Guns were made to kill. And now, we are learning that they are killing children with greater regularity. A recent New York Times article highlighted a study published last week, which found “firearm fatalities among children under 18 increased by 87 percent from 2011 through 2021 in the United States,” making firearm injuries “the leading cause of death among Americans under 20[.]” Even more disturbing is the lack of modifications to these weapons to include safety features such as trigger locks and fingerprint identification. The firearms industry has yet to take steps ...

A year ago on the Fourth of July, like many of us, I was happily sitting at a parade in my hometown of Highland Park, Illinois, with my family, including two of my young sons, watching the procession begin. What I thought was fireworks turned out to be a maelstrom of bullets from an AR-15 assault weapon, fired by a 21-year-old on a rooftop above. I was shot twice. The bullets ripped through my skin, and I could feel them burning. I was fortunate to survive one of the worst shootings in Illinois history — but seven others lost their lives.

A year has passed — and I still think about the shooting ...

It is my hope as a trial lawyer that problems our clients face can be overcome, and our law firm works hard to solve problems in our communities, whether they involve poor policy, corporate or municipal negligence, or the lack of oversight of a bad doctor or otherwise dangerous person.

The hope is to see a reduction in certain types of cases. We’ve accomplished this by removing dangerous drugs from the shelves, ending dangerous environmental practices, and making transportation safer. However, the ongoing tragedy of being a mass shooting attorney is that the exact opposite has ...

It has been another agonizing week in America. Blood in the streets of a Chicago suburb on the Fourth of July has given way to funerals and rallies, including an outpouring of support for two little boys, one a toddler orphaned as his two parents died in the shooting and another 8-year-old boy fighting for his life in the hospital with his spine severed by a bullet. This, among dozens of other families grieving and treating injuries both physical and mental from the traumatic event. Is this what you want, NRA? How can the supporters and manufacturers of assault weapons sleep at night knowing ...

Columbine. Parkland. Sandy Hook. Santa Fe. Uvalde. This is no longer tolerable. All of these schools are now ingloriously known for the massacres that took the lives of so many precious children, causing a lifetime of grieving families and losing generations of talent, love, brainpower and smiles. I know so many people who are sick of hearing that action must be taken, but by the time we are blue in the face debating the change that NEVER comes, another act of carnage happens. And this disgusting cycle repeats. Everyone needs to wake up and demand change.  

This rhetoric about our inability ...

Companies with Illinois employees have been targeted in recent years with class action lawsuits under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). These lawsuits generally allege that employers have not and are not in compliance with BIPA’s notice and consent requirements before collecting or disclosing employees’ biometric information, including fingerprints, retina scans and facial recognition scans.

One of the defenses has been that such claims are preempted under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act as workplace injuries and, therefore, cannot be ...

In recent weeks, our team at Romanucci & Blandin filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, for permanent vision damage caused by the prescription medication Elmiron (pentosan polysulfate sodium, or PPS). It is just the latest of lawsuits against one of America’s most notorious lawbreakers and its subsidiaries, like Janssen Pharmaceuticals, whose products have caused cancer (Talc), addiction (Opioids), bleeding events (Xarelto), kidney damage (Invokana), metal poisoning (hip implants), and male breast growth ...

At Romanucci & Blandin, we have the distinct privilege of representing clients in some of the most significant and most devastating cases from around the world: the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crash in Ethiopia, mass shootings in Las Vegas and Orlando, and claims nationwide for cancer caused by products like Roundup and Zantac. These cases bring together individuals who have all been injured, sickened, or otherwise harmed or killed by a common cause. Our firm is proud to not only seek justice for those people but also lead groups of law firms in that pursuit in such other high-profile cases as:

You have suffered an unjustified wrong, and after researching, you find: “I’m not the only one.” Immediately, the phrase “class action” comes to mind. However, that is not the only legal path to justice, and in some cases, a class action does not make sense; a mass tort does, instead. So what is a class action, and why do some cases get filed as class actions while others do not?

A class action is a type of lawsuit in which one person or group of people (the class representative(s)) represents the rights of others (the class members) who were victims of a similar wrong and suffered ...

The economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic is cratering the restaurant and retail sectors, where the necessary government shutdown for non-essential businesses has quickly crippled thousands of companies.

Unlike many other businesses that have a robust online component, restaurants are in-person experiences and are all about sharing: sharing a physical space, being served by wait staff who handle your plates and beverages, and eating food prepared by others. The social distancing guidelines have made all of that impossible, and even restaurants that remain open for ...

I write to let you know about a positive development for many workers who have been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and have contracted the virus. For many of those COVID-19 first responders and front-line workers, there is the real possibility that they could have been exposed to the virus in the course of their work, and now the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission has acknowledged that risk and will allow those workers to more easily obtain benefits under the IL Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act). It’s important to note that during this pandemic, the ...

Having recently crossed the 30-year line as a practicing attorney and staying committed throughout my career representing only criminal defendants and victims injured through the wrongs of others, I have learned quite a bit about our city streets, both literally and figuratively. Coupled with my love of politics and the fact that I have lived and worked in Chicago almost my entire life, I feel viscerally connected to the city I love and the one I call home.

Because I am now considered old by law school grads and anyone under the age of 40, many of these young lawyers come to me for counseling ...

We’re pleased to congratulate Pop Warner -- an organization that enrolls more than 285,000 children ages 5 to 15 in its football leagues and has produced more than two-thirds of the players now in the National Football League -- on its recent announcement.

Pop Warner has become the first youth football organization to officially limit contact during practices. Based on the advice of the group’s Medical Advisory Board and views from regional and local administrators and coaches, these rules will be in place for the 2012 season:

1. 1. No full-speed head-on blocking or tackling drills ...

A young Colorado mother died after suffering a head injury and a broken neck, the result of a water slide experience gone awry. The Banzai Falls slide she was on deflated.

This tragic accident, plus another when a camp counselor in Missouri was left a person quadriplegic after hitting his head in the same maneuver, and other reports of serious injuries, spurred the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on May 10, 2012, to recall the 21,000 inflatable Banzai in-ground pool water slides sold by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Toys R Us, Inc.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs in one of ...

It’s a perfect day for girls’ soccer. The young athletes on the field are energized, ready to play their hardest, and not to disappoint the parents and friends who are counting on them. Underlying this wholesome picture on high school soccer fields and local parks is an epidemic: the rising number of concussions suffered by female players.

As far back as 2007, The Journal of Athletic Training reported, “In high school soccer, girls sustained concussions 68 percent more often than boys did.” Additionally, the Journal found that “girls also took longer for their symptoms to ...

Suicide is an overwhelming tragedy. It leaves heartbreak and questions in its wake. In some cases, there is a note, which may do little to ease loved ones’ pain but can help solve the mystery of “why.” Junior Seau, 43, the former New England Patriots linebacker, who recently died of a gunshot to the chest, left no note. But could there be clues?

Chicago Bears football player Dave Duerson killed himself last year, in the very same manner as Seau. But Duerson answered the “why.” He had been convinced his years on the field had damaged his brain and left instructions to have it studied.

Much will continue to be written about brain injuries acquired on the field by professional football players. Grown men make a career decision to engage in a dangerous sport where the objective is to win at all costs, leading to on-field concussions that can be fatal.

Given the dangers and brutality of the sport, which has been likened to gladiator spectacles, is it ethical to watch the games? The New York Times posed that question in its always thought-provoking Sunday magazine column, “The Ethicist.” First, let’s consider the facts.

• The sport is played recklessly by ...

As long-time advocates of safer sports for kids, we have repeatedly called for a ban on all metal baseball bats. It was with sadness that we learned about the young suburban Chicago 12-year-old who died in a freak accident from a brain injury while playing the sport he loved.

Eric Lederman, of Oswego, collapsed last week after a baseball hit him in the neck during a game.  He suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage and died within 24 hours. The situation is a reminder of just how dangerous youth sports can be.

While deaths in youth baseball are rare, so are studies on the matter. One study ...

Your cruise ship contract could be taking you for a ride. While most cruises are safe and pleasantly memorable ones, there are cases where passengers have suffered injuries and even death, such as the Costa Concordia shipwreck on January 13.

Many passengers on that boat ride are just now beginning to realize that there was a legal structure in place that shelters cruise operators from big-money lawsuits. The situation gets more complicated in remote jurisdictions. The Costa Concordia, a subsidiary of industry giant Carnival Corp., is located in Italy.

Many cruise ship passengers ...

Imagine that you had hip replacement surgery only to discover that your new, all-metal hip had been recalled. That is the nightmare facing virtually 30,000 patients right now in the U.S., leading to thousands of medical malpractice lawsuits.

The real issue in this case is that the hip manufacturer appears to have withheld the findings in a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) report about safety issues with the hip. This happened long before the recall.

A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics, made a decision not to publicize the agency’s findings to doctors, patients and ...

