Case Results Matter At Coplan & Crane, Oak Park Personal Injury Lawyers

Chicago personal injury lawyers Coplan & Crane understand the importance of how much you receive after a personal injury accident and the difference it can make to your quality of life for years to come.  That’s why we work so hard to get people the maximum compensation after an accident.  We understand how quickly bills can add up.  We realize your ability to work and earn a living might be affected.  That’s why we’re proud of the large, multi-million-dollar verdicts we have been able to obtain for people hurt due to someone else’s negligent behavior.

You shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s mistakes.  Contact Coplan & Crane today.  Email or call (800) 394-6002 or (708) 358-8080 to schedule a free case evaluation at our conveniently located Oak Park office.

Chicago Personal Injury Victims Know They Can Count On Us To Make Things Right

Below are examples of some of Coplan & Crane’s larger settlements and verdicts:

  • $18.75 million verdict in a case where a brakeman/switchman working at the Canadian Pacific rail yard suffered severe injuries after attempting to board a moving train. The practice of getting on and off moving trains was banned in 2005 because it was inherently dangerous. However, the railroad company reinstated the hazardous practice because they wanted trains to move faster. While the railroad company argued that our client was 100% to blame for his injuries because workers are not allowed to board moving trains that are traveling faster than 4 mph (the train involved in the incident was going approximately 8 or 9 mph), but we maintained that the railroad company brought back a banned practice that they knew was unsafe. The jury did find that our client was 25 percent responsible for his injury, reducing his $25 million award to $18,750,000.00.
  • $15 million verdict in a case where a truck driver appeared to fall asleep at the wheel moments before rear-ending the victim’s car at full speed, as revealed by a dash-cam video. Our investigation found that there was no culture of safety at the trucking company, and we argued that the company’s pattern of lapses led to the fatal accident.
  • $14 million in a case of sexual assault at a rehab clinic. Our client was groomed and assaulted multiple times by a therapist at Timberline Knolls.
  • $13 million settlement for a birth injury case in which a baby sustained a shoulder dystocia injury during childbirth due to medical negligence by the doctors monitoring the mother’s health during her pregnancy and childbirth. The medical providers failed to recognize numerous warning signs of health problems before and during the mother’s delivery of her child.
  • $12.25 million settlement for a fatal 2015 railroad crossing accident in which a Metra Commuter train collided with a passenger vehicle occupied by a 16-year-old driver, his younger brother, and two teenage cousins. Two young women were killed in the crash and others were injured. Coplan + Crane conducted surveillance at the dangerous crossing and captured 100 near misses that involved similar conditions that caused the fatal accident. The plaintiffs cited negligence on the part of Metra for inadequately performing hazard analyses at its grade crossings; for inadequately reporting and monitoring “near misses” at the crossing; and for inadequately communicating hazards to its employees.
  • $12 million settlement for a baby who suffered permanent brain damage, paralysis, and cerebral palsy.  The labor and delivery staff failed to recognize that the baby was breech and did not act quickly enough when it was obvious he was not getting enough oxygen.  This was the largest personal injury settlement or verdict in the history of Winnebago County (Rockford), Illinois.
  • $11.5 million settlement for the family of a man killed in a truck accident, as well as severe injuries sustained by a mother and her toddler-aged son in the accident. The trucking company’s insurance company rejected an initial settlement offer and repeatedly refused to budge from their initial “lowball” offer – as attorney Ben Crane put it, they acted in bad faith and “basically played Russian roulette with their policy holder’s assets.” However, weeks before the trial was set to begin, and with a motion for punitive damages pending, the insurance company agreed to settle the case for $11.5 million.
  • $10 million settlement for a man who was rendered a quadriplegic after doctors failed to properly diagnose a stroke. The man had visited the emergency room on two separate occasions, and doctors incorrectly attributed warning symptoms of a stroke to another condition.  This was the largest medical malpractice settlement or verdict in the history of Stephenson County, Illinois, and was the subject of a Chicago Daily Law Bulletin article on April 17, 2014.
  • $7 million verdict at trial for the wrongful death of a 22-year-old student from Chicago.
  • $5.6 million settlement on behalf of a 13-year-old Skokie boy who was rendered a quadriplegic in a car crash.
  • $5.25 million settlement with medical device manufacturer DePuy Orthopaedics on behalf of multiple patients who received defective hip replacement prosthetic devices. Our firm continues to represent numerous other patients affected by these dangerous products.
