Chicago Injury Blog

The government is more than quadrupling monthly payments to some veterans suffering brain injuries, as the number of such war wounds mounts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The new compensation is based on the assessment that even some troops who have the mildest form of traumatic brain injury could end up with chronic headaches, memory loss, anxiety or other symptoms that will hurt their chances of getting a job or job advancement -- thus reducing their lifetime earnings by 40 percent.

In a regulation announced Tuesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs, officials changed the way they evaluate the injuries. They now judge a person to be 40 percent disabled in such cses rather than 10 percent. The lower rating was set by a 1961 regulation. The change means that an unmarried veteran, who now recieves $117 monthly in compensation, could recieve as much as $512. Troops with spouses and children also would get more money.

Mild traumatic brain injury is basically a form of concussion that results from severe shaking of the brain after a blast. It can cause blurred vision, irritability and other problems.

The change takes effect in 30 days, and those recieving compensation under the old system can have thier cases reviewed.

Roughly 1.7 million American troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a RAND Corp. study estimated early this year that up to 320,000 may have suffered a traumatic brain injury.

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Tony Romanucci, who has extensive experience in traumatic brain injury (TBI) litigation, has thrown his support behind an Ordinance introduced by Chicago Alderman Bob Fioretti on Sept. 10 at a Chicago City Council meeting to ban the use of metal baseball bats by organized youth leagues.

Tony, who helped organize a news conference preceding the Council meeting, spoke about the dangers of using metal bats. Other speakers were Christina Russo, the mother of a teenage son whose face was shattered when he was struck by a baseball hit by a metal bat, and Dr. Ricardo Senno, M.D., a specialist in the rehabilitation of TBI patients.

Tony also distributed copies of a letter of support from New York City Councilman James Oddo, who introduced similar legislation which was passed and upheld earlier this year by the New York Appellate Court. A photo of the news conference participants is posted in the Romanucci & Blandin Firm News, under Press Releases, 2008.

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In the first runway incursion incident, a commuter jet narrowly missed a general aviation aircraft during a nighttime landing at Fresno Yosemite International Airport in California.

In the second runway incursion incident, a pilot of a general aviation aircraft landed on a closed runway at the Reading Regional Airport/Carl A. Spaatz Field, in Reading, Pennsylvania.

In the aircraft separation incident, two commercial jets came within 1 minute lateral separation over the Atlantic Ocean in a non-radar environment where 15 minutes of lateral separation is required.

Romanucci & Blandin is doing its best to report these incidents as we feel that the overcrowding of the skies and cost cutting practices of all of our airlines may lead to disaster. Please make sure you are always reminding your federal legilatures as to how important aviation safety is and to keep in mind that runway expansion projects, new radar equipment, debris seeking equipment are all important to our continued safety in the skies.

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Kudos to the Public Justice Foundation’s “Access to Justice Campaign,” which has just won a major victory against AT&T in the Washington State Supreme Court – defeating federal preemption, mandatory arbitration, a class action ban, and a secrecy provision for consumers being denied their day in court. Antonio Romanucci, of Romanucci & Blandin, is a Board member of Public Justice.

Ruling in McKee v. AT&T, the state's high court rejected AT&T's effort to nullify state consumer protection laws through a contract that banned class action litigation and required individual mandatory arbitration over the company's illegal billing charges.

Thousands of AT&T customers in Washington State had been billed for "city utility surcharges," even when those customers did not live in municipalities that are subject to the surcharge.

The vast majority of the customers might never have known that they had been wrongfully charged the tax in the first place. Although the claims add up to millions of dollars in the aggregate, AT&T customers would not have been able individually to find lawyers willing to handle a claim involving overcharges of only $2 per month. As the Washington Supreme Court recognized, those claims could only be meaningfully pursued as a class action.

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