COVID-19 Update: How We Are Serving and Protecting Our Clients
Justia Lawyer Rating for David M. Barish

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As an American Airlines International flight attendant, you travel a great deal and may encounter unexpected, even dangerous situations, not only on the plane, but while on layovers or in hotel restaurants. If you’re injured in the scope of employment, you’re entitled to file a workers’ compensation claim for benefits. However, if a third party contributes to or causes your work injury, you may be able to also file a civil lawsuit against the third party to recover damages. You need to be aware that American Airlines or its workers’ compensation insurance carrier may have the right to recover expenses related to payment of workers’ compensation when a third party was at fault. This is called a subrogation interest. Subrogation of American Airlines international flight attendant claims can be extremely complicated. If your work-related injuries may have been caused by someone other than your employer, you should consult the experienced Chicago workers compensation lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. As an AV-rated law firm, we’ve fought for fair compensation for more than 60 years.

Subrogation of American Airlines International Flight Attendant Claims

Workers’ compensation is an exclusive remedy. Through this system, lawmakers intended you to be able to recover benefits without needing to establish an employer’s liability as you would in court. In exchange, you cannot sue your employer for work-related injuries and your benefits may be less than what you’d recover if liability were established in a lawsuit. However, if a third party is responsible for your work injuries in Chicago, you may be able to pursue damages in a lawsuit against that person or entity.

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Workplace accidents that result in scarring or disfigurement are devastating, painful and emotionally difficult. Firefighters are particularly at risk of scarring and disfigurement on the job. As a firefighter, you may experience a permanent change in your appearance as a result of a fire. Firefighters in the City of Chicago are usually not covered for work-related injuries because the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act doesn’t cover firefighters who work in cities with populations of 500,000 or more. However, there is an exception for Chicago firefighters who suffer serious and permanent disfigurement due to burns. Evaluation of benefits for scarring and disfigurement requires assessing the extent of the disfigurement and whether a bodily function was impaired. If you are concerned about scarring for firefighters, you should discuss your claim with our experienced Chicago workers’ compensation lawyers.

Scarring for Firefighters

Firefighting is a dangerous job. Scarring or disfigurement may be the result of:

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As many of you know, our firm has been around for two-thirds of a century, well before the web, smart phones and electric cars. It has been our privilege to represent labor unions, workers, the injured and the disabled throughout the State of Illinois and in our region for generations. We are grateful for being recognized for our excellence in the courts and in the legal community. Even in a year beset by many challenges due to the pandemic, we celebrate being honored with top ratings by Best Lawyers of U.S. News and World Report and four of our partners continuing to be recognized by Super Lawyers and two associates as Rising Stars. As news of the Covid Delta Variant continues to raise concern, we are committed to continuing our high level of service and are optimistic that changes to our practice will serve our clients well.

In mid-March 2020 the Courts, Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, National Labor Relations Board and Social Security Administration all abruptly shut down most, if not all, in-person hearings and trials. As many of you know, our firm has longstanding in-person client meetings, including, hotel conference room meetings in Quincy, IEA-REA teachers and school support staff workers meetings in Rockford, Law Enforcement and Firefighter office meetings, and with UAW workers at their locals throughout the State of Illinois. Additionally, we meet with airline workers especially flight attendants and pilots who come to our Chicago office when brought to our city for IMEs or Commission hearings. All came to a halt. Hospitals, doctors, and medical providers dealing with an overload of new patients and caring for the health of their own employees had difficulty providing us medical records and bills for our clients. Doctors cancelled in-person depositions. There was also significant concern about reducing the amount of paper documents due to the fear of contamination. Many law firms struggled with setting up reduced office staffing and work-from-home technology. As a result of all of the above, labor unions, and many injured and disabled may have experienced delays in their claims.

