Chicago, IL
Personal injury Lawyer at Chicago, IL
Practice Areas: Personal Injury, Transportation ... +2 more
OUTCOME: $2,000,000
In a case tried by Cliff Horwitz and Jay Luchsinger, a Cook County jury has awarded $2,031,513 to a 48-year-old Teamsters 705 truck driver for a knee injury which ended his career as a trucker. Before ... the trial, the defendant, Albertson’s, offered the Teamster $250,000 to settle the case.
OUTCOME: $2,200,000
Riverboat janitor injured his back, resulting in a two-level fusion. The case was filed under the Jones Act.
OUTCOME: $1,800,000
During the construction of Millennium Park in 2003, two Local 1 ironworkers were injured. One ironworker slipped and fell on ice inside the structure, injuring his shoulder and ultimately requiring ext ... ensive surgery. The 2nd ironworker also injured his shoulder while pulling hundreds of pounds of load up a make shift ramp because a dock leveler had not been supplied. He too required major surgical repair of his shoulder.
OUTCOME: $1,700,000
A local 444 Ironworker was on a job site in Lockport, ILat the Lewis Airport doing construction on an airplane hangar. During his work on the job, he fell approximately thirty feet of the roof, injurin ... g his low back and his hand. He was unable to return to his job as an ironworker due to the injuries he had sustained.
OUTCOME: $3,800,000
OUTCOME: $1,450,000
A carpenter recovers a settlement after suffering a neck injury. He was caused to fall off a foundation wall due to lack of scaffolding and the existence of an anchor bolt trip hazard on the wall. Th ... e general contractor, through its insurance carrier defended the case claiming that this was the manner that carpenters did the work for decades and therefore they didn’t do anything wrong. They also claimed that the carpenter wasn’t watching where he was going.
OUTCOME: $1,900,000
A union laborer in Chicago was working near an excavation for a footing for the CTA’s elevated tracks. An independent contractor hired by the CTA to assist in the excavation was operating a backhoe whi ... le digging the excavation. The man operating the backhoe swung the boom and bucket in the wrong direction violently striking the laborer in the chest. It knocked him forcefully to the ground and he suffered a severe head injury.
OUTCOME: $1.3 million
An apprentice plumber was injured when entering a new construction high rise to begin her work day. She stepped on a loose pipe that was on the floor being stored in the hallway awaiting distribution t ... o other areas. When the plaintiff fell she tried to catch herself with her hands resulting in a broken right arm. She had been required forced to work in an area with no lighting in the hallway. The general contractor was held liable for not providing a safe work place by not installing temporary lighting in the main work area. Defendant argued that she didn’t look where she was going and that her own employer left the pipe there. Horwitz attorneys reached a settlement amount of $1.3 million dollars for the plaintiff.
OUTCOME: 11,000,000
At forty-nine, he had been a union plumber spanning over twenty years on the job until a brisk February day in 2003 when a thirty-foot fall left him in critical condition with a fractured heel, fractur ... ed ankles, multiple severe fractures to both legs, three fractured vertebrae in his back and a herniated disc in his neck. He fell because a general contractor and the consulting engineer permitted metal grating to be installed contrary to the jobsite’s plans and specifications. He fell because a general contractor and the consulting engineer permitted metal grating to be installed contrary to the jobsite’s plans and specifications. The job site was a wastewater treatment plant add-on for the City of Woodstock. A digester was to be installed within a large, empty, 30-foot deep tank; an airflow piping system at the center of the tank that supplies oxygen to healthy aerobic bacteria, which in turn, “digest” harmful bacteria. Horwitz, Horwitz & Associates trial attorneys, Clifford Horwitz and Jay Luchsinger, tried the case before a twelve person jury in the Circuit Court of Cook County. After a six-week trial involving multiple defendants, all but one settled before the jury was selected. The consulting engineer Baxter & Woodman Engineering refused and went to trial. Baxter and Woodman argued that an engineer who was hired to make sure the plans and specifications were complied with had no obligation during the construction phase of the project despite being on the job site. Horwitz and Luchsinger argued successfully that the engineer permitted the catwalk grating to be used as a walkway by union plumbers when he knew that the grating on the catwalk was missing “banding” and was unsecured with necessary clips. Both of these measures were contained in specifications that the engineer itself had mandated as necessary for the grating. The engineering company had attempted to utilize a provision of law whereby the defendant would have had limited liability if the jury found the engineer less than 25% at fault. This tactic backfired as Horwitz attorneys proved that the engineer knew of the unsafe condition before the accident. As a result, the jury found the engineer 70% at fault and the general contractor 30% at fault. Commenting on the importance of working men and women having access to court and a jury of their peers to decide such cases, Horwitz trial attorney Jay Luchsinger stated: “When told the undeniable facts surrounding this tragic case in which a good man suffered grievous injuries and had his hard earned trade taken from him, the jury did the right thing for this union plumber. Thanks to the right to jury trial, our client will have the resources necessary to provide for his lifelong healthcare and disability needs.”