As a member of the Board of Governors and Leaders Forum of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), I am so very proud of our most recent victory in successfully fighting forced arbitration.

The AAJ’s public affairs and communications teams were successful in squelching the efforts of The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, to eliminate investor lawsuits! Carlyle filed with the SEC on January 10 to go public, and those IPO filings included a mandatory arbitration clause. As a result of the AAJ’s efforts, Carlyle backed down.

Make no mistake: this is an important victory for the ...

Many of my friends and colleagues know that I chose personal injury law as a profession because of the traumatic brain injury my best friend in high school suffered while playing football.

Due in part to the impact of that incident and my growing knowledge of how dangerous a sport football is, I refused to let my son, now in college, play high school football. The last thing I wanted was for him to be so talented that he would become a professional football player.

A story in the December issue of Sports Illustrated backs up that assumption. The magazine checked on the members of the 1986 ...

We’ve written a lot about brain injuries in professional sports. Some of it has been critical of players themselves – often football players – who continue to play despite repeated concussions. The long-term effects of repeated blows to the head have led some sports superstars to suffer severe depression, and even worse, commit murder or suicide.

Today, we’d like to tell you about two professional athletes who suffered multiple concussions and had the courage to leave the sport they loved and find another career.

Chicago-area native Chris Nowinski played football at ...

We believe no responsible parent would buy toys that pose safety or health hazards to their children, but how do you know what’s safe and what isn’t? How can you avoid an accident that could lead to a personal injury lawsuit?

Thankfully, the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, in its annual “Trouble in Toyland” report, lists some of the toys that can potentially harm children.

On the list are toys with high levels of lead and those that pose choking hazards, such as marbles and balls sold without warning labels.  Parents should keep kids younger than 8 away from balloons ...

Did Chicago Bears great Walter Payton have a serious brain injury – one that was never really diagnosed and acknowledged? Did some of the moves he made as a running back on the field contribute to a dark side that led him to have suicidal tendencies, depression and an addiction to painkillers?

Through our law practice, we know all too well the causes and effects of brain injuries. It comes as no surprise to us that there are questions swirling around the release of sportswriter Jeff Pearlman’s new book, Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton. Why didn’t Pearlman ...

For most 15-year-olds, driver’s education classes are an exciting rite of passage where they get to put all the Illinois Rules of the Road classroom knowledge into practice behind the wheel. But car safety issues are compromising most Chicago-area driver’s ed programs, according to a Chicago Tribune story.

In Chicago, public school students practice their driving skills in what the Tribune calls “some of the oldest and worst-rated driver’s education cars in the state.”  Safety ratings of the cars students learn to drive in vary dramatically. Crash-test ratings for the ...

They somewhat resemble an ordinary candle, but those portable firepots that hold gel fuel have caused serious burns and even death. We agree with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who wants the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall all gel fuel products.

The Commission says that 57 injuries and two deaths have been reported as a result of the pots. They are investigating the cases and the products on the market to determine why such accidents have occurred.

In firepots, the flame is fueled by gel that comes out of a bottle and burns without a wick. The products have ...

It’s not surprising to us that youth are still being injured on the baseball field by balls hit off a metal bat. The latest injury happened to a boy in South Dakota in late April, when 11-year-old Trey Brown suffered a brain injury after being hit in the head by a ball hit off an aluminum bat.

We’re not surprised because, even though Little League International banned the use of composite bats, they didn’t rule out other metal bats. They should have!

Trey Brown came home from a local baseball game complaining of a headache and soon began vomiting. His parents took him to the hospital ...

We at Romanucci & Blandin are extremely disappointed in and disturbed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision on April 28 that upheld consumer contracts banning class-action arbitration. It is pro-business and severely limits class-action litigation.

In its ruling, the court said that a California law that invalidated contracts banning class-action arbitration with businesses was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. What led up to the case being heard by the high court was a dispute between AT&T Mobility and a California couple who opposed being charged a $30 sales tax for a ...

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has warned consumers to stop participating in water-walking balls, calling them unsafe, with the possibility that they could lead to suffocation or drowning. We at Romanucci & Blandin not only underscore the dangers but don’t believe the government went far enough. These dangerous recreational devices should be banned.

Commonly used at amusement parks, fairs and malls, the inflatable spheres are often used by children. A rider climbs into the ball, which is then zipped up. It rolls along the water's surface as the rider walks, much like ...

