Strom Yen Injury Attorneys Recent Posts

According to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over four million cases of non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported each year. Of these injuries, almost 900,000 cases are back-related injuries that result in lost work time or restricted work activity.

Rates of nursing home abuse are increasing. According to several studies, the government, private industry, and non-profit organizations are insufficiently responding to these rising trends. There are several causes for the increase in nursing home abuse rates. First, the elderly population is set to expand as Baby Boomers continue to retire rapidly.

Kenneth Allen and Olunfunmibi Ogunyipe were social workers working for the Bria of River Oaks Nursing Home. Last year, the two former employees filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County alleging that they were terminated by the nursing home for refusing to falsify and fabricate residents’ medical records to conceal abuse suffered by residents at the home.

Elder financial abuse costs seniors roughly $36.5 billion dollars a year. Financial abuse of seniors in nursing homes can include theft of personal property, forced withdrawals and deposits of funds, or the coerced transfer of titles and deeds to nursing home staff.

Electrocution is the cause of death for approximately 10% of workplace fatalities in a given year. Nationwide, construction workers are at greatest risk and in 2015, contact with electricity and the injuries such contact can cause was responsible for 8.6% of construction worker fatalities.

Nursing home providers who do not properly supervise residents place elderly patients at risk of serious injury, sexual assault, and fatal overdoses. State and federal laws establish the minimum number of hours an operator must provide nursing home residents with services.

Proving a disease claim under the Illinois Occupational Diseases Act is often difficult because it may be hard to show that the disease was caused by the person’s working environment. Identifying the disease and tracing it back to the person’s job may require a thorough analysis of his or her medical records.

Nursing homes exist in a still-developing area of law that sometimes inconsistently applies liability rules. Nursing homes, if they are healthcare providers, are required to carry two insurance policies: professional and general. Each policy will have different requirements, coverage, and liability rules which can profoundly affect the way an injured resident’s claim is treated.

While research has shown that one out of every ten elderly people suffers from abuse, only one case out of every 7,700 emergency room visits by elderly people results in a diagnosis of elder abuse, pointing to the fact that many cases are not being diagnosed and reported.

Workers’ compensation claims can be denied for any number of reasons. The following are among the most common reasons that Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys see when a claim is denied: