$75 MILLION GLOBAL SETTLEMENT FOR INJURED AND KILLED VICTIMS IN

HANCOCK SCAFFOLDING ACCIDENT

On the eve of trial, 10 victims of those injured and killed by the scaffolding that collapsed and fell from the John Hancock Building in Chicago nearly four years ago will receive $75 million in a global settlement for their personal injury and wrongful death claims.

Clifford Law Offices and Corboy & Demetrio, two prominent law firms in Chicago, joined forces in the representation of seven victims of this horrific event including the families of the two young women who were killed in the front seat of their car as their mothers witnessed their gruesome deaths in the back seat. The settlement also includes two people who were injured and a person who was killed and who are being represented by three other Chicago law firms. At the request of the victims’ families, the dollar amounts for each individual family will not be disclosed to respect their privacy.

The case was scheduled to go to trial today before Cook County Circuit Court Judge William Maddux, Presiding Judge of the Law Division, at the Daley Center in Chicago. The trial was expected to last several weeks.

Robert A. Clifford, partner at Clifford Law Offices, and Thomas A. Demetrio, partner at Corboy & Demetrio, issued the following statement:

"We are satisfied by this settlement in that the families do not have to re-live the tragedy they witnessed. It has been a very difficult ordeal for so many people and it has impacted so many lives so unnecessarily. Had daily weather reports, fundamental safety practices and mere common sense been followed, this catastrophe could have been avoided. The real tragedy is that the responsible parties knew that the equipment was poorly engineered and, nevertheless, allowed it to hang from the 42nd floor after a wind advisory had been issued by the National Weather Service. Throughout the window sealing project, these defendants chose to implement cost-cutting and time-saving measures. Their actions cost people their lives by allowing the 10,000 pounds of equipment to remain inadequately secured at a midpoint of the building. This careless conduct was compounded when tenants reported to the proper building officials the loose scaffolding banging in the near record winds. However, instead of immediately closing off the street below on a busy Saturday morning filled with shoppers, they chose to do nothing."

By the defendants’ own admission through an audio taped meeting 17 days before the collapse, the scaffolding equipment was likened to the Pinto scandal of the 1970s that killed dozens of people because it was too expensive to re-tool the car. One defendant stated, "It’s like building a Pinto. You put the gas tank in first and you worry about it later," referring to the fact that the defendants knew it was dangerous yet they did nothing.

Lawyers conducted more than 100 depositions of experts, management company, architects and structural engineers since the March 9, 2002 incident.

A large section of the scaffold crashed on the car of Linda Demo and Betty Semplinski who were trapped with the dead bodies of their daughters Melissa Cook and Jill Nelson while they awaited rescue. The mothers spent more than 30 minutes in the back of seat of the car while the Chicago Fire Department had to use the "jaws of life" to extricate them from the car. Betty Semplinski also suffered a severe fracture of her leg.

The two young women were cousins and best friends, having grown up six blocks from one another in Merrillville, Indiana, as the only children in their families. Over the years, they had grown so close that many thought they were sisters. Melissa graduated from the University of Notre Dame and played varsity softball. Jill attended Purdue University and graduated with a degree from the Krannert School of Business in accounting. Even throughout college, they remained best of friends. Jill was married in 2000 and Melissa was her maid of honor. Jill, 27, had traveled to Chicago to celebrate Melissa’s 30^th birthday on the weekend of their tragic deaths. Clifford Law Offices and Corboy & Demetrio represented the families of these victims.

Another car that was struck by steel debris was occupied by Michelle Whittaker and her mother, Peggy Whittaker who suffered catastrophic brain and spinal cord injuries that rendered her a quadriplegic. They also had to be extricated from the car. Peggy Whittaker subsequently died on July 18, 2005.

The defendants, who will share in the payment of damages, include the Shorenstein companies, the owners and managers of the Hancock Building; Eckland Consultants, Inc., of Chicago, the owner’s consultant on the project; AMS Architectural Technologies Inc. of Illinois, the general contractor responsible for the day-to-day operation; McGinnis Chen AIA, Inc. of San Francisco, architects of the window improvement project for the building; and Tylk Gustafson, the engineers for the project.