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Justia Lawyer Rating for David M. Barish

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Katz Friedman helped a UAW member fight Caterpillar at a hearing for a Workers’ Compensation claim regarding a repetitive work injury that caused carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Arbitrator awarded her full benefits and an injury settlement after a full hearing.

The assembly line worker has been employed with Caterpillar in Decatur for over 10 years. During that time, she worked on multiple lines and assembled large mining trucks using all sorts of air guns, pneumatic, torque, and hand tools. As a result of her repetitive work, she developed carpal tunnel and eventually needed a carpal tunnel release surgery.

Caterpillar denied her Workers’ Compensation claim indicating that her work duties were not repetitive or forceful enough to cause her conditions. They attempted to have their plant physician do a shop walk and document her work duties to confirm their denial that her work was not repetitive or forceful. Caterpillar also obtained a medical evaluation from a hired doctor to indicate her carpal tunnel was not work-related but was due “…to the fact that she is a middle-aged female with a history of smoking” and determined it was idiopathic. This medical term states that the condition just happened “spontaneously,” so it is a convenient way for employers, like Caterpillar, to attempt to evade liability for injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome.

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We are pleased to announce that Partners Richard Johnson and Philip Bareck have been named in the Leading Lawyers Top 10 Workers’ Comp Petitioners Lawyers for 2021 in Illinois based upon a survey of their peers.

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Katz Friedman would also like to extend our congratulations to the rest of the Attorneys listed in the Top 10: Arnold Rubin, David Menchetti, Mitchell Horwitz, Kenneth Given, Daniel Capron, Patrick Nicholson, Richard Turner and Nick Avgerinos.

Over the years, Katz Freidman and its attorneys have received countless awards at the local, state and national level for their legal work as experienced Workers’ Compensation lawyers. Since the firm opened its doors nearly 7 decades ago, the lawyers at Katz Friedman have been fighting for full and fair compensation for our injured clients and have established a reputation in Chicago and Illinois as the most knowledgeable and ethical attorneys among our peers.

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If you have an injury at work, you have rights under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation law: the right to pick your own doctors, the right to have your employer pay all of the medical bills (without any co-pays), the right to be paid weekly benefits if you are unable to work, and the right to pursue a settlement once you have finished medical treatment. But what if the problem is considered a pre-existing condition? In Illinois, any pre-existing condition which is aggravated or made worse by an injury is covered under workers’ compensation. As the Illinois Supreme Court described, “When workers’ physical structures, diseased or not, give way under the stress of their usual tasks, the law views it as an accident arising out of and in the course of employment.” Translated into English, this means that where an injury is an aggravation of a pre-existing condition, it may be completely covered without anything taken away because of the prior condition. Even if some of the symptoms are from a pre-existing condition, as long as that condition was aggravated, exacerbated, or made worse by the new injury, then the injured person may be entitled to full workers’ compensation benefits.

A classic example of this can be found with rotator cuff tears. The “Rotator Cuff” is the term for four muscles in the shoulder which stabilize the shoulder and help move the arm. The rotator cuff can be torn by any number of things, including lifting injuries, traction injuries (such as reaching out to avoid a fall), or by wear and tear over time. Sometimes people can have tears in the rotator cuff and don’t even know it because tears of the rotator cuff are not always painful. Sometimes a person has an injury at work to his or her shoulder and discovers that he or she now has pain because they have aggravated a pre-existing rotator cuff tear; but now this person is unable to do the lifting that they used to do at work because of the rotator cuff tear. This is a situation where an injured worker qualifies for workers’ compensation because they have aggravated a pre-existing condition.

Katz Friedman recently dealt with this situation in a recent case for client “E.C.” She was simply doing her normal job when she lifted something heavy and felt a stabbing pain in her shoulder. An MRI showed that her rotator cuff had a large tear which had been present before her injury, though she had never noticed a problem before. Katz Friedman fought for her, took her case to arbitration, established that her injury was covered under workers’ compensation and was able to negotiate a settlement for her.

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This article originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune Business Section on April 19, 2022.

NORMAL, Illinois — As problems go, Rivian CEO and founder R.J. Scaringe believes he has a good one.

The startup EV manufacturer has renovated a shuttered Normal factory, created thousands of jobs, raised billions of dollars and launched production of an electric pickup truck and SUV that have captured the imagination of the automotive world.

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A new report is showing little to no change in safety since Amazon pledged to become a safer company. During the early days of the pandemic, it was determined that for every 100 Amazon warehouse workers, 5.9 serious injuries were sustained. (source via CNBC) This was about 80% higher than the serious injuries suffered outside of Amazon’s warehouses. A new report indicates that Amazon employs 1/3 of all U.S. warehouse workers, but accounts for half the injuries. (source via Business Insider) Thus, it comes as no surprise that the recent pushes to unionize at Amazon facilities is driven more by safety concerns and far less by pay increases. (source via Yahoo News) Clearly, unionizing is on the rise at Amazon and it shows no signs of slowing. (source via Fox Business)

It appears that Amazon plans to introduce more robots, AI, and automation to make the warehouses safer for its employees. However, it seems more likely that Amazon only plans to spend money on automation to replace its workers one day. Until then, Amazon has a problem with its robotic warehouses being more dangerous than they need to be. At the Monee facility, 40 workers suffered severe injuries in 2018, and 25 were injured just during the holiday “peak” season, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. If you’ve been hurt in a workplace accident – at your Amazon warehouse job in Cicero, McKinley Park, Pullman, Humboldt Park, Maywood, Joliet, or elsewhere – be sure to reach out without delay to an experienced Chicago workplace injury attorney to discuss your case and find out your legal options.

