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Personal injury lawsuits in Illinois generally involve a person being physically or emotionally injured, or a person's property being damaged. Illinois personal injury law allows people to be compensated for damages due to another person's intentional actions, carelessness, negligence, or recklessness. Damages in Illinois personal injury cases may consist of payment for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering and other losses. There is no magic formula as to what a case is worth and every case is different. In most cases the money paid out for a settlement comes from an insurance company. Over the past several years, the Illinois state legislature has passed several new laws that have had major effects on the rights and liabilities of both plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury actions.
Medical Malpractice Recovery Caps
Perhaps the most significant change in Illinois personal injury law over the past two years is the Illinois legislature's 2005 law setting a maximum amount of damages for "pain and suffering" recoverable in a medical malpractice case. Specifically, the law places a $500,000 limit on "pain and suffering" damages against Illinois doctors. The law also includes a $1 million limit on non-economic (i.e. punitive) damages against hospitals. Furthermore, it also contains provisions to prevent frivolous lawsuits, new disciplinary tools and public disclosure to weed out bad doctors, and more oversight and competition among the companies that provide malpractice insurance for doctors.
Similar laws have been enacted, or at least contemplated, throughout the country and evoke strong opinions on both sides. Victim's groups claim that the law will deny severely injured and/or disabled medical malpractice victims full compensation for their injuries. These groups further argue that the limits will frustrate the social benefits of medical malpractice lawsuits, which weed out incompetent doctors. On the other side of the debate are doctors and insurance companies who claim that frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits drive up insurance premiums which are then passed on to patients. This, they claim, drives doctors away from treating low-income patients or forces them to abandon their practice altogether.
"Good Samaritan" Protections
Effective in July 2006, the Illinois legislature recently added to the so-called "Good Samaritan" laws which protect individuals who provide emergency care to injured individuals from later lawsuits by those very same individuals. Specifically, the new section provides that a person who is currently certified in first aid by the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association and who in good faith provides first aid without fee to any person shall not, as a result of his or her acts or omissions, except willful and wanton misconduct on the part of the person in providing the aid, be liable to a person to whom such aid is provided for civil damages
Medical Malpractice Evidence
Although less significant (and less controversial) than the damages caps described above, two other recent Illinois laws have changed the type of evidence that is admissible in medical malpractice cases.
The first area of reform deals with standards for expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases. Such experts are almost always doctors themselves, and are often critical to the outcome of a case. The law specifically provides that in an action against a medical professional, a qualifying expert is one who: (1) is board certified or board eligible in the same or similar specialty as the defendant; (2) has devoted a majority of work time to the practice, teaching, or University based research in relation to the type of care or treatment at issue in the claim; (3) is licensed in the same profession with the same class of license as the defendant if the defendant is an individual; (4) in a case against a non-specialist, an expert shall demonstrate familiarity with the standard of care and shall provide evidence of active practice, teaching, or university research. If retired, an expert must provide evidence of completion of continuing education for three previous years. An individual must have actively practiced, taught, or engaged in university research, or any combination thereof, during the past five years to qualify as an expert witness.
Secondly, the Illinois legislature recently enacted a statute preventing medical malpractice plaintiffs from introducing evidence in the form of doctor's statement of apology at trial. Critics of this measure claim that the law is designed to protect hospitals and insurance companies from liability in cases where a doctor has basically admitted fault and apologized to the victim of his malpractice.
Emotional Loss Damages Recovery for Rape Victims
The Illinois legislature has also recently enacted legislation that gives sexual assault and rape victims more time to file civil lawsuits against their perpetrator. More specifically, the law suspends the current two-year statute of limitations in the state of Illinois if the victim is threatened, intimidated or manipulated by the perpetrator or another person acting in the perpetrator's interest. Proponents of the law say that rape victims are too often abused, intimidated, or threatened into abandoning their legal rights against the perpetrator. This law will ensure that technicalities such as the statute of limitations will not reward perpetrators from avoiding civil liability for their actions.
"Fast-Food" Lawsuits Barred
Unlike the above laws which simply modified the rules in lawsuits in the personal injury field, this law effectively eliminated an entire category of suits available to plaintiffs. Effective January 1, 2008, this law prevents anyone from bringing a lawsuit based on a claim of injury resulting from the person's weight gain, obesity, or any health condition related to weight gain or obesity. Exceptions are made if the seller knowingly and willfully violated a federal or State statute applicable to the marketing, distribution, advertisement, labeling, or sale of the product.
The above laws represent changes made in only the past two years in Illinois. To varying degrees, each law impacts both personal injury plaintiffs and defendants' rights and liabilities in the state of Illinois. Some of these laws expand plaintiff's rights, some limit defendants' liabilities, and still others eliminate categories of personal injury actions altogether. In an era where citizens, politicians and industry groups continue to debate the merits of America's litigious culture, personal injury law in Illinois will undoubtedly continue its constant evolution in the years to come.
Times are certainly changing for Illinois personal injury attorneys and for people pursuing Illinois accident lawsuits. Even with a Democratic Governor and State House and Senate, the restrictions on people seeking compensation for injuries are getting stricter every day.
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