The driving mission of the legal team at Schweickert Ganassin Krzak Rundio, LLP is to ensure anyone who has been injured is made whole again. We’ve been standing up for the hardworking people of the Illinois Valley for nearly 50 years. We’ve helped secure compensation for numerous clients involved in serious personal injury claims and workers’ compensation cases. In the past two years alone, our attorneys have earned more than $25 million in awards for our clients. Those successes instill great confidence in our clients. They know we’ll fight for what is right.

A serious truck accident can involve several insurance policies because commercial trucking is rarely built around one driver, one truck, and one company.

The driver may work for a motor carrier. Someone else may own the tractor. A separate company may own the trailer, load the freight, maintain the equipment, or arrange the shipment.

Each one can bring a different insurance policy into the case.

That matters most when the injuries are severe. A claim involving spinal cord damage, traumatic brain injury, amputation, or wrongful death can easily exceed one policy’s limits.

At that point, finding out who caused the crash is only part of the job.

You also need to know where the coverage is.

Workplace exposure records can turn a vague, decades-old job history into evidence that actually shows where asbestos was used, what products were present, and which companies may be responsible. That’s the real challenge in these cases.

A car drifts into your lane and causes you to swerve into a guardrail. The driver keeps going without ever touching you.

In Illinois, that driver might as well have not even existed.

Illinois requires every policy to carry uninsured motorist coverage. It sounds like a guarantee until you see what the courts have done with the phrase “hit and run.” There’s a second surprise: a UM or UIM claim runs against your own insurance company. Now the carrier you’ve paid for fifteen years practically turns against you. If you’re working through a car accident claim involving an uninsured or underinsured driver, this switch is probably something nobody warned you about.

Here’s how UM/UIM insurance in Illinois actually works and where these claims can go wrong.

Millions of Illinois residents go off to work each day without ever considering that tragedy might strike. Sadly, around 145 Illinois workers lost their lives on the job in 2023, according to the most recent data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That’s 145 families whose lives have forever changed.

You generally have 45 days to report a workplace injury to your employer in Illinois, but that deadline is different from filing a formal claim with the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.

That’s the key distinction.

Yes, you can develop mesothelioma from secondary exposure to asbestos. This can happen when asbestos fibers are carried home on a worker’s clothes, hair, skin, shoes, tools, or vehicle.

That’s the part many families struggle to process.

Corporate mergers and acquisitions happen all the time in the business world. Back in 2018, Bayer paid $63 billion to take over Monsanto. That gave Bayer control over all of Monsanto’s assets and products. It also meant that Bayer inherited all of Monsanto’s legal woes, including the ongoing litigation against Roundup.

Roundup is a popular weed killer used by farmers and home gardeners alike. Its active ingredient is glyphosate.

Back in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, or cancer-causing element. As a result, thousands of Roundup users who were diagnosed with cancer sued Monsanto.

That brings us back to the Bayer acquisition.

In an effort to “clean house,” Bayer has proposed a $7.25 billion settlement to cover the costs for approximately 65,000 plaintiffs involved in various class-action lawsuits. Bayer would like nothing more than for this to be the end of their troubles. That shifts the burden to all those people who used Roundup and have been diagnosed with cancer to make a legitimate claim.

Pursuing these claims is a complicated process that requires very specific evidence. It also requires the support and guidance of an experienced Morris toxic exposure lawyer. That attorney will be in the best position to help lay out all the available options.

When someone hears a mesothelioma diagnosis, the first question is: “How did this happen if I was never around asbestos?” For decades, asbestos exposure has been considered the primary driver of mesothelioma. However, it is not the only piece of the puzzle.

In rare but important cases, patients develop the disease with no clear occupational exposure history. This is where an extensive medical-legal investigation becomes essential. It is not just to understand science, but to uncover how and where exposure may have occurred, even when it isn’t obvious at first glance.

With help from a law firm focusing on mesothelioma cases, they can help beyond surface-level explanations to identify environmental, genetic, and secondary causes that could reshape a case entirely.

Children are taught at a young age to accept responsibility for their actions. If they break something, they need to own up to that.

Unfortunately for some adults, that lesson gets lost, especially when it comes to taking responsibility for a car accident. Even though there is rarely an intent to cause harm, a driver who engages in reckless behavior needs to be held accountable for any injury or damage they cause. That is when you need to file a personal injury claim.

A personal injury claim falls under the legal concept of tort law. That law holds that if someone causes harm to another, the injured person is entitled to seek damages.

While it is true that you can sue anyone for just about anything, you need proof to establish negligence.

That proof comes in the form of evidence.

A knowledgeable Morris personal injury lawyer can help you collect all the evidence you need to firmly establish your version of the accident. The stronger the evidence, the more likely you are to prevail in the case.