Illinois Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Scott Pruitt: Donald Trump’s Pick to Dismantle the US EPA

February 5, 2017 | Shawn Collins

I’ve written recently about President Trump’s determination to get the EPA out of the business of protecting the environment and the lives and health of the American people. (EPA Blog) (Gorsuch blog). Huge corporate polluters-including petroleum and mining companies-are tired of having to comply with the federal clean air and water laws, and, in Trump, have found their man to take them off the hook.

Trump, in turn, has selected the man whose job it will be to starve the EPA of the resources necessary to do its job-resources like money, scientists, and the right to speak, so the EPA can warn families living in contaminated neighborhoods that they need to protect themselves. This is the blueprint for how the Trump EPA will clear the way for polluters who want to get back to profitable polluting.

Trump’s man is Scott Pruitt, Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma. If you care about clean air and water for yourself and your children, you’ll want to know about Pruitt. And once you know about him, I hope you will contact your US Senator, and insist that he/she vote to not confirm Pruitt to head the agency charged with the sacred obligation of protecting our environment. Because Pruitt has no intention of protecting the environment.

Why Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee, Neil Gorsuch, Matters so much to Those Whose Lives and Health are Threatened by a Polluted Environment

February 3, 2017 | Shawn Collins

If you care about the environment’s impact on our life and health, should you care about whether Judge Neil Gorsuch, who President Trump has just nominated, is approved for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court?

Yes. You absolutely should. Here’s why:

(1) Trump has a plan to dismantle environmental regulation [cite to my blog of earlier this week]. That plan includes Trump’s determination to encase in American law his scientifically fraudulent view that climate change/global warming is a “hoax”. To leave no room for doubt on this, Trump appointed to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) a man named Scott Pruitt, who, as the Attorney General of Oklahoma, has sued the EPA some 14 times, mostly arguing that EPA has no right to regulate the petroleum industry. That’s the industry most responsible for global warming. In plain terms, Pruitt doesn’t want the EPA to have the power to stop polluters from polluting. And, courtesy of our new President, he’s going to be in charge of the EPA in a few days.

Dirty Water: House of Representatives Kills Stream Protection Rule

February 3, 2017 | John Risvold

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to gut the Stream Protection Rule, which prevents coal companies from dumping mining waste into local streams. The environmental regulations on coal mining also required companies to test the quality of water that their mining operations could affect and to restore streams that were damaged by coal mining operations.

The vote to kill the Stream Protection Rule sends the resolution to the Senate. If it clears the Senate, which took up the resolution to dismantle the rule on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump is expected to sign it.

The Stream Protection Rule went into effect in December, just before President Obama left office. Environmental groups have hailed the rule as necessary to ensure coal mining does not interfere with access to clean water. The purpose of the rule was simple: to prevent coal companies from dumping waste in local waterways.

IS THE EPA GOING OUT OF BUSINESS? President Trump Plans to Gut Environmental Protection in America

February 1, 2017 | Shawn Collins

New President Trump’s hostility for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and, really, for environmental protection in general, is well-documented. He thinks global warming/climate change is a “hoax”. He thinks that the EPA’s regulations providing clean water for us to drink and clean air to breathe are hurting the ability of American businesses to turn a profit. So, Trump wants to get rid of them, or of the EPA’s ability to enforce them. He also thinks that EPA scientists are a bunch of left-wingers, who rig science to make trouble for corporations.

So, it’s not surprising that recent news reports tell us how Trump plans to neuter the EPA into irrelevance. For example:

·Huge cuts. Myron Ebell was appointed by Trump to head his EPA transition team. Ebell is the director of an organization called the “Center for Energy and the Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute”, a business think tank challenging the science behind global warming, and trying to do away with the EPA. Ebell says that global warming is “a fad” and “alarmist”, and that no one should be concerned about historically-unprecedented rises in global temperatures and ocean levels, because “warmer climates are more pleasant and healthier.” Ebell recommends cutting EPA staff by 67%–from 15,000 to 5,000-and its budget by 50%. 1 It’s too early to know what the cuts will actually be, but that kind of recommendation from Trump’s hand-picked representative has a pretty obvious goal in mind: the EPA can’t very well protect the environment if it doesn’t have any money or people to do it with.