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Recientemente, hemos escuchado mucho sobre los peligros que representan los conductores inseguros que conducen para servicios como Uber y Lyft. Si bien la amenaza que representan los conductores que nunca debieron haber sido autorizados por sus servicios de viajes compartidos sigue siendo muy real, el problema va más allá de los conductores de viajes compartidos. Además de esos conductores, también existe un peligro similar que plantean ciertos conductores de entrega de alimentos (que conducen para servicios como Uber Eats, Door Dash y Grubhub), como lo ilustra un incidente aquí mismo en Chicago. Si un conductor de entrega de alimentos lo lastimó y no debería haber estado conduciendo para ese servicio, es posible que pueda iniciar una acción legal y recuperar la compensación que tanto necesita. Comuníquese con un abogado experto en lesiones de Chicago para obtener más información.

En este caso de Chicago, la plataforma que se llevó a los tribunales fue Grubhub. La víctima era un trabajador del restaurante Lake View East que fue atropellado y drogado por varios pies por un hombre que conducía para Grubhub. La mujer lesionada sufrió varias fracturas de huesos, según el Chicago Sun-Times . Esos incluyeron una pelvis rota, dos brazos rotos y fracturas en ambas piernas. También sufrió daños en los nervios de ambos brazos y requirió cirugía en ambos, según sus abogados.

En su demanda contra Grubhub, afirmó que contribuyó al gravísimo accidente por su negligencia. La aplicación de Grubhub supuestamente permitía al conductor, que no tenía licencia para conducir y (según Grubhub) no era uno de sus conductores autorizados, acceder a la plataforma a través de la cuenta de otra persona que era un conductor autorizado.

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Los coches autónomos vuelven a ser noticia. Según se informa, Uber está en negociaciones con un competidor, Aurora, en las que Uber vendería su Grupo de Tecnologías Avanzadas (que incluye la unidad de vehículos autónomos de Uber ) a Aurora. Además, Tesla está expandiendo lo que llama ” beta de conducción autónoma completa “. Las furgonetas Waymo sin conductor se hacen públicas en Arizona. Si bien todo esto puede parecer muy emocionante, queda el problema de la seguridad y los accidentes causados por los vehículos autónomos. Cuando eso sucede, y alguien resulta herido, ¿quién es responsable? Para obtener respuestas a esta y otras preguntas importantes, asegúrese de obtener la información que necesita de un abogado experto en accidentes automovilísticos de Chicago.

En algunas circunstancias, la ley puede dictar que la persona en el automóvil sea la responsable de las lesiones que sufrió, incluso si el vehículo estaba equipado con tecnología de conducción autónoma. Si, por ejemplo, la tecnología dentro del vehículo era meramente un programa de “asistencia al conductor” y el accidente ocurrió porque el humano no estaba prestando atención a la carretera, entonces esa persona será la que cargará con la mayor parte o la totalidad de las responsabilidades legales. responsabilidad.

Sin embargo, hay varias situaciones en las que un accidente causado por un vehículo equipado con tecnología puede ofrecerle más oportunidades legales más allá de solo demandar a la persona detrás del volante. Por ejemplo, las furgonetas autónomas de Waymo en el área de East Valley de Phoenix serán completamente sin conductor. No habrá ningún ser humano detrás del volante cuyo trabajo sea ayudar al vehículo. En un escenario en el que una furgoneta de Waymo provoque un accidente, entonces obviamente podría haber una oportunidad de emprender acciones legales contra Waymo y/o Alphabet, Inc., de los cuales Waymo es una división. (Las divisiones de Alphabet también incluyen a Google). En octubre, Venture Beat informó que los autos Waymo sin conductor estuvieron involucrados en 18 accidentes en 20 meses.

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We are lawyers and we pride ourselves on doing things the old-fashioned way and dotting every “I” and crossing every “t”. Lawyers have been using legal pads since the 19th century. We now live in an age of computers. Our office size will eventually shrink as we have less paper to store. We already scan all medical records we receive, and we send most correspondence by e-mail. The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission now has all documents filed electronically through their CompFile system.

In the years since Harold Katz and Irv Friedman became partners in 1954, we have seen the advent of the fax machine and computers for typing letters and then for storing data. We have gone from fishing in our pockets for change to call a client to relay a settlement offer to making that call on a cell phone and then texting or emailing the terms to our secretary in the office.

We strive to retain the accessibility of the old-fashioned country lawyer who will meet you in your town, at your union hall or even in your home while keeping current and using technology to make life better for our clients.

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Volkswagen is recalling more than 246,000 SUVs in the U.S. and Canada because faulty wiring harnesses can make them brake unexpectedly, sometimes while in traffic.

The recall comes three days after The Associated Press reported that 47 people had complained to U.S. safety regulators about the problem, some reporting nearly being rear-ended by other vehicles. Many reported that warning lights and alarms would go off, the driver’s side windows would roll down and the SUVs would suddenly brake while in traffic.

Volkswagen says in documents posted Friday by The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the recall covers certain Atlas SUVs from the 2019 through ….

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DETROIT — Drivers of bigger vehicles such as pickup trucks and SUVs are more likely to hit pedestrians while making turns than drivers of cars, according to a new study.

The research released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety points to the increasing popularity of larger vehicles as a possible factor in rising pedestrian deaths on U.S. roads. The authors also questioned whether wider pillars holding up roofs of the larger vehicles make it harder for drivers to spot people walking near the corners of vehicles.

“The link between these vehicle types and certain common pedestrian crashes points to another way that the increase in SUVs on the roads might be changing the crash picture…

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