A US judge in San Francisco recently ruled that a former driver for Grubhub Inc. was an independent contractor and not an employee. The Grubhub lawsuit is the first case of its kind against a gig economy company that has gone to trial. Grubhub Lawsuit Finds Lack of Control On February 8, 2018, US Magistrate>> Read More

Workers’ compensation is a system of benefits that is mandated by the state of Illinois for all injured workers employed in the state, other than Federal and interstate commerce railroad workers. In 2011, state legislators instituted an overhaul of the Illinois workers’ compensation system at the behest of businesses and insurance companies demanding a more>> Read More

An Amtrak passenger train crashed into a stationary freight train in South Carolina, leaving two dead and 116 people injured. This incident marks the fourth fatal Amtrak train crash in less than two months. Crash with Freight Train On the early morning of February 4, 2018, Amtrak Train 91 was traveling south through Cayce, SC>> Read More

One person was killed and six others were injured following a Virginia train crash in which an Amtrak train that had been chartered by Republican lawmakers headed to an annual retreat struck a garbage truck. Area residents familiar with that railroad crossing have suggested that malfunctioning railroad safety equipment may have been a factor. Train Crash>> Read More

GWC Partner Colin J. O’Malley was recently featured in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article examining the troubled industrial barrel reconditioning industry. The newspaper looked at a decade’s worth of state and federal environmental and workplace records for 50 barrel recycling plants in six states: Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Texas, and California. The Journal Sentinel found that>> Read More

On January 28, 2018, Panera Bread announced that it was voluntarily recalling its cream cheese products after one of the varieties tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. Affected cream cheese has been recalled from Panera locations nationwide. The Panera cream cheese recall also applies to Illinois, where the chain has more than 100 locations, including>> Read More

Implanted medical devices are increasingly commonplace in the modern world. In fact, approximately one in ten Americans have at least one medical device implanted in them, including artificial joints, cardiac stents, pacemakers, defibrillators, nerve stimulators, surgical mesh, replacement eye lenses, heart valves, and birth control. With medical devices so frequently in use, and with the>> Read More