Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Accident Lawyers

The Chicago Transit Authority moves over a million riders a day, the nation’s second-largest transit system. At that scale, thousands are hurt every year, on buses, on platforms, and in crosswalks. A claim after a CTA accident follows rules that don’t apply to an ordinary car wreck, and it takes Chicago Transit Authority accident lawyers to handle it.

The difficulty is who you’re suing. The CTA was created by the state and operates as a government agency, which hands it a shorter window to sue and a legal team that blames you from day one. Kermani LLP works these cases from the inside. As personal injury lawyers in Chicago, we clear the procedural traps that sink strong CTA cases before they’re heard on the merits.

What is a CTA accident

A CTA accident is any injury that comes out of how the Chicago Transit Authority runs its service:

• a CTA bus accident
• a CTA train accident on any of the eight ‘L’ lines
• a pedestrian hit near a stop
• a fall inside a moving vehicle

Two things set these cases apart from an ordinary injury claim.

The one-year statute of limitations

In Illinois, you normally have two years to file a personal injury claim (735 ILCS 5/13-202). The CTA gets a shield most defendants don’t: under 70 ILCS 3605/41, the statute of limitations against the CTA is just one year from the date of the accident. Miss it, and the court won’t hear the case at all. Illinois scrapped an older six-month notice requirement in 2009, but the one-year deadline stayed.

CTA’s heightened “common carrier” duty of care

Here the law leans your way. As a common carrier, the CTA owes its passengers the highest degree of care, not the ordinary care expected of a regular driver. Illinois courts have enforced this heightened duty of care from Rotheli v. CTA to Krywin v. CTA. The bar sits higher: what an everyday driver might get away with can make the agency liable. Still, the CTA isn’t an absolute insurer: you must prove its failure caused the harm.

Who can be held liable in a CTA accident

Even though the state created the CTA, it can’t hide behind government immunity as a common carrier (745 ILCS 10/1-101.1). More than one party may be on the hook:

• the CTA and its bus driver or train operator, when negligence at the controls, fatigue, or a broken safety rule caused the crash
• another motorist who cut off the bus or ran a red light
• a contractor or parts maker when brakes or doors fail
• the CTA as an employer that kept a driver with a crash history on the road

Illinois comparative fault then applies (735 ILCS 5/2-1116): if your share of the blame tops 50%, you recover nothing. Below that, it trims your compensation. That’s why the CTA works to pin the fault on you early.

Common types of CTA bus and train accidents

No two look quite alike. The ones we see most:

• a pedestrian struck by a bus mid-turn, when the cab pillars block the driver’s view at intersections like Madison Street and Pulaski Road
• a standing rider thrown by a hard stop
• a passenger caught in the doors of a bus or rail car while boarding
• a train derailment, like the Yellow Line crash in November 2023 that sent 16 people to the hospital
• a cyclist pulled under a bus in traffic
• a fall on an icy platform or into the gap at its edge

Each turns on its own evidence: CTA camera footage, vehicle telemetry, witness accounts. Move fast: the agency overwrites those records on a schedule.

Compensation you may be entitled to

A personal injury claim against the CTA can cover:

• medical bills, from the trauma bay at Stroger or UChicago Medicine to long-term rehab
• lost income and lost earning capacity
• pain, suffering, and a lower quality of life

A personal injury settlement calculator gives a rough range, but a real conversation with an attorney gets closer: it weighs your injury’s severity and how the CTA fights back.

Why choose Kermani LLP for your CTA case

Kermani LLP has recovered over $100M for injured clients and tried 100+ cases in five years. We work on contingency: we only get paid if we win yours. Behind that record is the Kermani Method: relentless investigation from day one, while evidence is fresh.

A year goes by faster than you’d think. Hurt on a CTA bus or train? Talk to a CTA attorney who knows the agency’s playbook. Our free consultation is open around the clock, in several languages. Call us.