Dangerous Property

A surprising one out of every eight public pools, hot tubs and water playgrounds test positive for at least one health or safety violation, according to data released by “Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report.” The data was collected in 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from five states that have the greatest number of these facilities: Florida, Arizona, New York, California and Texas. The Washington Post (May 19, 2016) released the findings of…

More than one third of the nation’s 15,500 nursing homes received relatively low ratings of one or two stars under the federal government’s recently revamped five-star Quality Rating System, according to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This number accounts for some 39 percent of all nursing home residents. The rating system is overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and is based on deficiencies that may be reported during health…

Premises Liability: Liability of landowners or those who are responsible for maintaining the property for activities or conditions occurring on the land.

Industry insider and safety advocate Joshua Harman talks with Bloomberg’s Patrick Lee about a design flaw that causes highway guardrails to become deadly spears on impact. To view the video on dangerous guardrails, click here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/91f9f0f1-0eeb-4ea1-b0e9-454e04a95cd4 The ABC7 Investigative Team headed by reporter Chuck Goudie reported on Channel 7 in Chicago yesterday about a device that is supposed to protect drivers who hit guardrails head-on, but it may not work.  To view his investigative story,…

July 25, 2014 Clifford Law Offices today (Thursday, July 24, 2014) filed a lawsuit against the Village of Justice, the Village of Bridgeview, Bridgeview Park District and the Justice Park District as a result of the death of Michal Duda, a six-year-old boy who drowned last month during a day camp program. Robert A. Clifford and Bradley M. Cosgrove, partners at the firm, filed the lawsuit in the Law Division of the Cook County Circuit…

Time and again, the question has come up during this harsh Chicago winter as to whose responsibility it is to shovel the sidewalk in front of your home or business. In 2008, Robert Clifford, senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, wrote a column on “To Shovel or Not to Shovel,” in the January issue of the Chicago Lawyer magazine. https://www.cliffordlaw.com/to-shovel-or-not-to-shovel-that-is-the-question/ With the near record breaking snow totals for the winter of 2013­-14 and up to…

Illinois approved a ban on hand-held phones effective Jan. 1, which was already the law in many communities throughout the state including Chicago and Evanston. That law reportedly could hinder the state’s “mobile workforce,” as reported by Mike Riopell in the Daily Herald Business Ledger. Many companies already pay for and provide mobile communications devices for employees that regularly travel on the road for their job functions. With the new ban in place, it raises…

Over the past year, 44 cases of bacterial infection have been reported in the Chicagoland area, effectively doubling the nationally reported number since 2009, according to the Sun Times. These bacterial infections are of a highly resistant strain that cannot be easily treated. Many physicians caution against overusing antibiotics, as this can cause bacteria to mutate into more and more resistant strains. Unfortunately, some of these kinds of bacteria exist, and an outbreak was recorded…

As the summer winds down, the findings of a recent study on amusement park rides are interesting. A study published in Clinical Pediatrics concluded that of the nearly 93,000 children under 18 years of age who are injured on amusement park ridges and treated in U.S. emergency rooms between 1990-2010, 34 percent occurred at fixed sites. Dr. Gary Smith, senior author of the paper and director of the Center of Injury Research and Policy at…