Consumer Awareness

With the holidays fast approaching, many families are already shopping for toys from their children’s wish lists. And while this is a time of year many parents look forward to, it’s important to also remember that not all toys are created equal. Some, in fact, are much more dangerous than others. In the United States, roughly 217,000 children are treated at hospital emergency rooms for toy-related injuries each year, with one child being treated in…

Clifford Law Offices is currently investigating various features of travel insurance products offered by credit card companies and AIG Insurance Co. If in the past twenty-four (24) months, you have purchased via credit a travel insurance policy underwritten by AIG or its subsidiaries, and that policy was canceled in the last twelve (12) months, our attorneys would like to speak with you. Please phone us at 312-899-9090.

Uber is an undeniably hot name right now, with the company having just released its long-anticipated IPO prospectus. But those soaring revenue and user-base numbers released with the filing leave out one crucial element of the rideshare business: As one of the top ridesharing companies in the world, Uber has a great responsibility to its customers and their well-being, and ignoring that responsibility can have tragic consequences. Bob Clifford of Clifford Law Offices reminded us…

This post was written by Keith A. Hebeisen & Shannon M. McNulty, Partners at Clifford Law Offices. Northwestern Medicine, one of the largest hospital networks in the Chicago area, announced that patients who wish to communicate with their doctors online or utilize its digital services for appointments, test results, medication refills, and other health-care related activities will be limited to arbitration as a remedy. That means that by agreeing to be a patient of a…

Drones have been popular holiday gifts, but many people may not know that purchasing insurance is a good idea for your unmanned aircraft. Stories appear after the holidays about anxious recipients of the gift immediately opening their drones and setting them in flight in the living room, only to have them get caught in ceiling sprinklers, tangled in daughters’ hair and crashing into the Christmas tree. Even more hazardous were national news stories reporting that…

With more than three times as many drones operating in the U.S. than manned aircraft, commercial applications of the unmanned aircraft – from package deliveries to video applications – still await airborne-identification rules from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). And, according to a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, those regulations may not be coming as quickly as once expected. In “Rule Delay Slows Drone Industry,” Nov. 23, 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported…

The Wall Street Journal recently reported (Friday, Nov. 23, 2018) that the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play inclined sleeper has caused at least 30 infant deaths and more than 700 injuries since 2005 because of the angle of the baby’s head when napping. The newspaper reported that more than half of those 30 deaths – 16 – occurred since September, 2016. Although the padded inclined sleeper product has helped parents with babies who may be fussy…

A new survey suggests that very few smokers know there is sugar added to cigarettes to reduce the harshness of the smoke, and that the added sugar also increases toxins in cigarette smoke. This is according to a study published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. “Knowledge is power and there is a clear gap in awareness,” said lead researcher Andrew Seidenberg, a public health doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at…

Pfizer Inc. settled last week a case brought by New York’s attorney general based on the world’s largest pharmaceutical company misleading consumers with its drug co-payment coupon program. The global giant initiated a coupon program that led consumers into thinking they would be paying far less to fill prescriptions but then they ended up having to pay more from 2015-18. Pfizer agreed to pay $500,000 in fines and costs and to issue more than $200,000…