Litigation

We are experienced Illinois attorneys who can help you with an accidental death benefits lawsuit when the insurance company doesn’t pay out a policy. To speak with an attorney for free, call us any time at 312-346-5320. We cover all of Illinois.

We have written a lot about life insurance lawsuits in Illinois. Those are cases where someone dies and there is a life insurance policy on them that doesn’t get paid out for some reason.

Accidental death insurance is a different type of benefit than life insurance. As the name implies, it pays out for accidental death. It also can pay out for accidental injuries such as a loss of a limb. It overlaps slightly with life insurance, but only provides a benefit for stuff like being killed in a car accident, being murdered, a plane crash, etc. People like it because you are typically automatically accepted for it if you apply for it unlike life insurance which often requires a medical exam and screening.

Much like life insurance, we see insurance companies denying these policies without good cause and acting in bad faith. They will look for any non-accidental factor that contributed to a death and hope that you will accept the denial and go away.

The key thing to know is that quite often these denials are b.s. When you purchase and accidental death and dismemberment policy (AD&D) the beneficiary shouldn’t have to deal with a nonsense denial. What the lawyers we recommend typically do is immediately file a lawsuit to force the insurance company to provide a valid reason for the denial. Often doing so results in them just paying out the policy benefits. Some of the ways they deny you wrongly include:

• Saying that the policy had lapsed when they didn’t give notice this will happen.
• Alleging there is a misrepresentation in the application for benefits.
• Saying the death was caused by an illness, not an injury
• Putting a requirement in place that isn’t clearly defined or interpreting something vague in their own favor.

It’s important to know that these policies often have filing deadlines, so acting without delay is important. You should also know that the attorneys who take on these cases work on a contingency basis which means that there is no fee to you unless they are successful with the lawsuit.

The bottom line is that you should not accept a denial in the payout of accidental death and dismemberment benefits without talking to an attorney first. If you would like a free, confidential consultation, we would be happy to speak with you any time.

See also: Accidental Death Policy Lawsuits In Illinois

I get calls all of the time from people who know in their heart that they are right. Maybe they know their boss discriminated against them. Perhaps it’s that their loved one was killed by medical malpractice. For others they need no convincing that a neighbor caused damage to their property. I almost never doubt that they are right.

All that said, it’s one thing to know in your heart something is true, but another thing to have that belief be found true in a court of law. To do that you need actual evidence. You can know that your boss is racist, but if you don’t have proof that you were treated differently due to race, you won’t have a case. That can be hard because most people aren’t stupid enough to say something like, “I’m firing you because you are black.”

As a lawyer, I had two experiences this past summer that showed the importance of proof at times and how we often don’t have the proof we need because we don’t think it will be necessary or are told something that isn’t true.

I was lucky enough to get to travel to Europe for a vacation. The trip was amazing, but there were some small hiccups. I was in Paris and taking a Eurostar train to London. The train was set to leave at 1:11 p.m. We arrived before noon and waited in a long line. As we got toward the front, they were not letting people through security and told us that our train was delayed. Eventually they gave us a piece of paper with a new train car assignment for a train that was leaving at around 3:15 p.m.

A Eurostar employee told us that they have a policy that if your train is delayed by more than 60 minutes, you get half your fare back. That would never happen in the US so we were happy to hear that. The employee told us that all we had to do was go online after 24 hours and fill out a form. Sounded simple enough. I went online two days later, tried to fill out the form and it came back that I was not eligible for compensation. Tried again a week later, same thing. So I submitted a customer service inquiry. Took a few weeks, but eventually they came back and said that according to their records, I made the original train.

I told them what their employee had told me and how we were given a paper slip to board the new train. They told me that they needed to see that slip or some other proof or they couldn’t provide a refund. Now my original ticket was electronic and of course we didn’t save a paper slip. Nor did we take video of the employee telling us about the new train or anything else that would prove what happened. We of course didn’t think that would be needed.

So now I won’t get a refund. It’s too small to sue over. So I have to move on as I don’t have the proof they want. It’s dumb and really just principle now.  But even I as a lawyer didn’t think about getting proof so I certainly don’t blame anyone else that doesn’t have it. We take people at their word which of course makes sense.

The second situation was worse, but worked out financially at least. I bought tickets on Stub Hub Ireland for a Premier League game. I’ve used Stub Hub hundreds of times in the US without problem and one thing I like about them is their “Fan Protect” guarantee which basically implies that your tickets are guaranteed to be good and they will solve any problem that comes up.

