Recent Blog Posts
Black Friday Shopping Injuries Are a Premises Liability Issue
While many individuals and families in the Chicago area have made the shift to online retailers for searching out Black Friday deals and savings, thousands upon thousands will still make in-person visits to local stores, shopping centers, malls, and other businesses. With so many people flocking to areas of commerce to acquire the most sought-after items at the lowest prices, commotion and congestion will inevitably produce accidents and injuries. Businesses, even amidst the hustle and bustle of Black Friday, have a duty to protect customers – even mere potential customers – from injuries on their premises. When you have suffered an injury on unsafe or ill-maintained premises, an experienced Park Ridge premises liability attorney will work to obtain compensation for the harms that you have suffered.
The Duty Owed by Businesses to Customers Represents an Elevated Standard
Attorney Patrick Quinn Opens Law Office in Park Ridge, Illinois
Quinn Law Group, LLC, Serves Clients Seeking Personal Injury Compensation.
Attorney Patrick Quinn announces the formation of the Quinn Law Group, LLC, focusing on personal injury cases and estate planning services. Quinn opened the office in early October at 350 S. Northwest Highway, Suite 300, Park Ridge, Illinois.
Park Ridge Attorney Pat Quinn represents clients seeking compensation for their personal injuries. Previously, he worked on the other side of personal injury cases, defending insurance companies during personal injury, wrongful death and healthcare negligence lawsuits.
“It’s extremely rewarding to help victims of personal injury,” he said. “I’m able to help give them hope and the necessary resources to deal with the impact the injuries have had on their lives.”
Apportioning Responsibility in a Slip-and-Fall Accident
A slip-and-fall accident in or around an Illinois business may from the outside appear as a simple sequence of events. From a legal perspective, however, the question of liability for a slip-in-fall in which injuries are sustained may involve layers of complexity, depending on the presence or absence of notice of caution, employers, employees, independent contractors, and number of accident victims.
If you have been injured in a slip-and-fall accident at an Illinois bar, restaurant, grocer, store, or other business, an experienced Park Ridge personal injury attorney will assert your legal rights and determine where liability lays for the harms that you have suffered.
The Complexities of a Multi-Party Slip-and-Fall
Imagine you are walking into an Illinois restaurant for lunch while on your midday break from work on a rainy November day. At the same time that you enter the premises, umbrella in hand, a delivery truck driver is exiting, returning to his or her truck after delivering a shipment of food products to the restaurant. Being that the temperature is near freezing, the rainwater just around the entryway has begun to freeze. As you cross paths, you and the delivery driver loses footing on the slick patch – not completely, but enough to bump into you as you stand slightly off balance reaching to hang your umbrella and jacket on the coat rack. You lose your footing completely, slipping, falling, and suffering a concussion as your head slams onto the cold, slick surface below. Meanwhile, the delivery truck driver, not even looking back, is on the next stop.
Holding Individuals and Businesses Responsible for Injuries Caused by a Dog Bite
Though the weather is changing, as it always does to pronounced effect in Chicago this time of year, some beer gardens and back patios remain open to patrons. Such outdoor areas are popular with individuals who enjoy bringing a canine friend to watch the game with under darkening autumn skies. For public safety, importantly, both pet owners and businesses that allow pets on the premises have a responsibility to protect patrons from harm. When that responsibility is abrogated, an experienced Park Ridge personal injury attorney is there for you.
Dog Bites Are Often the Result of the Negligence of a Person or Business
Most dogs are friendly, lovable creatures. But some, whether as a result of nature, a history of trauma, or fear aggression brought on by a stressful environment, may bite, lunge, or run. A dog bite, especially by a large and powerful breed, can cause serious injuries. In addition, a lunging or sprinting dog, when making contact, may cause a slip or fall that results in injuries. When either scenario, a dog bite or dog-related slip and fall occurs, it is only right the dog owner be held responsible for the harms caused by the animal.
Grocery Stores and Customers Have a Business Invitee Relationship
Illinois businesses owe state residents a duty of care in protecting them from on-site injuries or exposure to hazardous chemicals or waste. This duty is above and beyond what individuals owe to one another in daily life in ordinary civil society. This is because businesses are soliciting the business of its customers in an effort to exchange goods or services for financial compensation.
A customer, in the eyes of the law, is what is known as an “invitee.” Invitees, importantly, are owed elevating safekeeping under state law. To put this duty in practical terms, the example of a grocery store – a business common to all – is helpful. With all of the people milling about a grocer’s aisles, shopping carts being pushed around (sometimes wildly by children), and some senior citizens utilized motorized shopping vehicles, it is not uncommon for there to be a spill of solid or liquid food on the store’s tile floors. Owing a duty to its “invitee” customer, the grocery store, as a business, must promptly clean up this spills and, in the process, post warning signs to alert customers of the danger of slick floors.