Recently in Negligence / Other Torts Category

As the job market for most jobs dried up during the down economy, law graduates and aspiring lawyers seem to have been hit especially hard. Many people decide to go to law school because there is this misconception that all lawyers are paid well. This misconception may be perpetuated by law schools themselves who offer glowing data and statistics of 90-percent employment rates upon graduation and six-figure average starting salaries.

A class action lawsuit was filed against Carnival Corporation for the Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck. It was filed in Chicago of all places.

As you may have heard, 16 people were killed when the ship that was touring the Italian coast struck a rock and capsized earlier this month. Along with those killed, 16 others are still missing, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Standard & Poor’s portrayed iteslf as the independent ratings agency on corporations and securities. The company provides an easy rating system that allows most lay people and people working in finance to compare complicated securities that would otherwise be very difficult to rate. Investors rely on S&P’s independence so that they can make rational, objective decisions on where to put their money.

In her Standard & Poor’s lawsuit, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says that somewhere along the way S&P lost its independence and ended up fooling many investors into buying highly-rated securities, which in fact ended up being highly speculative and extremely risky investments, thus leading to the 2008 financial meltdown, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Thaddeus Jimenez was 13 years old when he was convicted of murdering another teen in Chicago. In 1993, 19-year-old Eric Morro was walking with a friend when someone shot him to death. Jimenez was nearby and made an easy target for the Chicago police.

The police framed Jimenez for the crime, and coerced Morro's friends and other eyewitnesses to finger him for the shooting, reports the Chicago Tribune. As a result, Jimenez was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the murder.

Shantel McCoy had just arrived at her apartment building after shopping for groceries. As she entered her building, she pushed the elevator button and rode up as she normally would. But as the elevator doors opened, McCoy was welcomed by a wall of flames and plumes of smoke.

The 32-year-old woman was killed in the Lake Shore Drive apartment fire, and now her family is suing the owners of the building in a wrongful death lawsuit, reports the Chicago Tribune.

It’s hard enough these days getting a job if you graduated from an accredited college. Now imagine that you have to look for a job with a useless diploma from a college not accredited in your area. Further imagine that you were misled by the college’s high pressure marketing tactics, and now have tens of thousands dollars of debt and no realistic job prospects.

This is what allegedly happened to students at Westwood College, After numerous complaints of about useless degrees from the school, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan decided to champion Westwood students’ cause by filing a Westwood College lawsuit for fraud.

In the past several weeks, you may have seen headlines for Kyle Orton fraud or Denny Neagle fraud. In both cases, pro athletes, or former pro athletes, had given considerable amounts of their money to financial advisers who allegedly mishandled the money and lost it in questionable investments.

In December, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Kyle Orton and 20 other NFL players sued a Chicago law firm for more than $10 million after the firm allegedly gave bad financial advice, reports the USA TODAY.

Some people say that "no" is the worst thing that can come from asking someone out on a date. Stickney Police officer Christopher Collins would strongly disagree.

Collins used some smooth moves and creativity in an attempt to woo a young lady into having dinner with him. Instead of getting a date, the Stickney cop is now faced with a lawsuit, reports MyFox Chicago.

In a weird case, an Illinois appeals court ruled that a man who was struck and killed by a speeding Metra train could be liable for the injuries caused by his flying body parts after he died.

In 2008, Hiroyuki Joho was running in the rain to catch a Metra train, reports the Chicago Tribune. He was running with an umbrella covering his head and apparently did not see a train coming at him as he crossed the tracks.

Chuck Dai was allegedly so negligent in maintaining the abandoned laundry building he owned, that he could go to jail for the deadly fire that broke out on his premises resulting in the death of two Chicago firefighters.

Usually, someone only faces civil penalties like fines for violating building codes and other civil codes. However, prosecutors are charging Dai with criminal contempt for not maintaining his building, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.