I turns out that the ticket I received was a fake. I learned this when I presented it to the ticket taker at the stadium. They sent me to the box office who confirmed the ticket was fake. As a side note, Stub Hub isn’t nearly as big in Europe and some soccer clubs warn you not to buy through them. I tried calling the toll free number on their website, but there was no answer. All I could do was fill out a form. So I missed that game which truly sucked.

I didn’t hear back from them until the following week. In what was a theme for my vacation, they wanted proof that I didn’t have a good ticket. They said I should have filmed myself trying to enter the stadium or talking to the box office. Uhm, what? I’m a 50 year old man, not a kid who films their life. And of course I wasn’t expecting the ticket to be a fake, so I of course didn’t film anything. I did, however, email them in real time, call the US Stub Hub (they can’t help on international sales) and try to call them.

It worked out financially because I was able to contest it with my credit card. Had I needed to sue, my only proof would have been my testimony. Would that have been enough? I don’t know.

The bottom line is that you need proof to win a civil lawsuit in Illinois or anywhere, but the reality is that most of us don’t think about suing in the moment so we fail to get rock solid proof that will help us.

One of the challenges of being an attorney who gives advice for free is that many people have a perception of the law and how lawsuits work that don’t jive with reality. It can make it difficult to get people to accept the reality of their case and what can and can’t be done for them.

This comes up a lot when it comes to suing big companies. It’s not uncommon to hear someone say something like, “I’ve called a bunch of lawyers and all of them are afraid to sue Amazon.” You could change the name of the company to Walmart or American Airlines or Yellow Freight or any other big company and the perception of some people will always be that they are too big and powerful to sue.

The reality is that no lawyer I know is afraid of suing a big company and in fact, in most cases, it makes taking on a case more appealing. That’s because when you sue Amazon or some other multi-billion dollar organization, you don’t have to worry about them having the money to pay off a judgment if you win. Compare that to suing a mom-and-pop bookstore that could go out of business with a lawsuit.

Attorneys love money, so if they think they can get money by suing, they will. Those companies may be big. They may have lots of lawyers. But what they can’t do is change case facts. If the facts of your case are strong, no attorney will worry about the size or “strength” of a company.

Typically when I hear someone say this it will be a situation when someone is fired from a company unfairly, but not illegally. Attorneys can’t help them because there is no law being broken. For example, if your boss fires you because you got mad that they changed your schedule after you told them you can’t work nights, that would not likely be a good lawsuit. But people convince themselves that they have a great case, even when multiple attorneys have told them they do not. Often friends or family members are telling them to get a lawyer when they aren’t aware of what the law actually is.

We don’t work for corporations. We help individuals and have been doing that since 2001. We’ve helped people sue just about any company you can think of when they have a good case. So what I can promise you is that if you want a free consultation with a lawyer who will give you an honest opinion, we are happy to help. And there will never be a company we are “afraid” of because there is nothing to be afraid of. Call us any time at 312-346-5320 if you want to discuss your case.

We are experienced Illinois attorneys who since 2001 have helped hundreds of thousands of people with their legal issues. Please call us at 312-346-5320 to speak with a lawyer for free and in confidence.

To bring a class action lawsuit in Illinois, you have to show that numerous people suffered some sort of harm in a similar way.  Typically you are looking at least 30 people, but most class action lawsuits involve hundreds if not thousands of people and occasionally millions. So if your boss is terrible to you or sexually harasses you, that would be an individual case. On the other hand, if your company is mis-classifying thousands of workers and denying them pay, that could be a class action. If your car has a bad engine, that would probably be an individual case. On the other hand, if your car design makes it at risk of blowing up, that would likely be a class action.

There is a lot that attorneys who file class action lawsuits look for in deciding whether or not to bring a case.  This list includes deciding that an individual lawsuit wouldn’t make sense and that the number of people harmed makes a class case logical. But before they do anything they will look for one thing. Is your case subject to an arbitration clause?

Arbitration clauses are hidden contract details that most companies use. Basically they say that if you have a dispute with them, you agree to resolve it via arbitration. It’s something you’ve agreed to likely hundreds of times without realizing it. Because you’ve agreed to arbitration, it makes a class action lawsuit not possible. This all started to happen when George W. Bush was in office and it literally has allowed major companies to get away with a lot of bullshit.

So when you get screwed over by Direct TV, Verizon, Amazon, etc. and realize it’s happening to a lot of other people, you likely don’t have a class action lawsuit (nerd lawyer in me must say don’t make any final decisions from reading this blog post. You should consult with us or another law firm). It can be really frustrating because these companies know that they can rip you off of a small amount of money and there’s usually not much you can do about it. You could go to arbitration, but most people won’t do that just out of principle because their time is worth more than a small amount of money. You certainly don’t want to pay a lawyer a couple thousand dollars to get back $100.