  • $4.8 million verdict in a case brought by the mother of a 24-year-old man fatally shot by a security guard at a Chicago Housing Authority complex in 2016. The defense claimed the guard fired in self-defense after the man began a verbal and physical altercation, but a jury rejected that argument and found the guard responsible for the shooting.
  • $2.8 million settlement for the family of a Cook County woman killed by scalding hot water in a shower. The woman died due to injuries sustained from 152-degree water directly on her skin. The water was dangerously hot because the condominium building owner installed the wrong size water heater, which resulted in dangerously hot water building up, then shooting out all at once.
  • $2.75 million for a man severely injured because the general manager of a short line railroad required his train crew to ignore safe work practices so the job could be performed faster, placing both the public and the railroad crew in danger.
  • $2.5 million for the family of a 61-year-old man who died near Havana, Illinois, in a crash when the tractor-trailer he was driving was hit nearly head-on by another 80,000-pound semi-truck that had crossed over the centerline.  Our investigation revealed that the defendant driver had exceeded the limits set by federal law for the numbers hours truckers can drive (“hours of service”), and was likely suffering from driver fatigue at the time of the crash.
  • $2 million in case of medical negligence for a man who died of a pulmonary embolism. About a week before his death, he complained to his wife of shortness of breath and that his left leg was swollen and larger than the right. He went to see his PCP  and made the same complaints. An EKG was taken and the doctor stated that the results were normal. On that Saturday, he complained of feeling tired, so his wife called an ambulance. He died in the ambulance prior to arriving at the hospital.
  • $2 million in a case where Walgreens failed to fill a prescription according to the doctor’s orders.
  • $1.9 million settlement for the death of a 12-year-old boy who drowned in a private swimming pool at an apartment complex in DuPage County.
  • $1.75 million in a medical negligence case arising out of the improper use of neck traction during the treatment of a lower back strain, resulting in a neck injury requiring surgery and limiting a 46-year-old diesel mechanic from Rockford, Illinois, to light duty work for the rest of his life.
  • $1.575 million settlement in October 2014 for a garbage truck driver who sustained severe injuries from crashing into a disabled tractor-trailer that blocked the highway.  The tractor driver improperly placed warning triangles, and failed to call 911 after his truck broke down.  The garbage truck driver’s injuries included multiple left-leg fractures, eight broken ribs, and mental anguish.
  • $1.5 million verdict in December 2019 for the mother of a young man with Down syndrome whose pediatrician had repeatedly failed to diagnose him with Hirschsprung’s disease, a birth defect that causes chronic and severe constipation. As a result of this failure to diagnose the condition, her son was unable to be potty-trained and ultimately required a colostomy.
  • $1.5 million for the death of a 22-year-old Chicago woman who suffocated in an MRI tube.
  • $1,486,000 jury verdict for the death of a 79-year-old husband, father, and grandfather because of injuries he sustained following and accident with a tractor-trailer on a rural Indiana highway.
  • $1.4 million settlement for a young couple from Dixon, Illinois, for injuries they suffered when the motorcycle they were riding was hit by the driver of a car turning left.  The riders sustained a broken ankle and broken leg and road rash.
  • $1.45 million in a case of medical negligence. A man presented at Immediate Care Center at Elmhurst Memorial in Lombard with severe back pain. He was quickly transferred to Elmhurst Hospital for care, where they determined an aortic dissection was the cause and put him on morphine. He was there for 18 hours before being transferred to Loyola Medical Center, where he had an emergency surgery: a stent placed to repair dissection and also to remove 70% of his small intestine.
  • $1.3 million for a baby who suffered a permanent injury to his brachial plexus, the bundle of nerves leading to the child’s arm, because of errors by the obstetrician and delivery nurse during his birth in a Decatur, Illinois hospital.
  • $1.2 million for the family of a 6-month-old boy, who died when a nurse at a Chicago children’s hospital neglected to reconnect a heart monitor to the baby after his bath.
  • $1.2 million for 53-year-old Chicago man who sustained an injury to his neck when the car he was driving was hit from behind by a slow-moving SUV.  This minor impact aggravated the pre-existing degenerative changes in our client’s neck, requiring neck fusion surgery.
  • $1.2 million in a product liability case against a manufacturer that chose not to place a guard over an auger (a “screw conveyor”) in an industrial machine.  The maintenance worker repairing the machine suffered leg injuries when the unguarded auger caught and crushed one of his feet
  • $1,106,000 jury verdict for injuries sustained by a young woman from Joliet, Illinois, when her surgeon cut and removed part of her bile duct during a gallbladder surgery (a laparoscopic cholecystectomy).
  • $1.1 million for the death of a 16-year-old boy, because of medical errors by his doctors in failing to recognize hypothermia (low body temperature), which caused a blood clotting disorder after a car crash on I-94 in Chicago.
