Illinois Lawyer Referrals and Legal Guidance

Archive for August, 2009

Illinois child support laws: Who can apply for benefits?

Monday, August 24th, 2009

A reader asks:

My father has not been around for majority of my life, he left my family when I was a baby. Recently my father found me on facebook and sent me a message; this is the first time I ever seen how he look. I am currently 20 years old, and I am wondering if I can get back child support.

This is actually a much more common scenario than people realize. The answer is that the mother of this young woman has to bring the case and she is the only one that can do it. In some cases child support can be retro-active, but there are a ton of factors that go into that, including the discretion of the Judge.

The good news is that if her mom is willing to petition the court, her long lost father will likely have to pay between 1/4 and 1/2 of the college expenses. There are a lot of variables with that too including his income, how realistic her college plan is (e.g. if she wants to go to beauty school in Hawaii it’s a Judge probably won’t make him pay for that) and what other sources of income are available like scholarships.

Like most cases, the key is to get into court. Any agreements reached outside of court are not typically enforceable. Beyond that I would almost always suggest that you have an attorney who focuses their practice on family law and has handled hundreds of child support related matters.

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Tags: "child support" "Chicago" "college expenses" tuition
Posted in Illinois Family Law | Comments Off

A simple way to never end up like Terri Schiavo if you live in Illinois

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Do you remember Terri Schiavo? She was the Florida woman whose husband and parents were in a huge battle over whether or not to administer medical treatment that could prolong her life. Her husband said she would never want to live as a brain damaged person unable to care for herself. Her parents said that there were signs of brain activity and that Terri would have wanted to live. They also said that her husband wanted her dead so he could take the money they won from a medical malpractice lawsuit.

This was the big story of 2005. Congress passed a law to try and keep her alive. Tennessee Senator and physician lost a ton of credibility by offering a medical opinion about her condition without actually having examined her. Advocates of the right to die as well as the right to life used her as the poster-child for their causes. No one really knows what she wanted.

This craziness all could have been avoided and you can make sure that never happens to you all by completing an Illinois power of attorney for healthcare. We provide this form for free because no one should have to spend money on such a simple form. The laws in Illinois are a bit different than Florida so the nonsense that happened down there wouldn’t happen up here. But by completing this form you don’t have to worry about your medical wishes being met and you won’t make your family battle each other over control of you.

Completing this form takes less than three minutes and it’s free. Is there any reason not to do it?

Tags: "Terry Schiavo" "Illinois power of attorney for healthcare"
Posted in Did You Know? | Comments Off

Fired for blogging? Nothing you can do in Illinois

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Recently a woman is Pittsburgh was fired for blogging. Could that happen in a big city like Chicago or some small downstate town? You bet it could. What could you do about it? Nothing.

Unless you have an employment contract (typically a union member) you are an at will employee. That means you can be fired for any reason as long as it’s not illegal. Illegal would be age, race, religion, pregnancy, job injury, etc.

But what if you are blogging about something that doesn’t impact your job in any way? What about free speech? What about fairness? What if I’ve been a great employee? None of that matters.

We are obviously pro-blogger and anyone can do it. But you are also likely an at will employee and if your employer doesn’t like what you say in your blog or the attention it is bringing or just hates blogging, they can let you go.

The only possible exception other than having a contract is if they really let you go for an illegal reason. e.g. through your blog they learn you are gay and that’s why you are let go. Even then you have to prove you were illegally fired and your employer does not have to give you a reason as to why you were fired.

The best protection is to blog anonymously. Beyond that it’s blog at your own risk.

Tags: "at will employment" blog Illinois
Posted in Did You Know? | Comments Off

“I’m suing for $20 million.” Don’t believe the hype.

Friday, August 21st, 2009

We often read headlines that say something like, "Victims family filing lawsuit for $30 million." We also get a lot of calls from people that tell us something similar to "I want to sue for $10 million for all this has cost me." Where do these numbers come from?

The answer is that the numbers are made up and are either done to create a splashy headline or because someone has been given a false sense of how things really work.

In Cook County, when filing a lawsuit that has the potential to be a big money case, your attorney must sign an affidavit stating that the case is worth at least $50,000.00. That doesn’t mean that they are only asking for $50,000.00, it just tells the court that is what you believe is possible and makes the case get assigned to a Judge in what is called the Law Division. If it’s worth less than that amount it would be assigned to the Municipal Division. Different rules and time frames apply in each case. The biggest reasons to ask for less money are the process goes quicker and the Judge can order Arbitration.

Even if your attorney really believes that the case is worth millions, they almost never put that on the lawsuit itself. What a case is worth is usually a question for a jury to decide. Not until you have completed depositions and seen all of the evidence can you really value what a case is worth. This often requires an economist or other expert to testify. If you look at all of the cases where someone says they are suing for millions, most of them don’t end up being for anywhere near that amount. There are two sides to every story and once the defense presents their side things can change.

When one caller told us he wanted to sue for $10 million even though he only had been ripped off to the tune of $2,000 by a store, we asked him where he got that figure from. His response was that "if I ask for $10 million then they are more likely to settle for around $2 million." He should have asked for $100 million because there is the same chance that he’d get $100 million as he would get $2 million. And if you can’t guess, that chance is zero.

Tags: "million dollar lawsuit" what is my case worth"
Posted in Litigation | Comments Off

Illinois medical malpractice myths

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Three readers with different scenarios made us think of a few of common myths in Illinois medical malpractice lawsuits.