We are starting to see employers add these clauses to their employees as well. It’s often in an attempt to avoid accountability for wage theft by them. Sometimes those individual cases are still worth it, but their theory is that if they can get away with it against most employees they will save millions if not more.

I’ve sadly over the last 20 plus years heard so many stories of cases that would be class actions if not for these clauses. There is no bigger tool for corporations to screw over the little guy than this.  While you should still consult with a lawyer before making any decisions, you can also file a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General as they are not restricted by these shameful arbitration clauses.

The good news is that not all class actions have been killed off. There aren’t arbitration clauses typically when you buy something at a store, or if your data was leaked, in false advertising or junk texts. There are many hundreds of other situations too. So the bottom line is that if you want to discuss a potential case, we are happy to talk with you any time.

We are lawyers who will help you find the best attorney for your case or just answer any questions you have. If you want to speak to a lawyer for free, call us any time at 312-346-5320.

We get a lot of great questions about whistleblower laws in Illinois. Here is a a summary of some questions that we have received over the years.

I have heard the term “whistleblower,” but what exactly does that mean? 

A simple definition of a whistleblower is someone who comes forward with information on improper conduct that a person or organization is trying to keep secret. Often a whistleblower works inside of the organization where the wrongdoing is happening, but that is not always the case.

What makes a person step forward and “blow the whistle?”

A whistleblower is usually stepping forward to right a wrong and/or protect people. They have witnessed or are aware of abuse, corruption, fraud, waste or dangers to public health and safety. In most cases, the whistleblower is courageous in speaking up and doing the right thing.

I’ve heard about whistleblower situations involving the government. Are there situations outside of that?

Yes, most definitely. There are many whistleblower cases involving employees in private businesses and organizations.

Can you give me an example of a situation involving a whistleblower at a company? What was the outcome? 

Sure. Recently, Biogen Inc., a biotech company, agreed to a $900 million dollar deal to resolve a whistleblower lawsuit (brought by a former employee) which accused the company of paying doctors kickbacks to prescribe their multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs. The kickbacks included fake speaker programs and consulting deals, extravagant dinners and other entertainment. There is only a small number of medications approved to treat MS, and these drugs are pricey. Paying doctors kickbacks allowed Biogen to boost sales of their drugs and compete in this small market. If you are a patient with MS, do you want your doctor prescribing the best drug for you? Or prescribing the one that will get them a fancy dinner and some extra cash in their pocket?

I heard the phrase Qui Tam. What is that?

Qui tam literally means “n the name of the king. Under the False Claims Act, qui tam allows persons and entities with evidence of fraud against federal programs or contracts to sue the wrongdoer on behalf of the United States Government. Typically the US Attorney has to be given the chance to bring the case first.

What are the risks involved with being a whistleblower? Are there laws to protect the whistleblower?

Under the Department of Labor’s whistleblower protection laws, an employer cannot retaliate against the whistleblower, meaning the employer cannot fire, lay off, or demote him/her. The employer cannot deny overtime or a promotion, or reduce the whistleblower’s pay or hours. That said, it is best to consult with an attorney who specializes in these cases to fully understand one’s rights and to get a game plan together.

What are the benefits of being a whistleblower?

Aside from stopping often illegal and at best shady behavior, most successful whistleblower lawsuits lead to large financial payouts to the person who blew the whistle. Quite often this means many millions of dollars.

What if I know of some corporate wrongdoing and want to blow the whistle?

As we mentioned, it is critical to speak with a lawyer who knows the laws backwards and forwards and has handled these cases successfully many times. Contact us any time to explain your situation confidentially and learn your options.

See also: FAQs on legal malpractice cases in Illinois

Under Illinois law, if you die and have a will (or die without a will or trust), the process of legally transferring your assets is called probate. Now there are a lot of exceptions such as what happens when you have hardly any assets at all or nobody wants to make a claim to inherit your property because you had so much debt.  For the purposes of this blog post, we are going to assume that the person who died had a will, a house, bank accounts and other assets with no debt. The question is, if they had a will, who can challenge it?

Theoretically, anyone can contest an Illinois will. If on your deathbed you changed your will from everything going to your neighbor to everything going to your cousin, your neighbor could contest the new will as not being valid and try to get the old one enforced.

