May 8th, 2018

Today marks the day that I’ve been trying to put behind me for seven years now. It’s not a day that I enjoy and I rarely spend the day reflecting on what was or what could have been. But today, I’ll do some reflecting.

Over the past seven years, there were a lot of dark days filled with pain, confusion, fear, doubt, and depression. It was a battle to survive those dark days and I often wondered if there was going to be a light at the end of the deep tunnel where I found myself lost. Navigating that dark tunnel required some time, some resilience and a lot of faith in myself. That tunnel is behind me now and there’s enough light in my life that you’ll usually find me wearing sunglasses. A lot of that light is largely due to luck.

Luck plays a larger role in our lives than we like to admit. We like to think that we’re in control of our own destinies. But sometimes we’re not lucky enough to have that delusion. Sometimes outside forces dictate the direction of our lives and luck proves dominant.

Luck allowed me to survive my accident. Luck decided against paralysis. Luck placed people there who were willing to risk their own lives in order to pull my burning body out of my burning car.

These examples of my good fortune are somewhat obvious but I want to talk about a piece of luck that most don’t consider. Without it, my life would have far less light today. That piece of luck is something as simple as geography. Namely, living in a blue state.

Each state gets to decide how to structure their society through politics. Blue states tend to structure their society as a community designed to protect each other, especially disadvantaged members. In cases like mine, this means prioritizing the protection of their citizens more than protecting the profits of corporations.

I certainly never imagined that I would experience anything like the events of May 8th 2018. But luck decided that I would. I have never seen myself as a victim and have never wanted to be seen as such. But pushing my ego aside, the truth is that I was a victim of corporate negligence. The truth is that I do have disadvantages as a result of that negligence. Thankfully I live in a state that believes that I should be compensated for those disadvantages.

There are many laws in Illinois that benefit unlucky individuals who are rear-ended by semi-trucks and find themselves unconscious in a hospital bed with a face that has been burnt off, a brain that has been badly damaged, and a head swollen to the size of a basketball.

One might assume that everyone would want laws written to protect people in those types of situations. Unfortunately, that would be a bad assumption. I’m not an expert on the topic but I’ll lay out a few examples that I’m familiar with.

Illinois has strong workers’ compensation protections in place for people like me who have been injured on the job. In Texas, companies can opt out of workers’ compensation benefits. (https://www.npr.org/2015/10/14/448544926/texas-oklahoma-permit-companies-to-dump-worker-compensation-plans)

The litigation process involved in personal injury cases is intentionally long and arduous. It took over 3.5 years before my case was settled and the process would have been far longer if I had gone to trial. Negligent parties often drag out the process in order to make the victim as desperate as possible in order to increase their bargaining power and attain a better result for themselves. Maybe the defendant gets lucky and the victim is depressed enough to take his/her own life. In order to combat this practice, Illinois passed a law in 2021 that charges prejudgment interest on monetary judgments in personal injury and wrongful death cases starting on the date the litigation is filed and calculated at a 6% annual rate. This legislation did not help me personally, as my accident occured in 2018, but I’m happy that future plaintiffs have this protection that provides them more bargaining power. (https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=073500050K2-1303)

The 2011 documentary titled “Hot Coffee” describes the effort to wildly misrepresent the lawsuit regarding the woman who suffered severe burns from a McDonald’s coffee. That extreme distortion was intended to shift public opinion against our civil justice system and take away the ability of juries, who actually know what happened, to hold negligent corporations liable. (https://youtu.be/kY70a4CJgDE?feature=shared)

This kind of disinformation frames litigation as immoral and was successful enough that even after watching the documentary seven years before my accident, I still didn’t want to sue the corporation that caused me immense pain and suffering and stole so much of my identity. Thankfully my friends and family were successful in their efforts to convince me to seek compensation for the losses that I suffered.

Our civil justice system is the only way victims can stand up to negligent corporations. Which is why our civil justice system is under attack by corporations, aided by republicans. Since a corporation’s sole reason to exist is to maximize profits, punitive damages are an important tool to incentivize corporations to act safely and responsibly.

After my accident, there are many aspects of my life that will never be the same. I spent years wishing away what happened to me and fighting to get as much of myself back as I could. But two or three years ago I finally accepted and learned to appreciate the path that my life has taken.

I have never considered myself a materialistic person. But being financially compensated for my pain and suffering has certainly eased the transition into my new life and provided me with a silver lining. Many Republicans would argue that my silver lining should be significantly thinner. I’m thankful that they’re not in charge in Illinois.

TRIGGER WARNING!!! Post Accident Pictures Below!