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June 2008 IRISH AMERICAN NEWS 21Healy LawMartin J. Healy, Jr.Senior PartnerThis is the next of a series of columns on how the law can impact your life. Eachmonth we will focus on various aspects of the law relating to personal injuries,those that happen both on-the-job and otherwise, including mishaps which occurin driving vehicles, using products and receiving medical care. The column willalso respond to legal questions relating to personal injury that are sent to us.The Healy Law Firm is comprised of eight trial attorneys, two of whom are fromIreland. We are located downtown at 111 West Washington Street, Suite 1425, Chicago,Illinois 60602 (800-922-4500 or 312-977-0100). www.HealyLawFirm.com. The firmconcentrates in the representation of injured victims of all types of accidents.Readers are encouraged to call or write with questions concerningpersonal injury law.How the Pleasure of SwimmingCan Turn Into a Life Changing EventBy Jack CannonIn July of 2001 I was on trial representinga man from County Clare whohad been seriously injured in a highspeed auto accident on I-55. Trialsdemand a lot of time. It’s not unusualto work sixteen to eighteen hours aday either in the courtroom itself orpreparing for the following day. Trialsdemand 100 percent focus whichmakes it difficult to handle anythingelse other than trial at that particularpoint in time.Three days into the trial I receiveda call from an old construction friendof mine from Derry. My friend told methat a friend of his had been paralyzedin a swimming pool accident on thesouth side. He informed me that theman was a 22-year-old carpenter fromDerry who dove into a swimming pooland broke his neck. He underwentemergency surgery and was shippedhome to Ireland within a few days.It was unusual that I would takea phone call during trial, let alonedevote attention to a possible new case.However, our firm has a long historyof representing Irish individuals. Thisgentleman suffered a devastatinginjury and would need all the helphe could get. We decided to look atthe case.Starting out, I was aware thatthere was some case law consideredunfavorable on swimming pool cases.Some of these cases say that bodies ofwater represent an open and obviousdanger and that anyone injured fromdiving into an open body of wateris essentially out of luck under thelaw. Nevertheless, I decided to lookinto it.I immediately contacted our investigator.I sent him out to the scene ofthe accident to see what he could learn.In addition, I asked my friend to helpme locate witnesses that we couldinterview regarding the case.Meanwhile over the next couple ofdays, I continued with the trial of theman from Clare. During breaks in thetrial, I was receiving calls from myinvestigator and my friend, providingup-to-date information.We quickly learned that our potentialclient had broken his neck and wasparalyzed from the breast bone down.We also learned that the pool that hedove into had a highly unusual configuration.It was six feet deep, withshallow step entry stairs going acrossthe entire width of one end of the pool.The opposite end had a narrow deepend ladder in the corner. Unfortunately,the deep end ladder in the corner wasin 2½ feet of water. The actual “deepend” was in the middle of the pool!We set up a meeting on the Fridaynight with the witnesses. They confirmedthe unusual configuration ofthe pool. They advised me that theyhad been with my potential injuredclient for only a couple of hours thatnight. They stated that he was soberat the time of injury and that he hadnever been in this particular poolbefore. Later on that evening I metwith our investigator who providedphotographs of the pool. The photosconfirmed the deep end ladder in theshallow end. Based on the descriptionof the witnesses and the photographs,we felt that there was something to goforward on.I spent all Saturday and Sundaythat weekend working on the Clareman’s trial. When I got home Sundayevening, my wife informed me that shehad recorded a 60 Minutes Programthat I might want to take a look at. The60 Minutes Program was about theepidemic of swimming pool injuries inthis country. The program highlightedthe lack of governance by the swimmingpool industry of their product. Inshort, the theme of the program saidthat the swimming pool industry hadvery loose guidelines regarding thedesigns of the pools even though theyknew or were aware that hundreds ofindividuals had suffered devastatinginjuries. The 60 Minutes piece focusedon a case in the State of Washingtonwhere the regulatory body for theswimming pool industry was foundliable in a case where a young individualbeen paralyzed. The programidentified studies which showed thatthe typical person injured in a swimmingpool case was male, white andbetween the ages of 18 and 25. Quiteoften there was alcohol involved in thecase. Our case fit the prototype.Based on the program, I was ableto identify an expert who I thoughtmight be helpful in our case. On theMonday, we contacted the expert. Wedescribed for him the design of theswimming pool. He agreed, based onour description, that the pool appearedto violate the standard set forth bythe National Spa and Pool Industry(NSPI). My expert informed me thatmost swimming pool installers andalmost all of the swimming pool linermanufacturers were members of NSPI.They were aware of NSPI and shouldhave known whether or not the poolthey designed met with the nationalstandards.Based on the evidence, The HealyLaw Firm filed suit in the Circuit Courtof Cook County. In the meantime, wewere learning more about our newclient. He was a 22-year-old carpenterfrom Derry. He had been in Chicagofor approximately one year. He livedon the south side. He had never beenin a pool in the United States. He dovetoward the deep end ladder. He dovehorizontally over the water, rather thanat a deep angle. He told us he thoughthe was diving into the deep end. Heactually dove into 2½ feet of water.The impact snapped his neck.When the client arrived at one ofour local hospitals, he had to informthe hospital staff that he was uninsured.This was not taken kindly. Withina week, a row of seats was strippedout of an Aer Lingus plane, the clientwas strapped in and shipped hometo his parents. He described a long,bumpy, painful ride in the ambulancefrom Dublin Airport all the way backto Belfast, where he continued hishospitalization.Upon arriving in Belfast at MusgravePark Hospital, the client wasexamined by a local doctor. They toldhim he would never walk again.In reviewing the status of the caselaw, we confirmed that in many swimmingpool cases, Illinois courts havefound no liability, ruling that a personwho jumps into an open body of watershould be aware of an “open andobvious danger.” However, there wereexceptions in cases where there wasa design defect in the product itself.Based on what we knew from talkingto our investigator, the witnesses, theclient and now the swimming pool expert,it appeared that the case fell intoa design defect category. We beganto take depositions of the numerouspersonnel of both the contractor, theswimming pool liner manufacturerand others as well as witnesses.In every civil lawsuit filed thereis a “discovery” phase in which theparties take depositions of potentialwitnesses in a case. During the courseof discovery each side is obliged to, ineffect, “show the other side their cards.”Once “all the cards have been shown”and the discovery has been completed,a defendant will typically file a motionfor summary judgment. The motionfor summary judgment essentially saysthat even if everything the plaintiffsays is true, there is no basis underthe law for this case to go forward.Therefore it should be dismissed. Intalking to the defendants I learned, asI suspected, they felt they had a shot ontheir motion for summary judgment.The depositions of the personnel of themanufacturers and contractors wouldbe critical in terms of what they knewabout the NSPI standards and whenthey knew it. We quickly learned thatthey knew little to nothing about theNSPI standards. The supervisor forthe design department of the linermanufacturer confirmed that the poolhad seven (7) design defects underthe national standards. Despite thisfact, the liner manufacturer issueda manual and warning signs whichstated that the pool met the “NationalSpa and Pool Institute standards.” Thiswas not true.On May 17, 2006, after three hoursof oral argument, a judge in the CircuitCourt of Cook County granted thedefendant’s motion for summary judgmentwithout explanation. Our office,believing in the client and believing inthe case, immediately filed an appealto the Appellate Court of the State ofIllinois.Next month – What happened recentlyin the Appellate Court and thefuture for the case.Jack Cannon