Realistically speaking, it’s usually relatives who are contesting a will. A common scenario is that an older person has a will that leaves everything equally to all three of their kids. They get sick or have dementia and at a time when it can be argued that they don’t know what they are doing, they leave everything to just one child or a caretaker or someone else.  In a situation like that you will see the kids who got cut off filing a will contest.

Another common scenario is when a child from one marriage is not left anything. This often happens when they weren’t a part of their parent’s life. If the will leaves everything to all surviving children, they will have the ability to say that they are part of that group.  One way to prevent this from happening is to specifically mention them and make clear you are leaving them nothing or leave a nominal amount so you can show that you thought about them.

A big hurdle in contesting a will is making sure that it’s financially worth it to do so. If someone died with a house worth $125,000, about $75,000 in debt and they had seven kids, that means there’s about $50,000 to divide amongst seven kids, before court costs are taken in to account. So essentially if you were to challenge that will, your interest at best would be around $7,000 which means you’d spend more money than the case is worth.

You can find a lawyer who will only get paid if they win to challenge a will if the estate  and your interest in it is large enough.  In other words, we’ve been able to help people whose relatives died and had a will illegally changed where the estate was worth seven figures and their interest in it was in the high six figures or low seven figures or more.  If you can make a strong case to overturn the will and it’s a large estate, there are very good Illinois lawyers who will take the case on in a way where they don’t ask you for any money to file a lawsuit.

In sum, you can challenge a will if you had a legal interest in it either from being a spouse, blood relative or someone who was mentioned in a previous will that you have a copy of. Note that Illinois does not have common law marriage. In other words, if your long time partner dies and either doesn’t mention you in a will or never had one, there’s not likely much any attorney can do for you.

These are not easy cases and require a decent amount of investigation. If you’d like to have a free consultation with an attorney to determine if a will contest is possible for you, please call us any time at 312-346-5320.

When most people think of having to testify under oath, they think of a courtroom with a Judge, a jury, and drama. That’s from TV and movies, but certainly if you testify at trial those things will be there.

The reality though is most people will never testify in a courtroom as most cases don’t make it to trial. But you still will testify under oath and it will be in a deposition.

A deposition takes place during a process called discovery. This is a way for each party to a case to learn facts and get answers to questions after a lawsuit is filed.  Some of this is done via questions answered under oath in writing and some of it is done by the attorneys having a chance to ask you and other parties or witnesses questions under oath.

If it was a trial, most likely your attorney would call you as a witness and ask you questions first. Then the other attorney would get to do what is called cross examination which is fancy lawyer talk that means the other attorney is asking the questions. At a deposition it works differently. Your attorney talks to you and if they want to know things about your case, they can ask you directly. So at a deposition, it will be the other attorney who is asking the questions and your lawyer there will be there to protect you.

When I say protect you, I mean they will object to any questions that are irrelevant, be a person you can ask a question to and generally look out for your best interests. Even in a hostile case, most depositions are friendly because there isn’t a jury.  That takes away the theatrical element of it.  When the other attorney is done asking questions, your attorney can ask some as well and will do so if clarification is needed of a certain point.

At the deposition there will be a court reporter who will take down your testimony and also have you sworn under oath that what you are going to say is the truth. Other than the lawyers it’s possible the other party to the case will be there and that’s it. It typically takes place in a lawyer’s office or on Zoom.

There are a lot of things you can do at a deposition to help your case. In no particular order:

1. Be honest. Don’t exaggerate or embellish.
2. Answer the question asked only and don’t ramble on. Your attorney should prepare you for this in detail.
3. Don’t guess at what the other attorney is asking. If you don’t understand, say so. If you don’t know, say “I don’t know.”
4. Be friendly. A big part of the deposition is the other side assessing how you would come off to a jury and Judge at a trial. If they think you will fly off the handle or act like a jerk, it will strengthen their position.
5. Dress appropriately. How you look also comes in to opinions on what impact you will make at trial.

And what you should certainly know is that there is no reason to be nervous. In the depositions I’ve been at, both as an attorney and as a witness, I’ve been stunned how unprepared so many lawyers are. It’s almost offensive when you consider how much you are thinking about the deposition and how clearly you can see how little they’ve thought about it.  As long as your lawyer is prepared it’s nothing to worry about.

In most cases a deposition can’t last longer than three hours. Before the deposition happens your attorney should explain how to answer questions, tell you about the other attorney and ask you questions they anticipate the other lawyer will ask. This should help prevent any surprises at the deposition and give you a chance to collect your thoughts before you answer any questions because you’ll have a day or so to reflect on it.

