Justia Lawyer Rating for David M. Barish

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We continue to hear a lot in the news about rideshare services, such as Uber and Lyft. Too often, these stories involve riders or pedestrians being hurt. A case from Texas involving a severely injured Oklahoma college student is just the latest example of how your Uber or Lyft ride can go wrong. When your Uber or Lyft ride does go wrong in Illinois, be sure that you reach out without delay to contact an experienced Chicago injury attorney.

The case of S.M., an Oklahoma State University student, made headlines recently due to a verdict entered against the manufacturer of the van in which the student was riding when she was catastrophically hurt. Her case, though, offers an important view into how unsafe rideshare rides potentially can be, and how you can pursue important compensation if you’re hurt while riding with a rideshare driver.

S.M. was partying in Dallas with friends late one night and, because the group had been drinking, they hailed an Uber to take them to another location. The Uber driver, behind the wheel of a Honda van, ran a red light and got T-boned by a pickup truck. S.M., who was in the middle seat of the van’s third row, was seriously injured. Doctors ultimately diagnosed S.M. with a fractured neck. That injury meant that S.M. would be a quadriplegic for the rest of her life.

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Your workplace injury legal action (or actions) may be very straightforward or may be highly complex. What might start out as a seemingly simple request for additional benefits based on an unanticipated need for a secondary medical procedure may possibly set off many wide-ranging legal consequences. The key is to have the skilled Illinois workplace injury counsel you need to be ready for whatever comes next.

G.B. was a worker whose injury action proved to fall into the “complex” column. In the spring of 2017, G.B. was injured while working as a forklift driver in McHenry County. The damage to the driver’s shoulder was bad enough that he required rotator cuff surgery. Later on, doctors determined that the worker needed a follow-up surgery. That led G.B. to request an adjustment of the workers’ compensation claim for benefits that he’d filed earlier.

What ensued was a web of allegations and litigation over G.B.’s claim, all triggered through no fault of the worker. As many employers, especially larger employers, do, G.B.’s employer had workers’ compensation insurance. However, G.B.’s employer allegedly covered the forklift driver’s lost wages and medical expenses after the first surgery without notifying the insurance company. According to the insurer, it only found out after G.B. sought the adjustment to his claim based on the need for a second surgery.

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In a claim for workers’ compensation benefits, filing all of the required documents, and filing them on time, is of the highest importance, since meeting deadlines as opposed to filing too late can be the difference between a successful outcome and a failure. That’s why you should not delay in reaching out to an experienced Chicago workers’ compensation attorney whenever you’ve been hurt at work.

Moving quickly is essential because the law imposes strict deadlines on certain steps in your workers’ compensation claim process. Miss any one of those filing obligations or deadlines, and your case may get thrown out regardless of how impressive, voluminous, or persuasive your factual evidence was.

To see just how harmful a delay can be, look at the case of B.C. B.C. worked for a central Illinois school district when she was hurt on the job in November 2011. She filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits.

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Working in industrial jobs carries many risks. One of those is the risk of certain severe injuries that one might reasonably expect not to encounter while working in an office job. For example, there is a type of injury called “degloving.” According to the website healthline.com, a degloving is also called an avulsion and is “a type of severe injury that happens when the top layers of your skin and tissue are ripped from the underlying muscle, connective tissue, or bone.” This type of injury may sound grotesque and painful, but it is actually worse than that.

Many degloving injuries are life-threatening events as a result of the extensive amount of blood loss and tissue death that occurs. Even if you survive, you may have a lifetime of terrible pain. You may never be able to do the same jobs or enjoy the same hobbies as before. Your life is changed forever, so when it comes to getting the full compensation you need for the horrible harm you endured, be sure to call upon experienced Chicago injury counsel.

T.N. was a Wisconsin man who suffered this kind of horrible injury while working in Chicago. According to an NBC-2 report, T.N. was a spare parts manager for a machine company that was participating in a trade show taking place at McCormick Place in the near north side when he was hurt. At the end of the show, the manager was working to tear down the employer’s booth when a 29-ton forklift ran over his foot. In the accident, T.N. suffered a degloving injury to his left foot. The injury forced the manager to undergo multiple surgeries as medical teams worked to save the man’s foot.

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In an auto accident situation, there are many potential obstacles you could face. In many of those circumstances, the biggest roadblock might be an insurance company. Going up against an insurance company may be an essential part of getting full and fair compensation for your injuries. It is also a key reason why it is worth your while to retain an Illinois car accident attorney to represent you in your case. The insurance companies are well-equipped with skillful attorneys. You should be too.

One recent case from the North Side of Chicago was an example of such a battle involving an auto insurer. The injured woman, Eileen, was hurt in a late March 2014 accident. She was crossing Milwaukee Avenue in the Norwood Park neighborhood when a driver crashed into her. The driver, Ciprian, had consumed several alcoholic beverages that day. Ciprian was driving a vehicle that he borrowed from Kelly. Kelly knowingly allowed Ciprian to drive the vehicle, even though Kelly also knew about Ciprian’s alcohol consumption.

Eileen was critically injured in the accident. She later sued both Ciprian and Kelly for the harm she incurred from her serious injuries. In many varieties of auto accident cases, including those involving pedestrians, auto insurers can play an important role. In a case in which the at-fault driver was not the vehicle’s owner, you may be entitled to sue both individuals, which could possibly trigger a legal obligation by one of both of those people’s insurers to defend them in your lawsuit.

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The convenience of modern technology is often wonderful. We can use technology to do everything from adjusting our thermostats to turning on the porch lights to maintaining our grocery lists. One area that may offer great benefits, but also currently carries significant risk, is self-driving vehicles. As major ride-hailing services like Uber explore the possibility of using self-driving vehicles, it is important to be aware of the risks driver-assisted or self-driving vehicles can pose. If you’ve been hurt by a self-driving vehicle, whether you were in that vehicle or an outside one, it is possible that you may have legal claims against various entities based on that crash. You should contact a skilled Chicago injury attorney to discuss your situation and your options.

