A boy was injured in November 2008 after joy riding on top of an apartment elevator in Chicago. His mother sued for negligence on his behalf and also sought to recover medical expenses resulting from the injury. In September’s Illinois Bar Journal, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Janet Adams Brosnahan examines the case, which made it all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court, and explores the recovery of a minor’s injuries and the Illinois Health Care Services Lien Act. For example, does a health care services lien attach to a minor’s recovery in a personal injury action? Before the Illinois Supreme Court issued its opinion in the elevator case, the direction from the lower courts was anything but straightforward. 

The supreme court, however, unanimously held that a health care services lien does indeed attach to all claims and causes of action of an injured person—including a child's verdict, judgment, award, settlement, or compromise. But how an injury case is pleaded also may affect the reach of a health care lien. Judge Brosnahan analyzed a random sampling of 40 complaints arising out of minors’ personal injuries. Only 23 appropriately sought recovery of medical expenses by the parent, individually, pursuant to the Family Expense Act, or through an assignment of rights from the parent to the child. Yet all but two of these 40 cases included a prayer for relief seeking recovery of medical expenses. That is, 40 percent of the randomly selected cases were incorrectly pleaded.

Read more in the September issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.