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Keith Hebeisen, partner, and Sarah King, associate at Clifford Law Offices, co-authored an article for the summer issue of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association Journal entitled “The Power of Informed Consent.” The doctrine “imposes upon medical professionals a pre-treatment duty to inform the patient of the material medical information relevant to the proposed treatment, specifically information, that may affect the patient’s decision concerning the treatment,” the authors wrote. The authors, in citing various cases and…

With the summer season lurking around the corner, it’s not just mercury that’s on the rise; work zone fatalities also tend to spike during this time of year. In 2008 alone, the Federal Highway Administration reported 720 work zone fatalities, and most occurred during the months of June, September and October. With June on the horizon, there is no better time to remind motorists to slow down in work zones and prevent fatalities by paying…

Question: Can a person be successful in a product liability case if he or she did not use a product properly or in accord with the directions on the product? Rich: They certainly may be, yes. And obviously the extent to which a person did not properly use a product may become an issue and may give rise to contributory negligence or assumption of the risk. But what we often see is that a product…

Robert A. Clifford, senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, closed out a three-hour program and spoke to a group of lawyers on closing arguments at the Young Lawyers Section Trial Techniques Seminar at the Chicago Bar Association (CBA). Clifford, along with Colin Smith of Holland & Knight, William Spiro of Law Office of William B. Spiro, and the Hon. James Shapiro of the Cook County Circuit Court, spoke on the various elements of a trial…

Question: Do I need to have the product to file a product liability case? Rich: For all practical purposes, yes. And I certainly caution consumers to keep and preserve any product that they believe have caused them injury as a result of any defective design. That’s unquestionably the most important aspect of any product liability case. The product is going to be evaluated by us and our experts to determine why the product was defective…

When the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) discovered that 81.5 percent of those who died in early morning (3 a.m.-4 a.m.) automobile accidents from 2008 to 2012 were not wearing seat belts, it wasted no time in launching a campaign to help reduce the number of fatalities in Illinois auto accidents. That campaign is known as the 2013 Click It or Ticket mobilization, which runs now through Memorial Day weekend. IDOT, along with state police…

Question: With respect to motor vehicles, what type of incidents might give rise to a product liability case? Rich: We certainly see these cases arising out of what are often just the very basic types of traffic accidents that occur on the highway everyday. You have to keep in mind that vehicles are known and expected to be operated at highway speeds, which in many instances, especially when you get out into some rural areas,…

Richard Burke, a partner at Clifford Law Offices, has a great deal of experience in the area of product liability law in sorting through complex cases that involve when something goes wrong with a product. Which can be anything from unsafe BBQ lighters to children’s games. He spends much of time handling motor vehicle liability cases involving rollovers of SUV’s that can be caused by defects in tires, seats and airbags. Rich was an Assistant…

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