Nursing home residents are elderly and often frail, requiring extensive care and assistance. Families who have loved ones in nursing homes have to take a leap of faith, putting their trust in the staff and management at a residential care facility which family members often know very little about. The truth is that nursing home residents often face abuse and neglect. Tragic stories of abuse and neglect are frequently on the news, and understaffing is often responsible for the worst outcomes for nursing home patients. 

Bedsores are one of the most common consequences of nursing home understaffing. While you may not be able to monitor your loved one in their nursing home all the time, if your parent or grandparent has bedsores and you have a hunch that they may not be getting the care they need, take action right away. 

How Do Bedsores Develop? 

Simply put, bedsores happen when someone is sitting or lying for too long in the same position. A person’s body weight puts pressure on whichever part of their body is touching a bed or a wheelchair, and when that person cannot move often enough, blood supply is cut off to the compressed part of the body and sores can develop. Bedsores are classified into four stages: 

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The classically antagonistic relationship between dogs and postal workers has been the subject of many comedy skits and great movie scenes. While most dogs are friendly to visitors and the vast majority of the millions of deliveries in America each day are made safely, it is unfortunately true that people who deliver mail, packages, and food are sometimes viciously attacked by dogs through no fault of their own. 

Dog attacks can be terrifying to experience and can have serious physical and emotional consequences. Injuries sustained in dog attacks can require expensive treatment, including surgery and physical therapy, and may even cause lifelong physical deformation. If you were delivering a package and were attacked by a dog, you may want to meet with an Illinois dog attack lawyer. 

Common Dog Attack Injuries

Dog attack injuries can vary widely in their seriousness and in the level of treatment they require. However, common injuries sustained in dog attacks include: 

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Of all the jobs in Illinois, construction work exposes workers to some of the most consistently dangerous conditions. Throughout the United States, heavy machinery, slippery conditions, unstable scaffolding, and other risk factors contributed to over 1,100 construction worker deaths in 2019 alone, with many tens of thousands of construction site injuries. While most injuries are not life-threatening, others are serious enough to take a worker off the job for months and sometimes even permanently. Here are some of the most common injuries sustained by construction workers in Illinois. 

Common Construction Site Accidents 

The United States Department of Labor keeps statistics on construction industry accidents. According to their estimates, the most common cause of injuries and fatalities were falls, slips, and trips. Most fatalities occur when someone falls to a lower level. Other common causes of serious accidents include: 

• Electrocution
• Being struck by a swinging or falling object
• Getting caught in or hit by equipment or machinery 
• Reckless drivers next to roadway construction sites
• Ground collapses

Common injuries from these accidents include, but are not limited to: 

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Trucks play a critical role in U.S. commerce. In fact, it could be said that if trucks ground to a halt, the American economy would grind to a halt as well. Although the economic benefit is undeniable, there are negative externalities to having so many large trucks on the road. For example, thousands of Americans are injured or killed in large truck accidents annually. Of course, many of these crashes involve a truck colliding with another vehicle. However, in other instances, the damage is not caused by the rig itself, but by what is inside of it. Semi-truck cargo spills are responsible for serious traffic accidents on Illinois roads every year. When a truck loses the cargo it is hauling, the potential for destruction is immense. The cargo could pose a hazard to other vehicles, and the truck may become imbalanced and either tip over or enter a jackknife. Victims are often left with debilitating injuries and may take months or even years to recover from. Additionally, they could face other obstacles, like medical debt and job loss. Although their circumstances are often dire, they may have legal recourse if the crash was a result of negligence or wrongdoing.

Who Could Be Liable for Truck Cargo Spill Accidents?

When people think of liable parties in the truck accident context, they tend to think of the driver; however, many different parties may actually be liable.

For example, if a driver was frequently told by the trucking company to disobey Hours of Service rules limiting a driver’s daily road hours, the trucking company may be liable. If the crash was caused by defective equipment such as defective tiedowns, the company that designed, manufactured, or sold the equipment may be liable. Though rare, if poor road conditions caused the truck driver to lose control and the cargo to break loose, the government agency responsible for road upkeep may even be liable for damages.

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Property owners have certain obligations under Illinois Law. They must create a safe environment free of dangerous conditions for all who enter the premises. If a visitor is injured by a hazard on their property, they may be liable under Illinois premises liability law.

There are ways the property owner can escape liability. If the hazard can be considered “open and obvious”, the property owner may not be at fault. The property owner may argue that the victim should have been aware of the dangerous condition and avoided injury. However, the open and obvious rule has its own exception called “the distraction exception.”

What Is the Distraction Exception?

The distraction exception creates a cause of action against the property owner, even if the victim was injured by a hazard that was “open and obvious.”

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