Could Your Car’s Takata Airbag Kill You?

January 24, 2017 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

Could the airbag in the automobile you drive, that is supposed to protect you in the event of an accident, seriously harm or even kill you instead?

For millions of drivers in the U.S., the unfortunate answer is yes. And many of these people are still unaware of the danger.

Millions of Takata airbags, in dozens of car models and brands, have a defect that could cause them to explode when deployed, sending metal shrapnel into the driver and passengers. Current airbag recalls in the U.S could eventually include as many as 42 million vehicles with the potentially lethal Takata airbags, but the word has not gotten out to everyone about the danger. So far, only 12.5 million of these faulty airbags have been replaced, and that leaves millions of people at risk. 1

Illinois’ New Laws for 2017

January 19, 2017 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

Every year, the General Assembly of Illinois passes new state laws which the Governor signs and approves. This year Illinois will have approximately 200 new laws on the books that could affect a wide range of citizens. A few of the most interesting and important new laws of 2017 are described below.

H.B. 6083, H.B. 4715 – These two laws are known collectively as “Molly’s Law”. The laws arise from the facts surrounding the death of 21-year-old Molly Young. Molly’s father attempted to file a wrongful death suit against Molly’s boyfriend, but the case was dismissed because the statute of limitations, two years, had passed. H.B. 6083 extends the statute of limitations for a wrongful death suit from two years to five years after the date of death of the individual. The second bill, H.B. 4715, creates much stronger penalties for public bodies who fail to properly comply with Freedom of Information Act Requests. The law will increase fines to $10,000 plus $1,000 for each day that the information is withheld. Molly’s father was unable to get the proper information from the police department regarding his daughter’s death and investigation in order to timely file his suit. Both of these new laws will hopefully assist plaintiffs in bringing claims against those who have injured loved ones and further remove roadblocks in retrieving useful and pertinent information from the government.

H.B. 6006 – Similar to the law requiring a vehicle to change lanes away from emergency vehicles who are pulled over with their lights on, this law requires vehicles to do the same for non-emergency vehicles who have stopped on the side of the road and have their flashing hazard lights on. The new law states that, when on a four-lane highway, a vehicle must change lanes into a lane not adjacent to that of the “disabled” vehicle. This law will protect those who are stranded on the side of the highway changing a tire or waiting for a tow truck.

Ice and Snow Injuries and the Partial Immunity of Land Owners

December 28, 2016 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

Ice and Snow Injuries and the Partial Immunity of Land Owners

The Illinois Supreme Court has recently ruled on a case that could shed some light on the duties and responsibilities of landowners during this frigid weather and the recent snowfall. The case, Murphy-Hylton v. Lieberman Management Services, Inc., distinguishes the duties of landlords for snow and ice removal. Historically, landowners have no duty to remove natural accumulations of snow and ice. However, landowners do owe a duty of reasonable care to prevent unnatural accumulations of ice and snow on their premises where they have actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition.

Normally, plaintiffs had brought these negligence claims under two different theories. The first being when there was a defective condition of the property or negligent maintenance of that property, and the second being when the landowner voluntarily undertook efforts to remove snow or ice, and due to this effort an injury occurred. However, being that one could be sued for taking action and causing an injury, the fear of litigation led many landowners and landlords to refrain from attempting to remove snow or ice from their property. This inactivity led to the Snow and Ice Removal Act of 1979.

6 Secrets Insurance Companies Don’t Want You to Know About Your Personal Injury Claim

December 19, 2016 | Shawn Collins

(1) Insurance adjusters are paid employees of the insurance company. They are skilled at negotiation and are advised by experienced insurance company lawyers who know the law. Together, they know all the strategies to keep you from hiring a lawyer and to get you to settle your claim quickly for as little money as possible. They are not your friend. They are working against you, actively trying to see if they can get you to accept little to no money at all to settle your claim. They may tell you things that are not true, and even pretend that you are not entitled to compensation, to see if you will fall for it. You should not be talking to them.

