Illinois Injury Law Blog

A recent study conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, looked at parents whose children had been hospitalized due to injuries suffered in traffic accidents. According to the study, 37% of those parents were themselves suffering from “acute stress disorder” a month after their child’s injury, and 15% of them had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that lasted even longer than six months.

The study highlights the need to address every family member’s reaction to the emotional aftermath following an injury to a child. In their effort to help the child recover, the parents might otherwise ignore their own symptoms, or miss warning signs from the child’s siblings, who may not be physically injured but may still need help in getting past their fears.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has created a website designed to help families deal with a child’s recovery from an injury. www.aftertheinjury.org offers various tips and resources, including advice on when parents should seek professional help in dealing with their own anxiety. If parents feel that they are thinking too much about the child’s injury; or, in contrast, are avoiding talking about the injury or being in the area where the injury took place; or find themselves generally anxious about other things, and these worries and actions interfere with their normal activities or last longer than one month, the website encourages parents to get professional help.

Following a car accident, some injuries are fairly easy to assess and treat; as this study shows, however, the resulting emotional injures may be diffused through an entire family and may last far longer than the physical damage.

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Earlier this month, National Public Radio reported that at least nine patients died in 2006 and 2007 as a result of mistakes made by medical staff at the Marion V.A. Medical Center in Illinois. According to the report, some of the doctors at that hospital were performing procedures for which they were not qualified; one of those doctors was already, at the time, under investigation for malpractice in a different state. In addition, the report noted that the medical care provided at that center contributed to injuries suffered by additional patients. As a result of an investigation by the Department of Veterans Affairs, that hospital is now one of several V.A. facilities in which doctors will be allowed to perform only some types of surgery; for others, the patients will be referred to other hospitals.

Medical treatments are often complicated, and their results are dependent on many factors; however, at times, the negligence that some patients face can be quite blatant. When negligent or intentional acts by a medical provider lead to injury to a patient, the patient may sue the medical provider for medical malpractice. In such a lawsuit, the injured party is trying to recover financial compensation for the costs of medical treatment, lost wages, and pain and suffering related to the injury caused by the medical provider. However, the injured person must prove that the actions of the medical provider fell below the standard of care that would have been provided by other similar professionals.

A study published recently by Rand International evaluated the relationship between “adverse safety outcomes” for patients and medical malpractice claims filed in California. The authors of the study concluded that “safety interventions” can potentially reduce both harm to patients and the amount of malpractice litigation: in California, when patient care improved, the number of malpractice suits dropped.

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According to various media reports, on Monday afternoon a succession of events ended with a Chicago bus crashing into the side of the Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy. Ten ambulances responded to the scene, and 12 people were transported to hospitals for treatment—two of them in serious to critical condition.

The Chicago Sun-Times cites the account of one person who witnessed the accident: An SUV was apparently following closely behind a car, then sped up and changed lanes, moving into the lane in which the bus was traveling. In an apparent effort to avoid hitting the SUV, the bus then crashed first into another car and then into the school building.
The article reports that police cited the driver of the SUV for following too closely.

People injured in car accidents may choose to sue in an attempt to get compensation for the harm they suffered. In order to succeed, the person suing, i.e. the plaintiff, would have to show that he or she was injured, and that the injury was caused by the negligence of another person (or several other people). However, most states today consider the relative negligence of all the various people involved, and assign the liability accordingly. This approach is called “comparative negligence.”

Thus, in the case of an accident that involved a number of vehicles, the actions of all the drivers (or any other people involved) would be scrutinized for negligence. If injured plaintiffs were found to have been negligent, too, in a way that played a part in the injury they suffered, they would still receive compensation; however, the amount of money that they would recover would be reduced based on the percentage of fault that was assigned to them.

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May has been designated as the “Older Americans Month” in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau recently released new data offering a snapshot of the lives of older citizens in the U.S. today. In July 2008, 38.9 million Americans were 65 or older. More than 1,575,000 Illinois citizens were 65 or older; among the states, Illinois had the fifth highest population of citizens over 65.

In 2008, 1.6 million older Americans (4% of the overall population of those 65 and older) lived in nursing home facilities. Residents of nursing facilities, in Illinois as elsewhere, face special challenges. They often require more care than other older citizens, and are more vulnerable to injuries caused by either abuse or negligence. Sometimes they have a harder time getting relatives and other people to listen to their concerns and take them seriously.

Without proper care, bedridden nursing home residents in particular may get bed sores, experience more infections, or suffer injuries such as broken bones caused by a fall. Injured nursing home residents require additional treatment and face both pain and suffering and increased medical bills.

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An individual who suffers a personal injury in Illinois, and decides to file a lawsuit to recover money damages for his or her pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost wages, and other costs faces a two-year statute of limitations. What that means is that, in most circumstances, the injured party must begin the lawsuit no later than two years from the date when he or she first found out about the injury and became aware of who caused it. Any suit filed more than two years after that date would most likely be dismissed if the defendant raised the statute of limitations as a defense.

Statutes of limitations are laws that limit the time within which a person may bring a lawsuit. The
length of time allowed varies depending on the type of lawsuit, and varies from state to state.

When people are injured, their first priority is generally to seek treatment and to manage the upheaval caused by the injury in their everyday lives. They are also often advised not to reach any premature settlements related to their injuries, since the full extent of the injuries may not be clear right away, and the medical bills may still be adding up. However, waiting too long
to file a lawsuit or negotiate a settlement may mean that the injured party will run afoul of the statute of limitations and get no relief for their pain and losses.

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