Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed the general verdict in a second jury trial. The first jury trial resulted in a hung jury.

The plaintiff’s decedent had been admitted at a young age to multiple nursing homes and hospitals with an incurable, fatal neurodegenerative disease. The estate for the plaintiff filed a negligence lawsuit against one of the decedent’s treating physicians, maintaining actual claims under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act and the Survival Act.

The plaintiff’s estate alleged that the decedent was abused and neglected at her last nursing home, which defendant chose not to report.

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Marikate Maggio, an 18-year-old student, was driving a Mini Cooper on a highway when she arrived at an intersection with a traffic light. She attempted to turn left when a tractor-trailer driven by Miguel Garcia-Moreno crashed into her vehicle. Maggio suffered traumatic injuries and died twenty minutes later. She was survived by her mother.

Maggio’s mother, individually and on behalf of Maggio’s estate, sued Garcia-Moreno’s employer, 48Forty Solutions LLC, claiming negligent retention and choosing not to perform a proper background check on Garcia-Moreno or providing him with adequate supervision and training.

The Maggios maintained that the dashcam would have showed Garcia-Moreno had run a red light. The Maggios also alleged that the defendant trucking company had written up Garcia-Moreno three times for preventable collisions in addition to other preventable incidences that allegedly occurred while Garcia-Moreno was working for other trucking companies.

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Heather Roush was in her 20s and 35 weeks pregnant. She was with her husband, Jayneson Roush, 37, when they checked into the Kimball, a condominium hotel. The Roushes were celebrating their wedding anniversary. Their hotel room was located next to the hotel’s boiler room, which became filled with carbon monoxide when exhaust from a boiler vented into the boiler room and the building’s hotel room instead of into the outside.

Heather and Jayneson fell ill and went to a nearby hospital where testing revealed they were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Despite hyperbaric chamber therapy, both Heather and Jayneson sustained permanent brain damage. The brain damage manifested itself in memory and word-finding difficulties, noise intolerance, anxiety and depression. Additionally, the birth of Heather’s baby was complicated by her condition.

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Sammie Pendergrass, 24, was driving on a highway when Franklin Burgess lost control of his tractor-trailer, crossed the median, and collided head-on with Pendergrass’s van.

Pendergrass was thrown from his vehicle into a ditch; he suffered blunt force trauma and other serious injuries.

He lost consciousness approximately 30 minutes after this crash and died of cardiac arrest the same day.  He was survived by his parents and siblings.

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The Doe family was riding in a SUV on a highway on the way to Walt Disney World in Orlando. Jane Doe, 40, was driving the SUV when the car was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer that was moving at approximately 25 mph. The tractor-trailer was in the right lane and was being driven with a flat tire and another ruptured tire.

Jane Doe’s sister, 45, and a child, 6, were killed in the crash. Three other children ages 9 to 16 sustained injuries. One of the children required an extensive hospital stay.  The family’s medical expenses totaled about $100,000.

The lawsuit was filed against the trucking company, alleging that the driver of the tractor-trailer had chosen not to timely exit the highway as it experienced the flat tire and the ruptured tire. Additionally, the plaintiffs asserted that the trailer had been unsafe in that all its tires were in poor condition, including having insufficient treads and air pressure.

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Mr. Doe, a 36-year-old construction worker, was completing his first day at work at a town home construction site. He was standing next to a large flatbed truck, waiting for help to unload a crane when a commercial trash collection truck came around the corner and sideswiped the flatbed truck.

Mr. Doe was crushed between the two vehicles and suffered severe injuries to his right leg and foot, as well as rib and spinal fractures. Despite multiple foot and leg surgeries, Mr. Doe continued to suffer from chronic lymphedema and deformity. Mr. Doe’s medical expenses totaled almost $400,000.

Mr. Doe sued the truck driver’s corporate employer, alleging that it was liable for the driver’s choosing not to remain in his lane of traffic. Before trial, the parties settled for $1.25 million.

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Jefferson City Retirement LLC (“JCR”) appealed from the circuit court’s judgment in favor of Twehous Excavating Inc. on its claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit. JCR contended that the court erred in granting Twehous’s relief on both claims because the claims were mutually exclusive and inconsistent as a matter of law.

However, the Missouri Appellate Court affirmed the judgment, stating that the claims are not mutually exclusive.

In 2013, JCR began building a retirement and assisted living community on property it owned in Jefferson City, Mo. JCR hired Omni Construction Co. Inc. as the general contractor on the project. Omni entered into a subcontract agreement with Twehous to provide excavation work under Omni’s direction.

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Doe, a 42-year-old laborer, was installing air pollution control equipment in a confined space at a Massachusetts factory.

The equipment consisted of a 12-foot, two-piece wheel that weighed 1,000 pounds when fully assembled.

After Doe removed the wood block that supported half of the wheel while it was suspended by a sling from a forklift, the wheel swung toward Doe and struck him.  The contact caused multiple fractures and a severe left arm injury.

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Doe, age 7, was riding in a van operated by his classmate’s mother. As the van entered an intersection that was controlled by a traffic light, Roe, an employee of a contracting company, collided with the van, which caused it to strike a telephone pole.

Both Doe and his classmates were ejected and landed on the roadway. Doe suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Doe’s family sued the contracting company and his classmate’s mother alleging liability for the crash.  The Doe family claimed that Roe’s choosing not to stop at a red light caused the crash.

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On April 27, 2017, Kevin Hartley was working for his uncle, Tony Hartley, at Hartley’s Painting. Hartley was refinishing the bathtub at an apartment complex in Nashville, Tenn.

While on the job, Kevin was wearing a respirator mask and gloves but was overcome by fumes from the NAPCO White Lighting Low Odor Stripper. He passed out and died the following day at the age of 21.

Wendy Hartley, his mother and special administrator of Kevin’s estate, filed a lawsuit against the North American Polymer Company Ltd. (NAPCO), which sold the product. The lawsuit then added Samax Enterprises Inc. (Samax), the company that manufactured the product. Wendy Hartley set out two causes of action for each of the two defendants. One was in strict product liability and the other was in negligence, alleging that the product was “unreasonably dangerous and toxic, and that defendants did not adequately warn users about the danger and did not adequately test the product to ensure that it was safe for its reasonable anticipated use.”

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