It’s not easy to squeeze into an elevator at the Daley Center during the 9 AM rush hour. Having finally emerged on the 15th floor, I have to wait again: a machine is going by. A man and a woman are maneuvering a large conveyor belt slowly and carefully toward Judge Warren Wolfson’s courtroom. Six feet high, nine feet long, and gunmetal gray, it’s being rolled down the hall balanced on two wheeled sawhorses. Once it gets to the courtroom, the only place it will fit is in front of and perpendicular to the jury box.
“Yes, it did dominate the courtroom. And we were able to use that dominating presence on our side. It kept proving our points.”
Goldberg is in his 13th year of helping people who’ve been hurt to collect money from those responsible. He specializes in complicated cases, especially automobile accidents, medical malpractice, and product liability. He has negotiated settlements as large as $33 million. Twenty people work for him in a 5,600-square-foot suite in the Avondale Centre building in the Loop. He puts in six long days a week and half a day Sunday. “All attorneys who work for me,” he says, “have to work Saturdays.” Says one admiring colleague: “He’s a growing presence in the plaintiff’s bar in Chicago.”
The conveyors are “piggyback” models, which can be extended farther and farther into the vans as the mail is gradually unloaded. Goldberg’s model, large as it is, is just one section of the piggyback.
“In the plans and specifications, nothing could be more clear. The government said–and this is a page from the specifications–‘All chain drives shall be totally enclosed.’ It couldn’t be clearer. But to make it further clearer, the Corps of Engineers and the government submitted a standard postal drawing . . . for an enclosed guard.
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Rizzel couldn’t sue the Post Office: the federal government is immune from such suits. And in any case, under Illinois law an employee can’t sue her employer–instead she must seek redress through workers’ compensation. She could, however, sue the contractors who built the allegedly “unreasonably dangerous” guard–Orr and Litton.
