Michael Burke

Scot Vandenberg fell from the upper deck of a Brunswick-built yacht and was left quadriplegic. Brunswick's insurer offered $25 million during jury deliberations in June 2015, and the plaintiffs accepted. A trial judge first rescinded the settlement, but a successor judge reinstated it and entered a $25 million final judgment on February 15, 2017. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in November 2017.

In December 2011 a 2-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after surgery at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County to repair an undescended testicle. Doctors and nurses did not notice that his heart had stopped for about five minutes before starting CPR. The oxygen loss left him with permanent brain damage; he cannot walk or speak and needs round-the-clock nursing care. On February 5, 2013, the Cook County Board approved a $20 million settlement of the malpractice suit his mother filed, one of the largest in county history. Timothy Ashe represented the family.

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.

Five days after a radical prostatectomy at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon in August 2003, Clinton Dean Lovell was admitted with constipation. A physician ordered an enema only if Lovell's urologist approved; a nurse skipped that step and had an aide give a tap-water enema, which tore open the freshly sutured area and created a fistula between his rectum and bladder. Lovell went through a colostomy, a bladder catheter, fistula repair, colostomy reversal and an artificial urinary sphincter, and was left permanently incontinent. The hospital admitted negligence but blamed the surgery for the fistula. In September 2008 a Coles County jury awarded $2,378,258, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed in January 2010.

A Coles County, Illinois jury awarded Katherine Adams $561,389.90 against Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center and surgeon Dr. Kellie Jones-Monahan. During a routine laparoscopic gallbladder removal on November 15, 2002, the surgeon divided Adams's common bile duct, and she needed an ambulance transfer to a St. Louis hospital and a reconstructive operation. At trial the surgeon admitted that the common bile duct had been mistakenly dissected. The Illinois Appellate Court, Fourth District, affirmed the verdict in January 2007.