(2) Insurance companies hope that you do not hire an experienced attorney. Because they know that, if you do, they are almost certainly going to have to pay you more money. They will tell you that you do not need an attorney. And they will lose no sleep at night over the fact that they are a billion-dollar company with an army of lawyers on retainer to protect their rights (and money), but will tell a single mom with no legal training, who has just been in a serious car accident, that she shouldn’t get a lawyer to protect herself. They prey on accident victims who need the money quickly–which, truthfully, is most of us–by making a lowball offer that they hope you will accept without hiring an attorney who will tell you how terrible their offer is. An experienced attorney will know how much your case is worth and will help you get the compensation you deserve. The insurance company has a lawyer to look out for it. You deserve the same protection.

(3) Do not give the insurance adjuster a recorded statement. A common trick of insurance adjusters is to try to get a recorded statement from you that will damage the value of your claim. They may try this when you are still in shock from the accident. They may–in a very friendly way–ask you to guess about facts relating to the accident, when your guesses may hurt you. The bottom line is that they know what they are doing, because they do it all day long. But you don’t. Most people who’ve been in an accident and wind up on the phone with an insurance adjuster have never been through that kind of thing before. And their instinct is to want to be nice and helpful to the adjuster, never believing that the adjuster is trying to trap them into giving damaging answers. Stay off the phone with them. Don’t let them record you.

NEW EPA CHIEF IS BEST FRIEND TO THE WORLD’S BIGGEST POLLUTER: THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

December 15, 2016 | Shawn Collins

“You know a man by the company he keeps.” That’s what the Ancient Greek storyteller, Aesop, said a long time ago. The expression has survived until today because it makes sense: we all know that there is a lot to be learned about someone by seeing the friends he/she chooses.

If Aesop was right, then environmental protection in the United States is in big trouble. That’s because President-elect Trump has chosen as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency one of the very best friends of the biggest polluter in the world, the oil and gas industry. His name is Scott Pruitt. He’s currently the attorney general of the oil and gas industry-controlled State of Oklahoma. In that job, Pruitt has behaved as though he’s one of the largest stockholders of Exxon Mobile. For example, he has:

· Sued to block the Clean Water Rule, which is meant to ensure safe drinking water sources.

Time Constraints on Wrongful Death Suit Loosened

November 22, 2016 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

The Illinois Supreme Court recently decided a case that directly affects the amount of time a plaintiff has to file a wrongful death suit after the death occurs. Prior to the case, the statute of limitations proscribed a two-year window for the filing of a lawsuit after a death caused by negligence. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Moon v. Rhode, plaintiffs now have two years after discovering that the death was wrongfully caused to file suit. This distinction could be the difference between having your case dismissed for being untimely and being able to successfully prosecute a claim for damages.

The Moon decision incorporates the discovery rule, a rule often used in personal injury cases. The rule states that the statute of limitations only begins to run once the injured party “discovers” their injury and the cause of that injury. A classic example would be cancer caused from exposure to chemicals in the workplace that are only discovered years after being exposed to the chemicals. Because the injured party did not “discover” the injury (cancer) until later in life, the two-year statute of limitations did not begin to run until this discovery. The same is now true for wrongful death cases. The statute of limitations does not begin to run until the plaintiff “knows or reasonably should have known” that the death was wrongfully caused. Typically, this will apply to medical malpractice cases where a layperson may not immediately understand that the death of a loved one was caused or contributed to by negligent medical care.

While this new holding will be extremely helpful to those plaintiffs who do not know that their loved one’s death was wrongfully caused, those who believe there was an issue of medical malpractice should not wait to talk to an attorney. The statute of limitations applies to those who should have known that the death was wrongfully caused and any time spent waiting could compromise your case. Hopefully, this new rule will benefit those families who have lost a loved one only to find out later that their death was wrongfully caused. Now, that discovery can be used to restore their family and hold those responsible for the death accountable.