On Oct. 18, 2024, the Illinois Supreme Court held that an executive order issued by Gov. J.B. Pritzker during the COVID-19 pandemic triggered immunity for healthcare facilities under the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act.
On Dec. 16, 2021, the Illinois Supreme Court answered a certified question about whether a doctor who injured a fetus can be sued for wrongful death if the patient later consented to an abortion.
The Illinois Appellate Court rejected a hospital's affirmative defense that there was no evidence it proximately caused the death of a mentally unstable patient who had been shot to death by police at the hospital after a nurse discovered he had a gun.
Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, wrongful death and survival actions are anything but identical. Failing to understand the differences can cost you and your client.
Thanks to a 2007 statutory change, juries are permitted to consider grief, sorrow, and mental suffering in wrongful death cases. Here's advice for trial lawyers about how to approach this relatively untested element of wrongful-death damages.
On July 8, 2010, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District, reversed a motion to dismiss from the Circuit Court of Randolph County, finding that an amended complaint is not necessary when the administrator of an estate is not appointed until after a wrongful death action is filed.
On April 29, 2010, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District, upheld a decision of the Circuit Court of Macon County finding that the "slayer statute" prevents an individual deemed insane for criminal purposes, but nevertheless cognizant of murdering a person, from receiving any property, benefit or other interest he may have received by a death he caused.
UM/UIM provisions can salvage what would otherwise be a no-recovery case, but you need to understand your clients’ liability policies, not just the tortfeasors’.
On October 24, 2008, the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, answered in the negative a question about the Illinois Wrongful Death Act certified by the Circuit Court of Cook County on interlocutory appeal.
The Illinois Appellate court rules that the Wrongful Death Act does not permit suits on behalf of human embryos allegedly destroyed before being placed in the womb.
If an injured mother aborts an uninjured fetus to protect her own health, she can't recover for the wrongful death of the unborn child, the Illinois Supreme Court rules.
Illinois becomes the 24th state to allow wrongful-death plaintiffs to recover for their grief, sorrow, and mental suffering at the loss of their loved one.
On October 23, 2001, the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fourth District, affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court of Vermilion County granting summary judgment to Illinois Power in a wrongful death action.
On March 30, 2001, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, affirmed the lower court's finding that alcohol-related liability, including social-host liability, has been preempted by the passage of the Dramshop Act.