At Katz, Friedman we quickly adapted. Our attorneys remained accessible whether working in the office or working from home and our firm’s web portal provides an around-the-clock opportunity to communicate with us. The transition to working from home was assisted by the law firm’s long-term commitment to technology as means of providing improved service to our clients. We have long utilized a mainframe computer which we are able to access remotely via a Virtual Private Network connection, a highly secure communication channel design to provide confidentiality but permitting all of the members of the law firm to work from home on our clients’ matters. Our state-of-the-art telephone technology allowed incoming office telephone calls to be seamlessly routed directly to lawyers and staff who were working remotely.

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As a parent, there are probably few mental images that are more frightening than the prospect of your child’s school bus being hit by a semi-trailer hauling a load. Unfortunately, these accidents do occur here in Chicago and the surrounding area. And when they do, and your child is injured in that crash, you need the right Chicago bus accident attorney on your side, helping you acquire the information you need to determine what happened, how it happened, why it happened and who’s legally responsible for the harm your child has experienced and will endure in the future.

The Chicago Tribune reported on a school bus crash that was a perfect example of the phrase, “It could have been much worse.” During its morning route on Jan. 18, a school bus in Valparaiso approached an intersection. The bus, having the right of way, began moving westbound through the intersection when, according to local police, a northbound semi-trailer hauling metal piping ran a red light and collided with the bus.

The bus had 16 students on board at the time. One student suffered minor injuries, according to the report. Thankfully, no one suffered serious or fatal injuries.

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In your Social Security Disability case, there are lots of key dates and other pieces of vital information that will be essential elements of the evidence you provide to the Social Security Administration. Keeping up with all of them is extremely important because an error with any one of them can be the thing that trips up your Social Security Disability case and leads to your receiving no benefits. Don’t let that happen to you. Make sure you have effective and detail-oriented Chicago Social Security Disability counsel handling your case for you.

DLI, which stands for “date last insured,” is one of those key pieces of information, and it was at the center of one case recently decided by the federal appeals court here in Chicago. In that case, K.M. was diagnosed with lupus. Over the years, K.M.’s lupus caused deterioration in his mental functioning and motor speed. K.M. filed for Social Security Disability benefits based on his lupus along with other problems.

A Social Security Disability claimant’s DLI is extremely important for a number of reasons. One of those is that it may limit the medical evidence you can use in your case. If a medical opinion is composed after your DLI and is based on symptoms that you did not exhibit until after your DLI, then it can be disregarded in determining your eligibility for Social Security Disability benefits. In ruling against K.M., the ALJ assigned to his case refused to consider several of K.M.’s supporting medical documents, including two reports from a neurologist and an opinion provided by a counselor, precisely because each of them was created after K.M.’s DLI.

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Another crash involving an Amazon delivery vehicle has ended in tragedy, according to ABC 7 in Los Angeles. The report indicated that the Amazon Prime driver barreled into a stopped police cruiser, triggering two serious injuries and two deaths. While this fatal crash happened far from here, it serves as a reminder that anyone anywhere can find themselves injured (or a loved one killed) in a crash caused by an Amazon delivery driver. If it happens to you here in Illinois, waste no time in reaching out to an experienced Chicago injury attorney to help you pursue your case.

The California tragedy took place in the San Bernardino suburb of Jurupa Valley. It began with a routine two-vehicle crash. The involved drivers exited their vehicles and a county sheriff’s vehicle responded to the scene. The officer parked the patrol vehicle in the “No. 1 southbound lane,” behind the two involved vehicles, the report indicated.

About 40 minutes after the original crash, a southbound Amazon Prime delivery truck slammed into the patrol car. The patrol car careened into the officer and a sheriff’s department volunteer, inflicting major injuries on each of them. The two drivers from the initial crash were also hit and died at the scene, according to ABC 7.

