Anesi Ozmon is pleased to announce that Scott C. Sands has joined the firm as a Partner and Tracey L. Schroeder has joined the firm as an Associate. 

Scott C. Sands has more than 30 years of experience in the area of personal injury litigation and trial law and has earned a national reputation as an expert and leader in the field of Railroad Law. He represents injured railroad employees under the Federal Employer’s Liability Act, the Locomotive Inspection Act, and the Safety Appliance Act. He has tried cases in both state and federal courts in multiple states including Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Tennessee, and Montana. He takes great pride in protecting the rights of the injured. Sands earned a J.D. from The John Marshall Law School and a B.A. from Southern Methodist University.

Tracey L. Schroeder concentrates her practice in personal injury law and general litigation matters. She is a flexible practitioner who works to distill complexity, build consensus, and take action. Prior to practicing law, she served as a member of senior leadership teams in the private and...

ANESI OZMON partner Steven A. Berman  recently obtained an important appellate court victory for workers’ rights, setting a new first district precedent to better argue control in construction cases. The Illinois First District Appellate Court reversed the trial court’s ruling that granted summary judgment in favor of a general contractor, dismissing the case of an injured ironworker. The Appellate Court agreed with Mr. Berman’s position that the facts established during discovery created a genuine issue of fact as to whether the general contractor retained supervisory control over work safety on the jobsite and therefore had a duty to exercise that control with reasonable care.

John Foley, a Local 1 Ironworker, was working for a subcontractor, Chicago Town, on a Builtech jobsite in Chicago. Builtech was the general contractor for the new building project and had a full-time superintendent assigned to the project. Mr. Foley was injured when he attempted to pull a piece of rebar from a pile and injured his back. Evidence in the case showed that the rebar pile had been unsafely relocated on the site and stacked in a “tangled mess”.

Chicago Town, in its contract, agreed to be responsible for the...

ANESI OZMON partners Michael L. Teich and Steven A. Berman secured $10.03 million settlement in a construction negligence case on behalf of a 32-year old ironworker from Local 393 in Aurora, Illinois. Three defendants agreed to pay $9.55 million on August 23, 2019, after five days of trial before the Honorable Judge Ruben Castillo in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiff's employer, Lakeside Rack Installers (Lakeside), settled shortly before jury selection for an additional $486,000.  The settlement came after Mr. Teich and Mr. Berman rejected previous unreasonable pre-trial settlement offers that did not reflect the serious nature of the knee and wrist injuries that caused the loss of this ironworker’s career.

The plaintiff filed suit against Duke Realty Services, LLC. (Duke), Steel King Industries, Inc. (Steel King), and a third defendant for injuries he sustained during the construction of a warehouse distribution center.  He sustained severe injuries when a large steel rack system that was not anchored to the floor collapsed onto him after it was struck by an untrained and uncertified forklift operator.

Steel King was hired...