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Etzler Lawhead Legal Group, PC

State’s high court blocks revival of Olympian’s lawsuit against USA Track & Field

By Personal Injury No Comments

The Indiana Supreme Court has blocked the revival of a lawsuit brought by an Olympic athlete against USA Track & Field after she collapsed from heat-related injuries at the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials. In a 4–1 decision issued Wednesday, the justices held that Marion Superior Court Judge Patrick Dietrick properly denied heptathlete Taliyah Brooks’ attempt to amend her complaint after…

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Monroe Circuit Court must grant summary judgment to IU in sports injury lawsuit, appellate court rules

By Personal Injury No Comments

An exercise that Indiana University coaches instructed football players to perform was within the range of ordinary behavior involved in strength and conditioning, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Monday in overturning a lower court’s decision after a former member of IU’s football team sued the school for an eye injury he suffered during a strength training session. The Monroe…

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Woman who slipped running to get help for worker sues Schnucks

By Personal Injury No Comments

A Maryville woman who slipped and fell at a Collinsville Schnucks supermarket while she was allegedly running to get help for a store worker who had suffered a seizure in the parking lot is suing Schnucks, saying they should pay for her injuries because store managers had assigned the worker to gather carts from the parking lot, even though they…

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Baby formula makers can’t escape St. Clair County lawsuits

By Personal Injury No Comments

A state appeals panel has ruled Abbott Laboratories and Mead Johnson must continue defending themselves against a rash of lawsuits seeking payouts for marketing and selling baby formula allegedly linked to cases of a condition potentially fatal in infants. Thousands of lawsuits have landed in court over cases of the condition known as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), which results in the…

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$3.5M verdict tossed; Judge shielded evidence of plaintiff’s dishonesty, crime

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A state appeals panel voided a $3.5 million verdict awarded to a man who claimed he was hurt while working for Union Pacific because the court determined a Cook County judge wrongly blocked the railroad from telling jurors about the man’s prior conviction for a crime related to dishonesty. Jeffrey Kozik Jr. sued UP in August 2019 over an incident…

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Provider choice proposals trending in comp

By Workers' Compensation No Comments

Several states have taken steps toward letting injured workers choose their own doctors, a trend experts say can affect costs and outcomes as a key element of medical control shifts away from employers and insurers. H.B. 1069, introduced Dec. 5 in Indiana, would amend state law to require employers after June 30, 2026, to pay for an “attending physician” selected…

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Illinois to consider expanding presumptions to hospital staff

By Workers' Compensation No Comments

Illinois lawmakers have introduced legislation that would expand workers compensation presumptions to cover hospital security guards who develop certain illnesses or medical conditions linked to their jobs. H.B. 4226, introduced Thursday, would amend the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act to add hospital security guards to the list of public-facing safety workers eligible for rebuttable presumptions of compensability. The bill builds on…

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23 NEC lawsuits vs baby formula makers tossed from Cook County court

By Personal Injury No Comments

Nearly two dozen lawsuits lodged by trial lawyers on behalf of out-of-state plaintiffs seeking to use Cook County’s famously plaintiff-friendly courts to score potentially big judgments against baby formula makers don’t belong in Illinois state court, a state appeals court has ruled. On Dec. 12, a three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court granted a win to pharmaceutical…

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Indiana bill would give injured workers doctor choice in comp cases

By Workers' Compensation No Comments

Indiana lawmakers are considering legislation that would give injured workers the right to choose their treating physician in workers compensation and occupational disease claims. H.B. 1069, introduced Friday, would amend Indiana law to require employers to pay for an “attending physician” selected by the employee after June 30, 2026, regardless of when the underlying injury or occupational disease occurred. Under…

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Companies hit with hundreds of Lake County EtO lawsuits cry foul

By Personal Injury No Comments

A group of big medical device and chemical manufacturing companies are pushing back against attempts by trial lawyers to rope them into another big potential payout in the continuing legal actions over claims ethylene oxide emissions from factories and medical device sterilization plants in Lake County caused cancer. In motions and briefs filed in November and early December, the companies…

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