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A pair of Illinois truck crashes that made the news recently both have one thing in common, and it’s an issue that comes up far too often: truckers falling asleep at the wheel. When a commercial truck driver falls asleep while driving, he/she places a multi-ton vehicle out of control and puts the lives of everyone on the road in jeopardy. Tragically, many of these crashes end with at least one fatality. If you or a loved one have been affected by a crash that was the result of a drowsy, fatigued or sleeping trucker, you should waste no time in reaching out to an experienced Chicago truck accident attorney about your legal options.

The more recent crash occurred in Fayette County in southern Illinois. Two men in a commercial truck were traveling south on a rural state highway when the driver fell asleep. The driver awakened, realized his problem, and overcorrected. That ended with the truck crashed into a ditch. The passenger in the commercial truck was dead by the time emergency help arrived, according to the Belleville News Daily.

Back in March 2019, a trucker on Route 20 in Stephenson County fell asleep at the wheel. Around the same time, a State Trooper had another truck stopped for inspection along the same stretch of road. The sleeping trucker’s rig crashed into the trooper’s vehicle and the truck she was inspecting, fatally wounding the trooper. The sleeping trucker pled guilty in late November 2020 to two criminal charges, one of which was “safety regulations violations,” according to cdllife.com.

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Statistics show that most Social Security Disability claims are rejected at first. In fact, most are rejected at each of the first two levels. A rejection does not, however, mean that you do not have a valid claim. With the help of a skilled Chicago Social Security Disability attorney, you can overcome these initial rejections and get the approval you need to get the benefits you deserve.

O.O.’s Disability case was an example of this kind of multi-step process. He was a man in his 30s who had worked as a cook, a server, and a barista but had ceased performing those jobs due to his Crohn’s disease. He applied for Disability benefits, but the administrative law judge who heard his case concluded he was not eligible.

A federal judge reversed that decision. The reason for the man’s success lay in the evidence that he presented and how it should have been applied to determine his Residual Functioning Capacity” or RFC, which is something that details all of the limitations you have due to your health condition and how those limitations impact your ability to work.

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The news has been ominous these last several months for Uber and Lyft drivers. In addition to the many other challenges these drivers face on the job, they’ve also been targeted in an increasing number of carjackings lately, including right here in and around Chicago. According to many Uber and Lyft drivers, part of the reason their jobs are so dangerous is Uber and Lyft’s failure to do their part and take reasonable measures to ensure safe rides. No one should have to fear that their job as a rideshare driver will cost them their life. If you’ve been hurt while working as a rideshare driver, it may have been because Uber or Lyft didn’t do enough to protect you. Reach out to an experienced Chicago injury attorney to find out how you may be entitled to compensation.

One of the more notorious recent incidents was a driver’s death in Washington, D.C. A 66-year-old Uber Eats driver was carjacked by two teenage girls. After the girls took off, the car crashed with the man partially in and partially out of his Honda sedan, according to a CBS News report. He died at the scene.

Closer to home, a Lyft driver working on Chicago’s South Side told WGN that he was “thankful to be alive” after a late 2020 carjacking. After picking up two riders, the driver found a gun pointed at his head. He surrendered his phone, wallet, and vehicle to the men, and they did not kill him.

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According to the U.S. Department of Transportation statistics, more than 5,000 people died last year in accidents involving large trucks. Many factors contributed to those numbers, and some of those regrettably could have been (and should have been) avoided. If you’ve been hurt (or a loved one has been killed) in a crash with a commercial truck, you may be entitled to recover significant compensation, and you should reach out to an experienced Chicago truck accident attorney right away for the legal advice you need.

One of the ways in which you can succeed in a truck accident case is to show that the trucker and/or the trucking company violated the federal trucking regulations. According to a report from the Boston Globe, a group of advocates is hoping that the number and stringency of those federal regulations will be increasing.

The advocates reached out, according to the report, directly to President Biden, who has a personal connection to fatal truck crashes. A December 1972 crash involving a large truck and the Biden family station wagon killed the president’s 1-year-old daughter and his first wife.

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