Justia Lawyer Rating for David M. Barish

In the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger holiday film “Jingle All The Way” there is a scene in the beginning of the movie that tackles just how dangerous holiday shopping can be. Hundreds of shoppers are lined up peacefully for a chance to grab the season’s hottest toy, the beloved Turbo Man doll, and then one person mobs a store employee which inevitably causes chaos to ensue.

Although this movie is meant for comedic purposes, this very scene plays out in stores across the country every 4th Friday in November aka Black Friday. Countless videos hit the internet every year of shoppers engaging in dangerous activities while out trying to grab the hottest deals. Injuries on Black Friday are fairly common and although stores have gotten better at installing safety protocols to avoid injuries, they still happen more often than they should. The federal government has even intervened and laid out guidelines for how big retailers should handle large crowds.

Here are a few of the most common causes of injuries seen on Black Friday and what you should do if you are on the wrong end of one of these 5 scenarios.

This past Sunday, as *most of the country rolled their clocks back and people gained an extra hour of sleep, many drivers who were still on the road faced a new set of potentially dangerous side effects due to the end of Daylight Saving Time. While people may have slept in another hour on Sunday morning there is a high chance that the time they eventually went to bed on Sunday evening didn’t change. By the time everyone headed out to start their commutes on Monday morning, their bodies had not yet adjusted to the new wake up and sleep schedule and now driving is riskier than it was a week ago.

Driving in general is dangerous. There are multiple hazards around every corner and staying safe is sometimes tricky. If drivers are aware that their behavior contributes to increased risk of accidents, they can take steps to avoid unnecessary risks. Year after year, Illinois car accident attorneys notice five major factors that contribute to vehicle crashes more often in the 4 weeks after Daylight Saving time ends.

1. Fatigue

Over the preceding several months, we’ve heard about Uber and Lyft passengers being beaten, raped and otherwise attacked by their rideshare drivers. But they’re not the only ones who’ve been at risk, as recent reports have covered numerous incidents where rideshare drivers were the victims and passengers were the attackers. In this latter scenario, as with the former one, it is possible that your injuries were, at least in part, the result of the rideshare service’s failure to properly ensure that the ride was a safe one. If you were injured by your Uber or Lyft passenger, then you, with the help of a skilled Chicago rideshare injury attorney, may be able to sue and obtain substantial compensation.

Here are some examples. One of the more extreme attacks happened back in March. A New York City Uber driver was “sucker punched” by a passenger, causing the driver to spend three-plus weeks in a coma and hooked to a ventilator, according to an NBC 4 report.

In August, a Florida rideshare passenger attacked his Lyft driver because of the driver’s vehicle’s COVID-19 protections. The passenger, who was intoxicated and apparently became upset about the plastic barrier, ripped it down and began attacking the driver, according to an Orlando Sentinel report.

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With summer wrapping up, many Midwest residents are making time to get outside and participate in the final music festivals and street fairs around the region. Fairs and music festivals can be exciting events for the performers and especially for their fans, who flock by the tens of thousands to see their favorite artists. This excitement can turn into something much worse when a festival promoter fails to do a proper job of ensuring the safety of concert attendees.

In the past 10 years, injuries have become more prominent at music festivals and concerts. However, attendees have also become more aware of their rights to take legal action whether it’s in the California deserts at Coachella, the Tennessee hilltops at Bonnaroo or the middle of the Chicago Loop at Lollapalooza. Regardless of the location of the concert or the genre, if you have suffered injuries, you have rights.

Chicago’s very own Riot Fest has faced its fair share of lawsuits in the past decade. The annual fest, which will be held September 15-17th this year, generally features punk-rock genre bands and moshing or slam-dancing. Most recently in 2017, two young women and their families sued the organizers of the show after both women were crushed by other concertgoers during separate crowd surfing incidents. One woman ended up with a broken ankle at the show after a crowd surfer fell onto her and crushed her leg. The other had a fracture in her neck and a head injury. Both successfully filed suits against the fest.

For many people in the U.S. Labor Day means the unofficial “last” day of summer, the start of the new school year and the start of fall sports. For Katz Friedman it means so much more and entails many of the principles on which our firm was founded.

Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States. Having the first Monday in September be a day off from work has been significant for American workers since the late 1800s. At the peak of the industrial revolution, working conditions in factories, mills, mines and most other industries were very unsafe. The average worker, many of whom were young school aged children, were often required to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. Workers began holding strikes and rallies that called for shorter workdays and better conditions. During this time period most of the labor unions as we know of them today were born, and memberships in unions were at their peak in the period leading up to the late 1960s.

In 1953, when labor union memberships were at an all-time high, Harold Katz represented the United Auto Workers, and Irving Friedman was a trial Attorney for the National Labor Relations review board. Although the two labor lawyers met as opposition, they inevitably joined forces and went on to have a 50+ year partnership to fight for economic justice for workers across Illinois.

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Have you tried using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to win your personal injury case? If you think that these websites will help you against an insurance company, think again. For many people, (AI) used to seem like something that only existed in post-apocalyptic science fiction movies. We already know that Amazon and other companies are using AI and automation to take jobs away from ordinary Americans. For many of us, the AI that we see on amazon.com to buy products we didn’t know that we needed and when we order an Uber or Lyft have become an ordinary part of our daily lives. Few of us would imagine AI to creep into our lives when we are the victims of another driver causing a car collision and causing us personal injury. However, the fear raised in such movies was probably not unfounded when it comes to how insurance companies view your car crash claim against their driver. Imagine being injured by a driver after you or even someone else uses AI to order products from amazon.com or to order a ride share only to have those same companies insurance carriers use similar AI against you to stop or drastically lower your recovery.

The insurance industry has been using forms of advanced AI for at least two decades. Former Allstate executives have even sounded the alarm about the unfairness of its AI to pay out on claims. Several states have sued various insurance companies for their misuse of AI because they claim that the software is rigged to make low ball offers and take advantage of injured people.

The insurance industry has further plans for using AI to cut down on settlements all the while increasing premiums. (read more about the plans  here)

One of the objectives of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act is to ensure the financial security of workers injured and disabled as a result of on-the-job injuries. Although the law provides the injured worker with weekly paid benefits known as temporary total disability (TTD) and compensation for permanent partial and permanent total disability, there are limitations and in many cases exclusions on the amount of compensation the injured worker could receive for missed overtime hours after the injured worker became partially disabled. Fortunately, injured workers are finding a remedy for some of that lost overtime income with a claim for temporary partial disability benefits (TPD).

“I’m truly shocked at how many insurance claims adjusters deny this pay to injured workers,” said Christopher Mose, Katz, Friedman, Senior Trial Attorney.

Attorney Christopher Mose successfully recovered TPD benefits for lost overtime for an employee of Komatsu Mining Systems in Peoria, Illinois. In that case, the employer refused to pay the injured worker and at trial denied responsibility under the law. The arbitrator awarded the injured worker over $7,000 in TPD benefits as the evidence established the employer limited him from working overtime hours during the temporary period he was restricted as a result of the work injury.istockphoto-896157870-612x612-1-300x200

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