For the last 17 years, I and a team of lawyers have been representing families threatened by TCE contamination in their water supply, in the groundwater underneath their homes, and in the air inside their homes (called “vapor intrusion”). Recent reports in the media, unfortunately, describe how TCE, disposed of…
A shift in power and control has returned to those who most need it – nursing home residents and their families. In a recent ruling, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) prohibited mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreements between federally funded nursing homes and their residents. Prior to the new…
Illinois legislators have an opportunity this fall to do something important and help to regain some of the public’s trust in government. They can pass a bill to test for lead in the drinking water at Illinois’ schools. (Yes, believe it or not, no such testing is currently required….as if…
This is about how to send the right message to a company that is alleged to have willfully endangered the health of workers. The company is Fraser Shipyard of Superior, Wisconsin. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has accused Fraser of exposing 190 welders and ship fabricators to…
Day after day these days, we see expressions of clueless bewilderment from government officials: “Why are the people so mad at us?” “Why do they hate us?” “Why are they so anxious to throw us out of office?” There are, of course, a thousand reasons, but none more revealing…
PORTLAND PARKS DIRECTOR NEEDS TO ‘GET’ THAT LEAD-CONTAMINATED DRINKING WATER IS DANGEROUS…..OR QUIT HIS JOB A recent review of the Portland Parks and Recreation’s (PPR) handling of high levels of lead contamination in the drinking fountains at the Multnomah Arts Center concluded that the agency failed for years in its…
The national spotlight has recently shifted its attention to Disney World and the awful tragedy that transpired at one of its resorts when an alligator attacked and killed a small child. While there are many questions and much more to be learned, the most immediate question is how could this…
The third leading cause of death in the United States may come from those you trust the most. A new study published in The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) found that medical errors may cause over 250,000 deaths a year in the United States alone. Topped only by heart…
Co-authored by Cassidy Carroll of The Collins Law Firm, P.C. Can computer algorithms use officers’ behavior to predict police misconduct? It may sound like something out of a science-fiction movie, but researchers, part of the White House’s Police Data Initiative, are working at the University of Chicago to try to…
Co-authored by Cassidy Carroll of The Collins Law Firm, P.C. Recently, a Texas jury ordered Audi to pay $124.5 million to an 11-year-old boy who was left brain-damaged, partially paralyzed and blinded in his right eye in a 2012 rear-end collision. The verdict is in response to Audi equipping their…