  • $1,035,878 settlement for 46-year-old woman from Aurora, Illinois, who suffered neck and back injuries when the car she was driving was hit from behind by a Jeep Grand Cherokee.  This crash caused disk herniations and nerve root impingement, and required cervical diskectomy and fusion surgery.
  • $1 million settlement in October 2019 for a 75-year-old woman who was injured in an accident on U.S. 20 in January 2018. A 16-year-old girl was traveling in the opposite direction when she lost control of her car while driving too fast through an icy curve, crossed the center line and crashed into the other woman’s car. Our client suffered two fractured wrists, a fractured femur, a fractured ankle and a shattered heel bone, and had more than $459,000 in medical expenses.
  • $1 million settlement in November 2014 for a young woman whose arm was broken by the doors of an automated train that serviced an airport. The passenger’s injuries included compression injuries to her ulnar and radial nerves, requiring surgery. She also developed Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (“RSD”), also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (“CRPS”) because of the trauma to her arm, both when it was crushed by the train’s doors, and during the multiple surgeries to treat her injuries.
  • $1 million for the death of a young man from Joliet, Illinois as a result of improper treatment of severe asthma by his family doctor.  This case settled for policy limits.
  • $1 million in a case where a woman died of hypothermia in her apartment.
  • $1 million in a case of Failure to Timely Diagnose and Treat that resulted in the death of an infant. A  urethral obstruction in an infant resulted in catastrophic injury, pain, suffering, and the child’s untimely death.
  • $775,000 for the death of a fetus after a car crash near Rockford, Illinois.  Mother was eight months pregnant.
  • $750,000 settlement for a railroad carman who required a two-level spinal fusion, after he slipped and fell on an unsafe condition on the railroad.
  • $700,000 for a medical negligence case against a pediatrician on behalf of a 14-year-old boy after the doctor failed to diagnose scoliosis (curvature of the spine), requiring multi-level spinal surgery to correct the curvature.  This child’s surgery and disability could have been avoided with an earlier diagnosis.
  • $700,000 paid by an auto manufacturer for injuries a 35-year-old physician sustained because of defendant’s utilization of a “lap belt only” design, which has a tendency to allow for “submarining” and “jackknifing” in head-on collisions.
  • $640,000 for a 43-year-old concrete finisher from Rockford, Illinois who suffered a skull fracture and mild traumatic brain injury when he was hit in the head by a stanchion plate that fell from above on a worksite.
  • $600,000 settlement for the family of an 83-year-old stroke patient, who died at a Chicago hospital from complications after a surgery to place a stomach tube.
  • $595,000 for a medical malpractice case in Decatur, Illinois arising from the failure to diagnose coronary artery disease, resulting in the heart attack and death of a 42-year-old wife and mother of three.
  • $582,840.68 jury verdict for a retired professional soccer player who sustained back and neck injuries in a car crash. He required injections into his spine to treat painful discs.
  • $550,000 for a mother and wife for injuries she sustained in a “trip and fall” on a raised piece of concrete.
  • $515,000 on a FELA claim for a carman in Kansas City, MO who developed hyper-reactive airway disorder following exposure to hydrochloric acid vapors spilled from a railway tank car.
  • $450,000 for a 79-year-old Chicago woman who suffered leg injuries when she was hit by a CTA bus.
  • $450,000 settlement for a woman that sustained an ankle fracture in a motorcycle crash.
  • $397,000 settlement for a lawyer that sustained an ankle fracture when he slipped and fell on an icy railroad platform.
  • $375,000 settlement for a railroad worker who sustained a knee fracture when the vehicle he was operating collided in the railroad yard with a disabled piece of railroad equipment.
  • $341,000 (including all available insurance limits) for an 8-year-old girl, whose father was killed in a single vehicle car crash.  Paternity of the child and her right to recovery was disputed before the successful efforts of the attorneys of Coplan & Crane.
  • $300,000 settlement for a 48-year-old union electrician from Chicago for the partial amputation of two fingers on his left hand after a work site injury.
  • $300,000 for a medical malpractice claim arising from the improper treatment of a premature baby.
  • $300,000 for a products liability claim against a well-known baby products manufacturer for burn injuries sustained by a 9-week-old baby when an automobile bottle warmer melted a plastic baby bottle, spilling the scalding liquid on the child’s hand and wrist.
  • $300,000 on an FELA claim for a carman who injured his knee and back when a piece of the railroad car he was replacing rolled into him.
  • $250,000 against the Chicago Transit Authority for a 5-year-old boy who suffered a mild traumatic brain injury when he became entangled in a turnstile.
  • $250,000 for a medical negligence claim in which a physician incorrectly performed a vasectomy resulting in nerve injury and loss of a testicle in a 42-year-old husband and father.