Chicago personal injury firm Romanucci & Blandin has learned about a new study that shows alarming results: high school athletes are four times more likely to suffer a concussion today than they were 10 years ago.

According to a study by Andrew Lincoln, who heads the Sports Medicine Research Center at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, in 2008, there were about five concussions for every 10,000 times kids got hit on the playing field. This compares with slightly more than 10,000 in 1997.

It’s unclear what drove the numbers up, but researchers say it’s likely a combination of ...

If you’re ever injured in a car accident, you have a better chance of receiving restitution for your injuries, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling late last week, and Chicago personal injury firm Romanucci & Blandin applauds the ruling.

The court held that a federal regulation that gives carmakers the option of installing either lap belts or lap-and-shoulder belts in rear-inner seats does not preempt state law.

In reaching this result, and by correcting the misreading of a previous case, the court has deprived car manufacturers of one of their most readily used defenses to ...

Last week, Romanucci & Blandin filed a lawsuit on behalf of Robert F. and Cheryl L. Schutter, parents of Jake R. Schutter, age 11, against Easton Sports, Inc., d/b/a Easton-Bell Sports, Inc. Our client, an 11-year-old boy, suffered hearing loss as a result of being struck in the head by a baseball hit by an Easton Sports’ aluminum baseball bat.

In the lawsuit, we alleged that the bat was unreasonably dangerous because of the “trampoline” effect these bats are designed to create. The lawsuit generated quite a response in the blogosphere. Some of the comments were supportive ...

Let’s make a simple point: the catcher is wearing protective equipment behind the plate to protect himself mostly from foul balls.

The batter is wearing a helmet, at a minimum, to protect himself from errant pitches when he is unable to duck out of the way in time. The pitcher who stands the same distance away as the batter is unprotected from a ball that travels faster off the bat than it arrives at home plate -- which means the pitcher has less time to perceive and react to a ball than a batter would.

We all know that metal bats perform better than wood bats. period. If they did not, we would not be ...

A new study of 1,543 Marines who are returning war veterans shows that those whose deployments were marked by boredom, lack of privacy, and days off, as well as those with mild TBI, were three times more likely to engage in antisocial behavior upon their return.

Conducted by researchers at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, the findings take on added significance, given that fewer troops in Afghanistan will see active combat.

The NFL helped fund a study that has led scientists to make a connection between head injuries in athletes and Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). In research conducted on the bodies of former athletes, the study results indicate that the new disease is similar to but not the same as ALS.

Dr. Ann McKee, a neurology professor at Boston University, who conducted the study, calls the new disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTEM). She says it is likely caused by repetitive head trauma that athletes can be exposed to in sports.

To reach her conclusions, she studied the brains and spinal cords ...

A big high-five to the California Interscholastic Federation for its surprise announcement on Wednesday that high school baseball teams must follow new safety standards for metal bats!

The Federation made the announcement in the wake of serious accidents that brought national attention to the bats’ safety. The state legislature had been considering a law that would have placed a two-year moratorium on the use of metal bats. Assemblyman Jared Huffman, who introduced the bill, said he postponed a vote for months while working with the CIF to implement safety changes. The CIF will ...

In softball, little league, senior league and college baseball, most of the bats are made out of aluminum. Proponents of aluminum bats say that metal bats hit the ball harder and farther. But in truth, metal bats aren’t safe. They should be banned, especially for use by youth leagues.

Brain injuries, chest injuries, and even deaths have resulted when metal bats were used by children. Metal bats may increase the speed of the ball, but is a higher batting average worth the risk? Isn’t it ironic that, when it comes to professional baseball, players say that wood baseball bats are a must?

Kudos to the Chicago Sun-Times for launching a front-page series, written by Rick Telander, on a newly identified brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, that affects football players who suffer multiple concussions. CTE is produced only by blows to the brain, and at least for now, it can only be discovered in a dead person’s brain.

In a recent issue of Scientific American Mind, Dr. Douglas Smith, director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote that the injury doesn’t just suddenly appear but builds up over time ...

As most of our blog visitors know, we are outspoken critics of the use of metal baseball bats by youth leagues because of the catastrophic head injuries and other injuries they can and do cause. Some of our visitors tell us they not only respect our point of view but have climbed on the “ban” bandwagon and now support our campaign.

That means that a few metal baseball bats must be sitting around collecting dust. So before you toss that metal bat in the trash (and contaminate our environment), consider recycling. Metal bats are recyclable! In fact, the aluminum in metal bats can be recycled ...

