When you’re injured at work, the facts potentially can point toward lots of possibilities for defendants you can name in your workplace injury lawsuit. One possibility is the owner, operator or possessor of the job site where you were working. Another possibility, in some situations, could be your employer. In still others, you might be able to sue a contractor or a manufacturer, as well, if their acts of negligence reasonably led to your injuries. The key question that you will have to consider and answer is, “Did this person or entity have a duty of reasonable care to me?” When it comes to answering these and other essential questions as part of your case, don’t go it alone. Be sure you’re getting the answers you need by obtaining representation from a skilled Chicago injury attorney.
T.Z.’s case was an example of a circumstance where multiple entities were potentially liable. T.Z. worked for a sign company as an electrician in Chicago. His job required him to check and repair the scoreboard lights for one of Chicago’s Major League Baseball stadiums. The job meant walking along the roof of the stadium above the outfield. One day, the electrician encountered a wet area, slipped and fell. The fall caused the electrician to suffer a “career-ending” injury. Specifically, the man suffered a severe avulsion injury to his hamstring, which meant that the muscle was completely torn away from the bone. T.Z. underwent several surgeries but the nerve damage that went with the injury prevented him from returning to his electrician work, which was a profession in which he’d worked for more than three decades.
T.Z. had to consider lots of entities in his case. Getting the defendants right in your lawsuit can be essential to getting the full and fair recovery you deserve. In T.Z.’s case, the Illinois Appellate Court concluded that the electrician had viable claims against the baseball team and the team’s contractor that had installed the stadium’s roof. The court concluded that the evidence clearly pointed to the contractor having a duty of reasonable care to the baseball team in regard to its installation of the stadium roof and the baseball team clearly had a similar duty to the electrician.
If T.Z. could prove that the contractor failed to provide the appropriate warnings regarding the roof surface’s slipperiness, then that evidence might entitle him to an award from the contractor. If he could prove that the contractor did provide warnings (or that the baseball team otherwise knew about the slippery state of the roof) but the baseball team failed to take appropriate action in response to those warnings or that knowledge, then the electrician might have a winning case against the team.
Some cases can be very straightforward, with just a single claim and a single defendant. Many injury actions are more complex than that. Don’t shortchange yourself out of the compensation you deserve by failing to pursue options that the law permits. Reach out to the diligent Chicago injury attorneys at Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. Our attorneys have been helping injured people for many years to achieve positive results in their cases. To set up a free case evaluation, contact us at 312-724-5846 or through our website.
More Blog Posts:
Illinois Railway Worker Obtains $21M Damages Award for Foot Injury Suffered in Railyard Accident, Chicago Injury Attorneys Blog, Nov. 17, 2017
What do I do when I am injured at work?, Chicago Injury Attorneys Blog, Aug. 15, 2017