Situation 1: My doctor didn’t warn me that one of the potential complications of my surgery is that my colon could get perforated. Had I known that I wouldn’t have had the surgery.

Situation 2: I signed a waiver before the surgery so even though the doctor admitted that he made a mistake, the hospital is telling me that I am responsible for all of the bills.

Situation 3: My grandma who was 88, but lived in active life had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She was in the hospital, but died from a drug overdose. How much is that case worth?

For the first situation, while doctors often go over possible side effects or risks, they don’t have to and they certainly can’t cover everything that might possibly happen. While a good doctor will answer any questions that you have, the reality is that it’s your responsibility to decide whether or not the surgery is worth the risk. You can possibly sue if they committed malpractice, but the basis for suing would be that they were negligent, not that they didn’t warn you that something bad might happen. As an aside, it’s hard for people to understand this, but a bad result doesn’t mean malpractice. Just because the doctor doesn’t make you better or because you went in for a simple procedure and left with an unrelated problem, does not mean that you have a case. For example, it’s well known that a risk of having a colonoscopy is that your colon could get nicked. You’d be hard pressed to find any malpractice lawyer in Illinois that would take that case.

The myth of situation #2 is that you can sign away your rights to a lawsuit. No doctor can get you to sign a form and then violate the standard of acceptable care. In other words, if he was supposed to take out your bad kidney, but took out the good one, he can’t defend that by saying that you agreed that he could screw up. All that said, we’ve seen malpractice lawsuits in Chicago defended because of that form and it does seem to have an influence on juries.

For situation #3, the answer is that case is likely worth nothing. The myth is that any malpractice is worth something. In that example you have a very old woman with an incurable, awful disease. As wrong as it sounds, the reality is that even in a plaintiff friendly City like Chicago, doctors/hospitals win more than 80% of the medical malpractice lawsuits that are brought. With this scenario, a doctor could put in writing "I screwed up and that’s why she died" and the insurance company would still defend it and say that her life expectancy was almost nothing as was her quality of life. We don’t know any lawyer that would pursue that case nor do we know anyone that would settle it for anything beyond a nuisance value e.g. a couple thousand dollars.

When we told the caller of scenario #3 our opinion, their response was, "So essentially a doctor can kill someone and nothing will happen to them." Sadly, unless you can show they did it intentionally, the answer is yes.

Tags: "Chicago medical malpractice lawyer" myths lawsuits
Posted in Injury Cases | 1 Comment »

New law to go after corrupt politicians sure sounds tough to enforce

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

A new law sponsored by State Rep. and Illinois attorney Jack Franks was passed with the intention of preventing any corrupt Government officials in Illinois from profiting off of their crimes if they are convicted. It makes for a great headline and a nice "rah-rah" moment, but it sure sounds difficult to enforce and probably unconstitutional.

The law was aimed at former Governor Blagojevich who everyone assumes will be convicted in the coming months or years for all of the shenanigans that occurred on his watch. Since he was kicked out of office he has bizarrely participated in a bunch of activities including hosting a radio show and hanging out at a Second City show that mocks him.

Presumably he’s getting paid for his radio show and any other activity that he’s involved in. It’s a pretty good guess that he and his wife are likely to seek whatever earnings they can before Rod faces his Federal criminal defense charges.

So let’s assume that he gets convicted. Perhaps if he writes a tell-all book you can show that it’s related to his crimes. But a Federal Judge can and routinely does prevent someone who is convicted from profiting from his crimes. If he doesn’t choose this route is it really constitutional to prevent someone from earning a living.

Beyond that, if he hosts a radio show or goes on a reality show, how do you prove that he’s profiting from his crime? He was well known before he got busted. Does he have no right to make a living? If he can’t do a radio show then what is he allowed to do? What if he shaves his famous hair of head for a million dollars? Is that permissible?

I’m no Rod Blagojevich fan and everything I know about Jack Franks is that he is both a good politician and good attorney. But passing and enforcing a law like this seems like a waste of time and tax payers money. It also opens us up to the slippery slope of what to do if they decide this law is so great that it should apply to anyone convicted of a crime.

Tags: "Rod Blagojevich" "Federal criminal defense" lawyer attorney
Posted in Criminal Defense in Illinois | Comments Off

Five quick tips for a Wednesday

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Here are five quick tips that answer common questions we receive:

My license is suspended for unpaid parking tickets. How can I get my license back? Pay your tickets. That’s the only option.

I was fired for showing up five minutes late to work. Can they do that? Yes, we have at wil employment in Illinois which means you can be let go for any reason, even if it’s unfair, as long as it’s not for illegal reasons like race, religion, age, etc.

I was hurt on the job, but it was my fault. Can I still get workers’ compensation? Yes, under Illinois workers’ compensation laws it does not matter if you were responsible for the accident unless you were involved in "horseplay" at the time you got hurt.

How much will it cost to get a divorce? It depends on the firm you hire, but the total cost depends on how long the case lasts. The longer it takes the more it costs. If you agree on EVERYTHING it shouldn’t take too long.

Who is the best personal injury lawyer in Illinois? There is no such thing as the "best lawyer" for any area of law. The right lawyer for you is not necessarily the right attorney for your cousin, neighbor, etc.

Posted in Five Tips | Comments Off

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