Law Advice

A Cook County jury verdict was affirmed by the Appellate Court, resulting in an 8.3 million award to the surviving spouse of a construction worker who died in a Chicago construction site accident. The court found that the defenses’ claims of an unfair trial and of unreasonable compensation were unfounded and affirmed the Illinois jury’s decision in Colella v. JMS Trucking Company of IL, Inc., et al., No. 1-08-1072.

The Illinois construction site accident occurred when the decedent was struck by a JMS Trucking dump truck driven by defendant Samuel Inendino. At the time of the accident the decedent was working at removing water from the area around a newly installed water main. At the jury trial the decedent was found to have contributed 10 percent to his own accident, while the defendants JMS Trucking and Inendino were 90 percent negligent.

While defendant JMS Trucking had attempted to bring the decedent’s employer into the construction site injury lawsuit as a third party defendant, the jury did not find the decedent’s employer, Benchmark Construction Company. On appeal, JMS Trucking argued that the Benchmark’s liability in the decedent’s accident and death was so obvious that it should have been reflected in the jury verdict. However, the appellate court did not agree and let the jury’s ruling regarding the third-party defendant stand.

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