Bottom line is don’t worry. And if you have any questions about testifying under oath at a deposition please call us at 312-346-5320 to speak with a lawyer for free.

When it comes to hiring a lawyer in Cook County, where most Illinois lawsuits get filed, it shocks me how long some attorneys wait to file a lawsuit. For most personal injury cases, there is a two year time limit from the accident date to file a lawsuit or the case will be forever barred. Some lawyers wait until the very last day possible to get a lawsuit on file. There are a lot of problems with this. First though let’s discuss why they do it.

While every case requires some investigation, most can have a lawsuit on file in a matter of days, with the exception of medical malpractice which often takes up to a year to investigate. But for car accidents, slip and falls or stuff like business disputes, once you know all the parties, filing suit doesn’t take long.  It does cost around $500 and creates a lot of work as it begins the process of depositions, court appearances, discovery, etc. So some attorneys try and settle out of court without gaining the leverage of having a lawsuit filed.

That strategy might make sense if you have a car accident with serious injuries and a small insurance policy.  Those cases can usually be settled without a lawsuit. But if there is a large insurance policy, the case is disputed, you aren’t getting a response, etc., there’s no reason to wait. A lawsuit makes the other side take you seriously because they have to deal with the court and assess their worst case scenario.

But there’s another reason in Cook County why a lawsuit should get filed in most cases ASAP. To deal with the backlog of cases, most cases have to go to trial within 28 months of the day that the lawsuit is filed.  The reality is that many disputed lawsuits don’t get resolved until a trial is about to happen.  As attorneys we say, “The case settled on the courthouse steps.”  So of course if your attorney doesn’t file a lawsuit early on, it takes that much longer to get you to the 28 months when your case will go to trial if a settlement isn’t reached.

So when looking to hire an attorney, you should try to figure out if they are really a trial attorney or not. Most cases settle and there is nothing wrong with settling, but you have to be willing to go to trial if you don’t get a good settlement.  You also have to be willing to do the work needed before the trial happens. A lot of lawyers just want to do nothing but try and negotiate and that’s not usually in your best interests.

My recommendation is to ask the attorney how many cases they’ve tried in the last five years.  It varies based on area of practice, but if there immediate response is “we try to avoid trial for you” it could be a red flag. I also recommend you ask how soon they will file a lawsuit. If it’s not going to be within a month or so of hiring them, ask them why.

And if you want to know who a good litigation attorney is or have any Illinois legal questions, contact us any time for a free consultation at 312-346-5320.

I recently applied to an apartment for my child as a co-signer.  As part of the process we had to go through a criminal background check.  It came back clean, but took a couple of days.  The paranoid lawyer in me wondered during the delay of hearing back if there was some sort of screw-up.

Unfortunately not every criminal background check comes back clean when it should. It usually happens when people are applying for jobs.  We see it a lot with ride share companies like Uber and Lyft and regular employers as well. The most common error happens when someone has a common name. It’s not unusual for their information to appear wrongly as yours.  Other errors occur when they report on offenses that have been expunged or sealed. And believe it or not, sometimes they simply misread public information and don’t realize you were found not guilty of a crime.

While the economy is going great and the jobless rate is at all time lows, losing a job you want because of someone else’s error shouldn’t happen.  It’s often because the company that does these reports isn’t using all available reasonable procedures to ensure maximum accuracy in reporting. Sometimes they only match a name and date of birth.  I’ve seen cases where someone who has lived in Chicago their whole life lose out on a job because someone with a similar name in California was arrested. This caller had never left the midwest.

If you discover an error on your report, the background check company must, for free, conduct an investigation into the reporting. The agency must then report back the results, and if the information is removed, offer to send this new report to the company that received your incorrect report. This investigation has to happen within 30 days of you notifying them.

Note that the employer has to provide you with a copy of the bad report if that is why a job is denied to you. They can’t hide whoever it is that they were using to make this background check. They can’t just turn you down and not show you why.  And if they are using the report not to hire you, the must say so in writing and provide reasons for the rejection in writing.

If there is incorrect information on your background check and it costs you a job, you might have a lawsuit. We know consumer fraud attorneys in Chicago who have a great track record of success in suing over these errors. They work on a contingency basis which means that you won’t have to pay them anything to start a case and they only get paid if they win.

If you would like to ask questions about a bad background check, you can speak with an attorney for free by contacting us at 312-346-5320.

There is a fascinating new documentary on Netflix called “The Tinder Swindler.”  The basic summary of it is that an Israeli man changed his name to Simon Leviev and told women he was the son of a diamond billionaire. That billionaire is a real person, and he does have a son, but it’s not the man who is the subject of the documentary.