The New York Times (12/22, A40) editorializes that in “a lamentable 5-to-4 decision earlier this year” in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, “the Supreme Court discarded 50 years of legal precedent to make it significantly harder for Americans to assert their legal rights in federal court.” The case “involved a Muslim man swept up on immigration charges after the Sept. 11 attacks,” but the “damage went beyond the case or the national security sphere.

The court altered the procedural rules for initiating a lawsuit, raising the bar in a fashion destined to make it far harder to bring valid ...

Is there a link between football players’ brain injuries and mental decline among players later in life? Evidence is mounting. Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, in Chicago, is pleased to see that the U.S. House of Representatives is holding hearings on this issue, at which former player Tiki Barber and family members of injured players have testified.

At the hearings, Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner, would not say whether he thought there was a link between football and cognitive decline among NFL players. However, he did say that the issue of brain injuries in football warranted federal ...

As the war in Iraq winds down, veterans will begin returning home in increasing numbers, often with brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems related to duty. In Chicago, the Police Department’s crisis intervention program is responding to an increase in veteran-related calls and stepping up efforts to help those whose psychological wounds can harm everyone around them, especially their families. The Cook County courts are also developing a plan that would help keep veterans out of the criminal justice system.

As a law firm that concentrates on helping ...

March 5, 2009 – The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday voted 6-3 to uphold the traditional right of consumers to sue a manufacturer if they are harmed by a defective product. Attorneys at Romanucci & Blandin in Chicago hailed the decision as a victory for consumers.

The ruling affirmed a nearly $7 million jury verdict in favor of Diana Levine, a Vermont musician whose right arm was amputated after she was injected with an anti-nausea drug. The ruling applies to more than 11,000 drugs on the market in the U.S., including over-the-counter drugs and prescription drugs.

Tony Romanucci, a ...

The government is more than quadrupling monthly payments to some veterans suffering brain injuries, as the number of such war wounds mounts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new compensation is based on the assessment that even some troops who have the mildest form of traumatic brain injury could end up with chronic headaches, memory loss, anxiety or other symptoms that will hurt their chances of getting a job or job advancement -- thus reducing their lifetime earnings by 40 percent.

In a regulation announced Tuesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs, officials changed how they ...

Kudos to the Public Justice Foundation’s “Access to Justice Campaign,” which has just won a major victory against AT&T in the Washington State Supreme Court – defeating federal preemption, mandatory arbitration, a class action ban, and a secrecy provision for consumers being denied their day in court. Founding Partner Antonio M. Romanucci is a Board member of Public Justice.

In McKee v. AT&T, the state's high court rejected AT&T's effort to nullify state consumer protection laws through a contract that banned class-action litigation and required individual mandatory ...

The Chicago Tribune deserves praise for its front-page story, “More safety gear urged for young ballplayers,” for calling the public’s attention to the need for greater safety on the baseball diamond.

As parents, we encourage our children to excel at sports, often compromising safety for a winning pennant. This mindset in our nation must change. Where does it say that our children should accept and face the risk of a life-threatening injury, such as a traumatic brain injury, simply because they play baseball? Serious injuries inflicted as a result of the lack of proper ...

Romanucci & Blandin has been actively involved in the Ford City Mall natural gas explosion for quite some time now. In that occurrence, many people were injured when a natural gas pipeline ruptured in the Ford City Mall parking lot. Having personally inspected the scene several times after the explosion, it looked nothing short of a war zone. Quite frankly, it appeared as if a bomb had been dropped into the parking lot. as the cause and origin of that explosion is yet to be determined and the litigants are deep into discovery, it would be inappropriate to comment at this time what we feel is the ...

Romanucci & Blandin has been a major proponent behind the ban on metal baseball bats in Little League play. We are now one step closer to achieving that life-saving reality.

Rep. Robert Molaro of Illinois has introduced HB4140, which would ban the use of non-wood bats by organizations for children under 13. We hope that Committee Hearings will be held soon and then on to Springfield for a vote. In the near future, we will publish all available data on the risks of using metal bats in baseball.

This blog entry is to advise our readers of the bill’s introduction.

Those who know our firm are aware that community safety in the Chicago area is always one of our priorities. When one of my son’s friends was seriously injured in a little league baseball game on opening day this spring, I knew that someone had to do something. Fortunately, the boy’s mom has been very successful at advocating for wooden bats to replace metal bats. Her article “Metal Bats Strike out with Barrington Parents” highlights the inherent dangers of metal bats.

What follows is my letter to the editors of all of the major publications in Chicago. The letter was published in ...