$148M verdict for airport shelter collapse

A Cook County jury on Wednesday afternoon awarded $148,190,997 to a woman paralyzed by a fallen pedestrian shelter at O’Hare International Airport. The verdict was released before Circuit Judge Clare Elizabeth McWilliams around 5 p.m.

Tierney Darden, then a 24-year-old Mundelein resident, was injured waiting out a storm in the pedestrian shelter outside the Terminal 2 arrivals gate on Aug. 2, 2015. The suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court later that month, alleged the shelter collapsed on her, leaving her paralyzed.

Darden, who was enrolled as a dance student at Truman State University in Missouri at the time of the incident, sued the city of Chicago and its Department of Aviation for failing to secure the shelter and preventing it from being dislodged by the strong winds.

She was represented in the case by Salvi Schostok & Pritchard P.C. At the Daley Center Wednesday afternoon after the verdict was announced, chairman and managing equity partner Patrick A. Salvi was happy with the outcome.

Read more: http://www.chicagolawbulletin.com/Articles/2017/08/23/OHare-8-23-17