He would meet women on Tinder and allegedly tell him that he was the son of this billionaire and begin to date them.  For a couple of them, their first dates involved five-star hotels, private jets, fancy dinners, and other luxuries, all seemingly on his tab.  The reality appears to be that he was telling elaborate stories of his life being in danger and getting these women to send him money, take out loans, give him credit card access, etc. One woman appears to be out around $270,000.00.  All told, he is accused of swindling around $10 million from people all across the globe.

He did some jail time in Finland and Israel for fraud and I believe that if he were to come to the United States where he allegedly conned some people, he’d be arrested here too.

I’ve had phone calls from people looking for a lawyer who have been taken advantage of by romantic interests. Maybe not to this high of a level, but certainly in the five figures. They want to sue their now ex’s and ask me for advice.

While the Tinder Swindler subject is now a free man in Israel, and somehow apparently living a luxury lifestyle again and dating an Israeli model, if it was a similar person in Illinois, suing them would be a challenge.

I say that because you can’t stop a crazy person from being crazy and you can’t stop a scum bag from being a scum bag.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t sue and can’t win, you probably can. What it does mean is that collecting against this type of person would be a challenge.

As a result, hiring a lawyer in this situation probably requires a victim to shell out money to an attorney without a guarantee of a recovery.  If you just lost your life savings, do you want to spend another $5,000-$10,000 or more trying to get a judgment against someone you may never be able to collect from?  Most people wouldn’t.  And while it would be nice to find a lawyer willing to take this case on a contingency basis, most attorneys wouldn’t do that because they know that collecting from a thief is really difficult. It’s one of the flaws of our legal system.

And while I don’t know anything about civil lawsuits in Europe where most of this alleged activity seems to have happened, there is potentially one piece of good news. This apparent fraudster is on Cameo now and reportedly made over $30,000 creating messages in his first few days on the service. In Illinois, if you had a judgment against him you could probably put a lien against his Cameo earnings. Hopefully, it’s the same way over there.

The best advice I can give someone is to try not getting into these situations which of course is easier said than done. While we rarely see situations where someone gets tricked out of giving some more than $5,000 or so, we sadly quite often see them taken advantage of by agreeing to co-sign a loan for someone they think cares about them.  I can’t emphasize enough how bad of an idea it is to co-sign for someone else and highly encourage you to never do that no matter how much you trust or care about someone.  In my experience it ends badly so often that it’s just not worth the risk.

A question we get a lot about lawsuits in Illinois and the lawyers who handle them is:

What is your win/loss record?

It’s a sensible question if you don’t know how the legal system works.  You might have a case that one lawyer could get you $5 million on but the lawyer you hire gets $1 million. That’s technically a win, but to us it’s really a loss. This sadly happens all of the time. Who your lawyer is and how good they are is a huge factor as to whether or not you will “win” or “lose” your case.  But there is a much more important factor.

The number one influence of any lawsuit result is, how good are your facts? By far that determines who gets a great result or who feels like they lost at the end of the day. For example, if you are stopped at a stoplight and rear-ended by another car, those are strong facts in your favor. If the other driver was drunk that is even more helpful.  Did you break your leg and need surgery? Those are good facts. Did you just go to the ER and are feeling fine?  Those facts make the case worth less.   If they are driving an Amazon truck, that will make the case worth more money if your injury is serious. If it’s an uninsured driver that will make recovering money from them difficult no matter how great your lawyer is.

You could have the “best car accident lawyer in Chicago” on your side, but if you turn left into oncoming traffic and get hit by a car, they will have a hard time proving the other party wasn’t at fault. You could have the top criminal lawyer in Cook County on your case, but if you are on video robbing a store at gunpoint, getting a not guilty finding is likely impossible.

What great lawyers do with bad facts is make the end result better.  Take the guy caught on video robbing a store.  With a bad lawyer, you are more likely to get the harshest sentence possible. With a fighter on your side, the bad facts make a not guilty unrealistic, but maybe they get you out of jail within a year instead of ten.  That to me is a win.  But even with that great lawyer, facts like your background, family, job, mental health, etc. have a huge role in how a Judge will sentence you.

There are some lawyers that will only work with the best facts. These are firms that get the best personal injury cases that are usually worth in the seven figures and don’t always require a ton of hard work. Why would they take on a tough case when they make a lot of money off of easy cases with huge damages?  The point is that when the facts aren’t perfect, you need to really have a fighter on your side.  And in reality, you need that when the facts are good too because at some point there will usually be a hiccup and cases are worth more or do better when the lawyer really cares.

