A Cook County woman’s estate administrator is suing two individuals named in a trust in order to resolve a settlement issue related to wrongful death allegations in a nursing home accident.
Dennis Saphir filed a lawsuit June 22 in Cook County Circuit Court against Diane R. Schiff and Dennis A. Saphir, in an effort to resolve an estate issue regarding an incident that allegedly led to Gizel Saphir’s death July 15, 2013.
The suit says Dennis Saphir hired the O’Connor Law Firm on July 20, 2013 to prosecute said claim, with a one-third contingency contract plus costs, and the case was settled for $100,000 for the survival case, plus $205,000 for the wrongful death portion of the case.
According to the filing, Saphir approved a $100,000 payout to Medicare but ran into communication issues in regard to splitting the remainder of the proceeds with Diane Schiff. Saphir's attorney alleges Schiff’s lawyer, Kenneth Ashman, has had difficulty in contacting Schiff.
The estate consequently seeks approval of the settlement or, alternatively, an indication of a different distribution proposal in order to allocate proceeds correctly among Medicare, attorneys and the decedent’s beneficiaries. Saphir is represented by attorney Kevin O’Connor of O’Connor Law Firm in Chicago.
Cook County Circuit Court case number 2015L0006355.