Disabled Wife of Blind Man Killed by Metra Train to Receive Payout on $4.75 Million Verdict, Plus Interest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chicago, Illinois, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 27, 2012 -- The Illinois Supreme court yesterday upheld a $4.75 million verdict, awarded by a Cook County jury in 2009 to the estate of a Scott Eskew, a blind man from Berwyn who was stuck and killed by a Metra passenger train.

According to Jay Paul Deratany, attorney for Eskew’s estate, the decedent’s wife, Heidi Eskew, a mentally and physically challenged woman, now looks forward to closure in this case and also to a hefty statutory interest payout, since appeals by the defendant have all been denied.

"Scott was a very decent man who went to work at the Chicago Art Institute every day, on the same train from Berwyn, to provide for his beloved wife. It's a shame that accident left her a widow. He was everything to her," Deratany said.

The decision of the jury was unanimously affirmed by an appeals court, taking into account the musings of an amateur blogger and jury member, citing that nothing the blogger/juror wrote affected the decision of the jury.

The Appellate Court held, “In this case, the trial court correctly observed that the defendants had not produced any showing that the jurors were exposed to improper extraneous information bearing on the crucial issues in the case. Nothing in the blog entries indicted that any information was received either from the husband or the juror who maintained the blog or from any other source.”

Further the Appellate Court rejected the idea that the jurors deliberated prematurely stating, “The blog entries on which the defendants rely do not indicate that premature deliberations resulted in a jury that was biased when it commenced its deliberations or that the jury’s actual deliberations and verdict were affected by any discussions during trial,” the appeals court said. “In fact, the entries indicate just the opposite.”

“Justice has been served and now Heidi can finally move onto the next chapter in her life, unfortunately without her husband. The Appeals and Supreme Court made correct decisions by upholding the verdict handed down by the jury," said Jay Paul Deratany.

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