We as lawyers don’t expect the public to know what the law is and don’t blame them when they think the law is one thing when it really is something else. The most common example of that happening is when someone calls and wants to sue for a civil rights violation.

Often people think that being treated unfairly is a violation of their civil rights. For example, maybe you have treated with a doctor who no longer wishes to treat you or your landlord wants to end your lease.  Those situations on their face are not civil rights claims. A civil rights lawsuit has to show that a protected class has been harmed due to their status as part of a protected class. These violations occur if a person has had their granted freedoms taken away or is discriminated against based on:

• Race
• Color
• Gender
• Age
• National origin
• Disability
• Sexual orientation
• Religion

So if you are denied the chance to buy a house because of the color of your skin, that would be a case. If you are being sexually harassed at work, that could be a lawsuit.  If you are denied entry in to a restaurant because you are gay, that could be a case.

The most high profile of these lawsuits are when the police use excessive force, often based on discriminatory reasons. Those are also civil rights claims, either under Federal or Illinois laws.

The purpose of civil rights laws is to protect people against discrimination. So to show you have a case, you have to prove that you were discriminated against. You can’t just suspect it’s true, you have to have evidence. So if you think you were fired because you are 60, knowing in your heart that it’s true isn’t enough. An email or statement that says they are getting rid of you because you are too old would be needed or circumstantial evidence like the only workers being fired are over 40. It’s not illegal to fire an older person, but it is illegal to do it because they are old.  You have to prove your case.  The defendant doesn’t have to disprove anything.

These cases can be difficult to prove since most people don’t come out and announce that they are choosing to discriminate against you. But it’s not impossible. If you would like to speak with a lawyer for free to see if you have a case, you can fill out our contact form or call us at 312-346-5320.

Salespeople are a unique part of the working world. They are typically outgoing, persistent people, who regularly face rejection but soldier on. Sales reps are often compensated differently than other workers. Employers commonly pay their salespeople a commission.  

A commission is money paid upon completion of a task, usually the task of selling a certain amount of goods or services. The commission can be a percentage of the sales or a flat dollar amount based on sales volume.  

A commission-based pay system motivates salespeople to sell more. More sales equals more money in their pockets. And for salespeople in Illinois, a special employment law is in place to protect them and their rightfully earned commissions.  

The Illinois Sales Representative Act (ISRA) regulates how employers must pay commissions. The ISRA has three main points: 1) when commissions come due to the employee; 2) how employers should handle commissions that are owed to an employee who has been terminated; and 3) penalties to employers if they do not comply with the Act.  

There are a few scenarios in the ISRA regarding when the employer must pay the commissions. If the employee’s contract lays out a due date for the commission, then that is the due date. But if the employee works without a contract, or the contract doesn’t include a due date, then the employer’s past practice of when they paid the employee commissions holds. Lastly, if the employer just recently hired the salesperson, and therefore there is no past practice, then the Act uses the standard industry practice to determine when the employer owes commissions. 

The second main point of the Act details requirements for paying commissions to terminated employees. If the employer owes any commissions to the employee at the time he/she is terminated, then the employer must pay those commissions within 13 days of the termination. In addition, if more commissions come due after the employee is let go, then the employer must pay those no later than 13 days after they come due. 

Even if an employee waived their right to collect commissions after they are terminated, the ISRA says that waiver will not be enforced. In layman’s terms, a sales rep can’t be stiffed, even after they have been fired. You did the work and closed the sale. You will get the commission you earned. 

The Act also details severe penalties for employers who fail to comply with the guidelines for when to pay commissions. A salesperson can sue them for failure to pay, and receive up to three times the value of the commissions. The employer may also be ordered to cover the employee’s court costs and attorney’s fees. So in plain English that means it costs nothing typically to hire an attorney to help you go after commission that you are owed. Beyond that, because they have to pay your lawyer fees and potentially triple the amount owed, a lawsuit can bring real leverage to getting you the result you are entitled to.

If you are a salesperson who believes that your employer violated the ISRA or just have questions, please contact us for FREE any time to speak with a lawyer. We can be reached at 312-346-5320.

If you read/watch the news, you’ve probably heard about the shameful episode involving the Chicago Blackhawks. In sum, back in 2010, a player on the Stanley Cup winning team reported that the video coach, Brad Aldrich, had sexually abused and harassed him.  That coach wasn’t immediately fired.  A police report wasn’t made. And Aldrich was allowed a day with the Stanley Cup after the victory.