Uber is recognized as one of the leaders in autonomous vehicles, alongside Tesla and Google’s Waymo. Each of the entities have had to deal with injury-causing accidents. Last year, a pedestrian in Arizona died after a self-driving Uber vehicle did not try to evade her, but instead plowed into her at 40 mph, according to a Business Insider report.

Recently, the news stories have involved Tesla. Back in March, CNBC reported that a Tesla vehicle was involved in a fatal crash in South Florida. The Tesla Model 3 was traveling at 68 mph when it slammed into a big rig’s trailer. The Tesla’s occupant died in the crash. The vehicle’s autopilot was on at the time the crash took place, and reports said the driver had taken his hands from the wheel for eight seconds. The accident report indicated that neither the autopilot system nor the driver “executed evasive maneuvers,” according to the report.

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As a construction worker in Illinois, workplace injuries are an unfortunate (and all too common) fact of life. When you’ve suffered an injury while working at your construction job, it can be an extraordinarily scary time. You’re hurt and may be looking at an extended absence from work. You have medical bills. You have many concerns, especially if you are a primary or sole income earner for your family. There may be much uncertainty, and one area of uncertainty may relate to insurance companies who are working to deny you compensation. Many workers find themselves facing that struggle. To make sure you are getting the compensation you deserve as a result of your construction job injury, it pays to be sure you have an aggressive and knowledgeable Chicago injury attorney on your side.

As pointed out in the paragraph above, insurers will often go to great lengths to try to escape paying claims or providing defenses in cases advanced by injured workers. Look at one recent case from Central Illinois. The injured man, M.D., was an employee of the elevator/escalator subcontractor working on a construction job at the Bloomington headquarters of a major insurance conglomerate.

According to the injured worker, he was performing tasks on an escalator when he came “into contact with 1,700 pounds of equipment … resulting in serious injury.” He claimed the reason that happened was because “unskilled workers” were allowed “to suddenly approach and engage heavy equipment, unannounced and without any training.” As a result of the substantial harm he suffered in this accident, M.D. sued. In that case, he named both the owner of the property (the insurance conglomerate) and the general contractor on the project.

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If you have been injured during the performance of your job, you may have a variety of options for obtaining compensation for your injuries. You may be entitled to file a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. You may be entitled to pursue a civil lawsuit. In some circumstances, you may be entitled to do both. With any option will come certain benefits and certain possible complications, so you should be sure you have representation from a skilled Chicago injury attorney to help guide you through the process.

C.A.’s case was one in which he pursued both a workers’ compensation claim and a civil lawsuit. C.A. was a semi-truck driver who, one day in March 2015, was traveling along a highway in Grundy County when an accident occurred. D.R., another semi-truck driver, crashed his truck into C.A.’s truck. The accident caused C.A. to suffer substantial injuries.

The collision allegedly caused C.A. to suffer back, shoulder and knee injuries. In addition to filing a lawsuit in Illinois, C.A. also filed a workers’ compensation claim for benefits in Pennsylvania, which was where his employer was based. Eventually, C.A. settled the workers’ compensation case. In the settlement agreement that ended that action, the document stated that C.A. suffered a right knee strain – and only a right knee strain – as a result of the accident.

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Driving an Uber or Lyft vehicle can be dangerous business. MarketWatch recently reported on the results of research conducted by a team from a university in Texas and the Chicago Booth School of Business. The results showed that the frequency of fatal or serious accidents has gone up by 3% in major U.S. cities in the time period since rideshare services went online. The researchers concluded that the total economic loss that this increase in serious and fatal accidents has wrought in terms of lives lost was approximately $10 billion.

If you’re hurt behind the wheel of an Uber or Lyft, you may be entitled to certain forms of compensation. One of the forms available to certain workers is an award of workers’ compensation benefits. To find more about whether or not you may be able to pursue a claim successfully, be sure to reach out to an experienced Chicago workers’ compensation attorney.

In Illinois, the law does not require you to demonstrate that your employer acted in a way that was careless or negligent in order for you to receive an award of benefits. What you do need to show is that your injury happened while on the job or occurred as a result of activities you performed while at work.

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A recent ruling by the Illinois Appellate Court was an important win for injured workers. The court’s opinion stated that a railroad worker’s award of lost wages could not be a sum from which the worker was required to pay taxes because the relevant tax law only required withholding on “services rendered,” and an award of lost wages, by definition, could not be money paid for the actual performance of services. Whether it is fighting against a reduction in your damages award or battling some other aspect of your injury case, make sure you have skilled Illinois injury counsel advising you and representing your interests.

The railroad worker, Rafael, was a freight conductor for a major railroad. While the conductor was working one day, Rafael’s train stopped short, and the stop threw him from his feet. The conductor suffered serious injuries to his neck and shoulder. Rafael sued under the Federal Employers Liability Act to recover compensation for the harm he had suffered in the accident. FELA is the statute that injured railroad workers must use to obtain compensation for their injuries.

The conductor sought damages for “lost wages, medical bills, loss of future earning capacity, and pain and suffering.” A jury heard Rafael’s case and concluded that he was entitled to a judgment totaling $821,000. $310,000 of that was past and future lost earnings. The damages awarded included a sum for lost wages. After the jury reached its verdict, the railroad asked the court to order a setoff, which is a type of reduction in the damages award. The employer’s argument was that the conductor owed taxes on his lost wages award under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act. The trial court refused, concluding that the law does not authorize the withholding of taxes from personal injury awards, including those awarded under FELA.

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