers are concerned that octocrylene degrades to benzophenone, which can interfere with important hormones such as estrogen. These recent developments raise important questions of product liability on the part of companies producing these products.
Improper Use of Pitocin Can Out Mothers and Babies at Risk
Pitocin is a prescription version of the naturally occurring hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is famously known as the “love hormone” for its important role in helping people bond with each other. Oxytocin also plays a major role during childbirth. When a woman’s body is getting ready for delivery, it produces oxytocin to induce contractions, the major muscle spasms that help push the baby out.
Unfortunately, Pitocin is not always properly administered and its effects are not always sufficiently supervised in hospitals. This can lead to serious birth injuries for the mother and baby, up to and including neonatal death. This article discusses the uses of Pitocin, the risks of Pitocin, and what potential victims of Pitocin misuse birth injuries can do.
When is Pitocin Used During Childbirth?
Doctors sometimes give women Pitocin as part of the labor-inducing process. If a baby is likely to be too large when it reaches full gestational age, or if a woman has certain risk factors like preeclampsia or a stalled labor, a doctor may use Pitocin to begin or speed up labor and delivery. If used correctly, Pitocin will trigger the body to begin contractions or to increase the rate of contractions.
Can Vaping Marijuana Make Me Sick?
Smoking cigarettes used to be ubiquitous. Virtually everybody smoked - even in places we now find ridiculous, like hospitals and airplanes. Then research proved the seriously detrimental effects of smoking tobacco, and although some people still smoke cigarettes today, the risks are well established.
However, in recent years, electronic cigarettes (also known as vape pens or e-cigarettes) have skyrocketed in popularity. With the advent of legal recreational marijuana in states like Illinois, the use of vaping products is a large part of marijuana culture. Many people believe that vape pens are safer than traditional methods of smoking marijuana and that they face little or no risks from vaping. New research shows this is not the case and that consumers may face serious risks from the contents of vape pens, as well as from defective products.
Vaping Causes Lung Illness
How Common is Injury or Death From Accidents at Construction Sites?
Construction workers in Illinois are a large part of the underappreciated workforce that makes our world go round. Every day, rain or shine, they show up to do the difficult work of building the places we work and live. Unfortunately, construction workers are exposed to the inherent risks of the job. Serious injuries and fatal construction accidents due to falls, slips, and contact with objects or equipment occur every year. In 2019 in Illinois alone, 30 fatalities and many more injuries occurred in the private construction industry.
Who is Responsible for Construction Site Accidents?
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the employers to provide a safe worksite. Budgetary concerns and time constraints often pressure employers to cut corners, and workers face increased hazards as a result. Injured construction workers in Illinois are generally able to recover compensation for injuries and loss of income through workers’ compensation benefits. Illinois has a no-fault workers’ compensation system, meaning that a worker is eligible for benefits from the employer’s insurance whether the injury was the fault of the worker, a co-worker, or the employer.
Is It Neglect When a Resident Suffers a Fall in a Nursing Home?
As we age, certain functions become more difficult. The elderly population is at an increased risk for falls and with decreased bone density, those falls are much more likely to cause injuries or death as a result. With nursing homes catering to the elderly population, it is important for Illinois nursing homes and those around the country to employ safety measures to help protect their residents from these incidents. Unfortunately, falls are a common occurrence. Each year, approximately half of all nursing home residents will experience a fall. The question when a resident does fall is what level of liability, if any, does the nursing home facility and staff have.
Factors for Establishing Liability
When a nursing home resident experiences a fall, the nursing home owner or person in charge of the facility can be found liable if they were negligent. Negligence can be proven if the owner or individual in charge:
When Can a Patient Be Injured Because of Failure to Diagnose a Disease?
Patients put a great deal of trust in doctors and medical professionals. They expect to receive quality care, including proper evaluation of their symptoms and effective treatment to address any concerns that may affect their health. Unfortunately, doctors can make mistakes, and when medical malpractice occurs, patients can suffer serious injuries that impact their health and well-being. Diagnostic errors are some of the most common forms of medical negligence, and a failure to diagnose a disease, illness, or health condition can result in a patient not receiving the necessary treatment. In these cases, patients will need to work with an attorney to determine their options for receiving compensation for the damages they have suffered due to these diagnostic errors.
Reasons Doctors May Fail to Diagnose an Illness
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