The player was only 20 at the time and wasn’t a fully rostered member of the team. The coach was 27 and allegedly invited the player to his apartment for drinks ad said he had the ability to get him on the full time roster.  They dispute whether or not the sexual encounter they had was consensual. The coach allegedly threatened the player that if he didn’t act like he liked the encounter he would make it so he never played in the NHL again.

A lawsuit was filed in May of this year which led to an investigation and a report by a law firm hired by the team. The lawsuit was filed under the Illinois Gender Violence Act which as of 2019 allows you to sue your employer for acts committed by employees.  It allows anyone who is the victim of gender related violence, including molestation or sexual abuse, to bring a lawsuit for monetary damages.

Unlike regular personal injury cases that have a two year time limit, the Illinois Gender Violence Act has a seven year time limit for filing a lawsuit.  In this case, the suit wasn’t filed until 11 years after the sexual encounter occurred.

So from a lawyer’s standpoint, the question is, how is this case going to proceed further. I have been told by another lawyer that there are motions to dismiss the lawsuit already on file and I would expect that those will be granted. I’ve also been told that the plaintiff in this case is saying that they had a repressed memory of what happened which is why they didn’t file the lawsuit in time. That’s a novel theory that has only in the past been used by people who were sexually abused as minors. The time limit for suing in those cases starts when the memory becomes clear again and you are an adult.

In this case, the law firm report and other statements make clear to me that the memory wasn’t repressed right after it happened as the victim told friends and has made statements about how this experience ruined his marriage. I think ultimately the lawsuit will be dismissed.

Does that mean the victim will end up with nothing? While I don’t think he will get a windfall through the courts, it would not shock me at all if he gets a significant payment from the Blackhawks as an act of good will due to their cover up of this situation.  I’ve seen that before in other cases where a company wants to make good on a bad situation and also make that situation go away.

It’s not a strategy I would suggest to most people.  You definitely want to file a lawsuit before the time limits are up. The Catholic Church for example did appear to pay out some cases that missed the time limits for filing but as more cases have come forward they’ve been vigorous in their defenses.

If you have any questions about the Illinois Gender Violence Act or sexual abuse lawsuits, you can call us for free and in confidence at 312-346-5320.

Here’s a scenario that nobody wants to be in, but sadly happens all of the time:

You find yourself in this situation where a loved one dies. A couple of weeks later you file a life insurance claim. Shortly after that you get a wordy letter notifying you that the life insurance company will not be making a payment. There seems to be no rationale basis for them not paying.

Are you out of luck?  What can you do to show the insurance company that you mean business, you won’t go away quietly, and you aren’t giving up on the payout that is rightfully yours? Often the best next step is to hire an attorney and force the hand of the insurance company.  The reality is that life insurance companies make bogus denials all of the time. They will claim something wasn’t disclosed or that the policy has lapsed.  They do this because they want to frustrate you to the point that you just give up.

Fortunately most people know that hiring an attorney in this situation costs nothing up front and that these cases are often winnable.

We get contacted by people in this situation who want to know, “Who is the best life insurance attorney in the state of Illinois?” First of all, there is no indisputable “number one” life insurance lawyer or law firm. There are, however, a handful of lawyers who have decades of experience in this niche area of law and get great results for their clients. Beyond that, we need to consider your unique circumstances. What is the size of the insurance policy? Some attorneys only take on a case if the policy is in the six figures or higher. For other attorneys, the size of the policy doesn’t matter. We need to consider who the best life insurance lawyer is for you.

Another common question asked by people who reach out to us is, “Can you recommend a lawyer who has offices near me?” The location of an attorney’s office should not be an important factor in deciding who to hire for your case. In fact, it shouldn’t matter at all. As we mentioned earlier, life insurance law is a niche area. There are a very small number of firms that specialize in this area of law and can show a track record of success. These law firms tend to have offices located near the courts because the lawyers spend so much time there. In addition, communication between you and a lawyer can be done over the phone and via the internet. Often everything related to hiring an attorney and proceeding through a case can be done virtually. If you live downstate, it may likely be in your best interest to hire a Chicagoland attorney.

The most important thing to remember is that your main goal is to have the policy paid out.  To make that happen requires a law firm that knows what they are doing and can prove it based on their past results. The attorneys we recommend often can get these cases settled in less than three months. When the facts are on your side and the attorney knows the law, there becomes no defense for the insurance company.

If you have a life insurance case and are in need of an attorney, call us at 312-346-5320 to speak with a lawyer for free.  We cover life insurance disputes in all of Illinois.