Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Caterpillar Inc. purchased a factory owned by Bucyrus International located in Milwaukee. That facility was making strip-mining equipment. Because of the purchase, Caterpillar assumed the labor contract Bucyrus previously had negotiated with the United Steelworkers Union.

About two months after the July 2011 purchase, a 36-ton piece of machinery called a “crawler” crushed and killed a union worker at the Caterpillar plant.

The crawler apparently had shifted suddenly while being rotated by a crane, resulting in the fatality. Caterpillar reported the death to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and to the local police.

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On June 20, 2010, Delores Franklin and Todd Gryczewski were in an automobile crash. Slightly more than two years later, on June 12, 2012, Gryczewski sued Franklin for injuries he suffered in that crash. Franklin died on Nov. 24, 2011. Gryczewski had no knowledge of his death at the time of the filing.

About two weeks later, a law firm appeared on Franklin’s behalf and filed a motion to appoint a special administrator. Bob Phillip was appointed special administrator on July 17, 2012.

On June 23, 2014, Phillip filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Phillip argued that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the named defendant, Franklin, was dead. Phillip also argued that the suit had fallen beyond the statute of limitations because it failed to satisfy the requirements needed to file a lawsuit against a deceased person. The court agreed and dismissed the case with prejudice. Gryczewski appealed.

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Zeng Guang Lin, a 20-year-old construction worker, was on a scaffold and installing metal siding on a building when he was asked to go to the roof to assist with a different job. Lin went to the roof wearing his safety harness but was unable to find a place to tie off. While Lin was on the roof he fell about 20 feet to the ground.

He suffered multiple, severe injuries including a closed-head injury, spinal fractures at L1-5, fractures to his scapula and several ribs, internal injuries, including a renal hematoma, a lung contusion and a lacerated spleen. He also suffered cervical and lumbar disk herniations.

Because of the closed-head injury, Lin developed encephalomalacia, which is the degeneration of the brain tissue resulting in memory loss, motor problems and impaired thought-processing and other cognitive functions. He is permanently disabled.

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Juan Altamirano was riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle on the highway when John Harrison, who was driving a rental car in the high-occupancy vehicle lane, crossed two yellow lines to the right of the lanes and then crossed the two yellow lines dividing the lanes. Altamirano’s motorcycle struck the car’s right fender and crashed.

Altamirano, who was 50 at the time, suffered multiple injuries. His injuries included a fractured right hip, spinal fractures at L1-2 and L5 and multiple complex fractures to his left foot.

Altamirano underwent a partial hip replacement, left-leg fasciotomies to relieve pressure caused by the foot fractures, wound debridements and external fixation of the foot fractures. He was later transferred to a different hospital where he underwent skin-graft procedures on his left foot.

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Darren Merlino, 47, worked for an electrical subcontractor. While working at a pump station, he fell 10 feet through an unguarded hole in the floor. Merlino suffered fractures to his left ribs, wrist and elbow and a torn left meniscus among other injuries. He now suffers from headaches, seizures and memory problems.

Merlino’s expenses were $127,000. He incurred lost income of about $1.43 million.

Merlino and his wife brought a lawsuit against the job’s general contractor, Powell Constructors, alleging that two of its employees wrongfully removed a metal grate from the floor and chose not to erect a barrier or place warning signs about the hole in the floor, in violation of state labor law and the common law.

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Reginald Lindsey was employed as a forklift operator by Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. and was working at its facility in southwest suburban McCook, Ill. Central Blacktop Co. was contracted to do road repair work and resurfacing there.

On Oct. 19, 2010, Lindsey was driving an older model forklift over a permanent portion of paved road. Lindsey testified that the road north of the warehouse was “broken” and “deteriorated” making it difficult to operate the forklift. Lindsey’s lawsuit claimed that he followed a marked path, turned right and hit some pavement in disrepair causing his forklift to jolt suddenly. Lindsey stated that he heard a “pop” in his neck and suffered a spinal injury.

He filed a lawsuit against Central Blacktop claiming it was negligent in leaving broken concrete in his path and in choosing not to issue a warning on the problem area or to repair the fault. Lindsey alleged Central Blacktop was at fault and owed him a duty of care.

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The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned the Illinois Appellate Court decision regarding the cap on self-insured rental car companies. The Supreme Court reversed a $600,000 judgment against Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s Chicago area’s subsidiary.

The Supreme Court ruled that self-insured rental car companies are liable for a maximum of $100,000 toward all injured parties in a rental car crash.

The decision of the Supreme Court was unanimous. In 2007, a crash in which an Enterprise vehicle was involved, injured at least two individuals. Enterprise paid $75,000 to two of the people involved in the crash. Enterprise argued that it had responsibility  to pay only an additional $25,000 allowed under the cap to the plaintiff.

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On Oct. 16, 2007, union sprinkler fitter Frank Barnai was working at a Wal-Mart Store construction site in Joliet, Ill. He tripped over an electrical conduit protruding 6-12 inches from a concrete floor. Barnai was carrying a sprinkler pipe over his shoulder at the time of his fall. Barnai, 54, sustained a re-injury to his back. He had previously undergone lumbar fusion surgery at L4-5. As a result of this incident, Barnai underwent multiple revisions of the prior fusion and eventually required a multi-level spinal fusion from T-9 to S-1. Barnai is unable to return to work and is mostly confined to a wheelchair.

Barnai sued Wal-Mart, the owner, the general contractor, International Contractors Inc. and the company that installed the conduit, Nuline Technologies, for choosing not to inspect the work area for tripping hazards, failing to properly identify the tripping hazard, choosing not to mark the protruding conduit as a hazard and failing to ensure workers were not exposed to hazardous conditions.

The defendants contended that Barnai was contributorily negligent for not watching where he was walking and argued that he was aware of the dangerous conditions because he had walked past the area hundreds of times before he fell.

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On May 16, 2012, Jeremiah Guthrie was attempting to walk eastbound across Central Avenue just south of the intersection of Harrison Street in Chicago. He made it across one lane (the southbound right lane) when he was hit in the second lane (the southbound left lane) by the motorcyclist and defendant Jaroslaw Baranek, who was southbound.

Guthrie, 53, suffered fractures to his left ankle, tibia, fibula and wrist as well as a puncture wound to his left calf. His medical bills were $140,488. There was no claim for lost time from work.

The defendant stipulated to plaintiff’s injuries and medical expenses, but denied the defendant, a 32-year-old electrician, was at fault and contended that the plaintiff was more than 50% at fault for his own injuries because he crossed the street at mid-block.

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Carol Keiser-Long’s claim for decreased earning capacity from an automobile accident she was involved in presented a question about her compensatory damages. She was never salaried or received dividends from her solely owned cattle-brokering business. The company, C-Bar, was set up as a separate entity, a C corporation.

She was the sole employee and left all of the profits in the company as retained earnings. She thought that the retained earnings would act as a retirement account that she would eventually start drawing on as income when she quit working. Retained earnings are generally taxable at the end of each calendar or fiscal year.

The car belonging to defendant Kirk Owens, alleged to have run through a stop sign while intoxicated, broadsided Keiser-Long’s vehicle on a rural road in Champaign County, Ill., and admitted liability before trial.

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