Healthcare and pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) recently issued a recall of approximately 12 million bottles of its popular pain reliever, Motrin, due to concerns that the Motrin IB pills may not dissolve and begin working as quickly as intended, resulting in delayed pain relief, as the pills approach their three-year expiration date. The […]

With the new year came new laws, including a new California car seat law that requires children to use a booster seat until they are age 8 or 4 feet, 9 inches tall. The previous California law only required children to remain in car seats until they were 6 years old or weighed 60 pounds. […]

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently considered whether a plaintiff in a products liability case had met his burden on a summary judgment motion in Bielskis v. Louisville Ladder Inc., 2011 WL 5829771. In this case, the plaintiff, an acoustical ceiling carpenter, was injured while working at a construction site […]

Did the NCAA fail to protect student-athletes from concussions and their repercussions? According to a lawsuit filed in September 2011 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by two former college football athletes, it did. The class action lawsuit claims that the NCAA turned a blind eye to coaches who instructed […]

Spin Master, a Canadian toy manufacturer, has agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle claims with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regarding the import and sale of Aqua Dots, which is a banned hazardous substance. Aqua Dots are popular colored arts and crafts beads that stick together when sprayed with water to form […]

The first lawsuit in connection with the new Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) database has been filed. As we reported, the CPSC launched a website at www.saferproducts.gov to serve as a consumer products safety database. The site allows consumers to submit reports of harm or risks of harm from various products, including household products and […]

A $5 million wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against the federal government by the widow of a man mauled by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park in June. The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Wyoming on October 25, 2011, alleges that researchers negligently trapped the bear along a trail […]

Nearly 30 states currently limit the amount of damages that can be received in a medical malpractice lawsuit, according to the American Medical Association. States with damage caps vary wildly in their limitations and the types of damages that are limited. For instance, California limits non-compensatory damages at $250,000, while Nebraska limits total damages at […]

The holiday shopping season seems to start earlier and earlier every year, and with that so do the pickpockets. On a typical day in Chicago the streets are filled with hundreds of shoppers, tourists and business people who can be seen talking on a cell phone, texting, taking pictures or wearing earphones as they listen to music on their electronic devices; everything except focused on their surroundings. These distractions, together with larger crowds, make you a perfect target for a pickpocket or a scam artist.

Everyone signs them–those release forms that are often required before participating in a race or other physical activity. But, does signing that release actually prevent you from bringing a personal injury lawsuit in Illinois if you are seriously injured? An Illinois court considered that very issue last month in Hellwig v. Special Events Management, No. […]