Craig Mannarino

A woman 39 weeks pregnant with her first child arrived at MacNeal Hospital in labor. Eleven hours in, the fetal heart tracing showed distress and meconium appeared in the amniotic fluid, but the obstetrician let labor run another four and a half hours and gave Pitocin to speed it up even as the baby's heart rate decelerated. The newborn girl aspirated meconium, suffered lung damage and respiratory failure, and died 18 days later. In 2018 a Cook County jury returned a $19,217,602 verdict against the obstetrician, a nurse and the hospital in Estate of Padilla v. Porto, No. 13 L 6693, tried by Craig Mannarino and Amanda Brasfield. TopVerdict ranked it the tenth-largest Illinois verdict of 2018.

On March 8, 2003, Chicago police officer Alvin Weems shot 23-year-old Michael Pleasance in the head at the 95th Street Red Line station while trying to break up a fight in which Pleasance was only a bystander. CTA surveillance video contradicted the officer's claim that Pleasance lunged for his gun, and the City admitted liability, so the May 2007 trial was on damages alone. A Cook County jury awarded his mother $12.5 million for loss of society. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed in December 2009 over prejudicial closing arguments and a jury instruction, and the City settled for $3 million in March 2011.