Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Robert Lodholtz was seriously injured in 2011 while working at a plant owned by Pulliam Enterprises in Indiana. Lodholtz filed a personal-injury lawsuit against Pulliam in the Indiana state court. Pulliam called on Granite State Insurance Co., its primary liability insurer, along with New Hampshire Insurance Co., to defend and indemnify it against the lawsuit.

Granite State refused to indemnify Pulliam stating that Lodholtz as an employee should pursue his claim for worker’s compensation. Lodholtz disagreed arguing that he was employed by another company while he worked at Pulliam’s plant and therefore had no basis for a worker’s compensation claim.

Pulliam chose not to file an answer to the complaint, so Lodholtz moved for default judgment, which was granted. Lodholtz then agreed with Pulliam not to pursue the default judgment and in return Pulliam assigned to Lodholtz its rights against Granite State. Granite State then moved to intervene in Lodholtz’s lawsuit. The Indiana state court denied the motion to intervene.

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On April 27, 2009, Daniel Fleck, a union sprinkler fitter employed by Global Fire Protection, was working at the Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago. This work occurred during the MetraMarket construction project that was under way on the lower level. Fleck was 39 years old at the time. The construction project was headed by general contractor defendant, O’Neil Construction Co. The Ogilvie Transportation Center is located at 118 N. Canal Street in Chicago.

Fleck contended that he injured his lower back while he attempted to lift and install a 110-pound dry pipe valve at the construction site. While attempting this lift, Fleck was caused to re-herniate his lumbar disc, which required spinal surgery in 2010. Fleck was unable to return to work as a sprinkler fitter and is currently unemployed.

Fleck maintained that the customary industry practice for hoisting the sprinkler valve was to be done from an anchor in the ceiling, but O’Neil Construction prohibited Fleck from using a hoisting device to install the valve, which forced him to lift the heavy valve by hand.

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On Sept. 27, 2011, Darius Young, who was 15 at the time, participated in a dice game on a Chicago street with several individuals. One of them, Daniel Glen, who was in a wheelchair, won all of Young’s money during the game; however, he began to suspect that another individual, Jonathan Harris, was trying to cheat him.

When Glen rolled the wheelchair into an alley “to relieve himself,” he claimed that Harris approached him holding a 9 mm handgun and demanded money. Glen stated that Harris put the gun to his back and directed Young to search him for the money he lost. Young grabbed the money from Glen’s pocket, and he and Glen “tussled,” according to his trial testimony, knocking Glen out of his wheelchair. Glen testified that Young and Harris fled, but returned a few minutes later.

Young then put Glen back in his wheelchair and threw $45 at him stating, “I just wanted my birthday money back, my $120.” The incident was reported to the Chicago police by Glen, who identified Young by his nickname and Harris from a lineup.

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A U.S. district court judge has rejected the attempts of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and Eli Lilly & Co. to overturn the combined $9 billion punitive-damage award that a jury recently returned. The verdict came down in a case that involved claims that the drug makers chose to hide the cancer risks of their Actos diabetes drug. The presiding judge held that the jury properly considered evidence that showed officials of the Osaka, Japan-based Takeda, and Indianapolis-based Lily had advance knowledge that Actos was associated with bladder cancer and chose not to properly and efficiently warn doctors and patients about those risks.

However, although the judge upheld the jury’s verdict, the judge is still considering another motion that was brought post-trial by the defendants for a new trial. That motion is pending for a case of Terrence Allen v. Takeda, et al., which was the first federal trial over claims that Actos causes bladder cancer.

The widespread sales of the Actos pharmaceutical product reached its highest level on March 2011 when the product had sales of $4.5 billion and accounted for 27% of Takeda’s revenue in total. Since the time Actos was released by Takeda in 1999, it had made sales in excess of $16 billion. Today Takeda must contend with generic competition from other drug makers.

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The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has revised its reporting requirements when an employee dies on the job or suffers a work-related hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye. If an employee is severely injured, employers will now be required to immediately notify OSHA of the work-related fatality within 8 hours and work-related in-patient hospitalizations, amputations or loss of an eye within 24 hours. This shortened the timing that employers are required to notify OSHA of these serous injuries.

In the past, OSHA was required to report only work fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees. In other words, if only one employee died or was seriously injured at work, no report to OSHA was required.

The new reporting rule goes into effect Jan. 1, 2015 and is particularly directed at workplaces under federal OSHA jurisdiction. This would exempt companies who employ 10 or fewer individuals regardless of the industry classification.

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In a car crash case in which the plaintiff claimed injury, the jury found for the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed. The appellate court found that the plaintiff had not preserved the appealed issues and affirmed the decision of the jury and the trial court in favor of the defendant.

On appeal from a verdict for the defendant, the plaintiff, Warren G. Hamilton, asked the Illinois Appellate Court to grant his request for judgment as a matter of law on the liability and to return the case the trial judge on the issue of damages.

Hamilton thought he preserved the issue for appeal by (1) asking for a directed verdict or in the jury instructions conference; and (2) filing an opposed trial motion under §2-1202(a) of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure that argued, among other things, the “defendant was negligent as a matter of law” and “the court erred in failing to direct a verdict for the plaintiff at the close of evidence.” In the same motion, Hamilton argued that the verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence, and closed by asking for a new trial, not judgment notwithstanding the verdict on liability.

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In July 2003, Evan Miller and Colby Smith killed Cole Cannon by beating Cannon with a baseball bat and burning his trailer. Cannon was inside. At the time, Miller was 14 years old. After Miller’s arrest, he was transferred from Lawrence County Juvenile Court to Lawrence County Circuit Court to be tried as an adult for capital murder. In 2006, a grand jury indicted Miller. At trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The trial sentenced Miller to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Miller filed a post-trial motion for a new trial. He argued that the sentencing of a 14-year-old defendant to life without the possibility of parole constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The trial judge denied the motion. Miller appealed to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, which affirmed the lower court’s decision. The Supreme Court of Alabama denied Miller’s petition for writ of certiorari.

There was a companion case in whih the petitioner was also 14 years old at the time. He had robbed a local movie store in Blytheville, Ark., which led to the murder of the store clerk. There were three boys involved; all were 14 years old at the time. After a trial for the murder of the store clerk, one defendant was tried and convicted of capital murder and aggravated robbery. The trial court sentenced him to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

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USPLabs LLC, which is the maker of dietary sports supplements purchased over the counter, is now asking to consolidate nine federal lawsuits that have been brought against the company by individual injured plaintiffs. The company makes the product OxyElite Pro, which has been associated with liver injuries and hepatitis.  The motion to consolidate was brought before the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in the Multi-District Litigation (MDL). USPLabs is a defendant in lawsuits pending against it in California, Florida, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and Texas.

There are at least six personal injury lawsuits pending as well as three proposed class-action lawsuits. It was alleged that OxyElite Pro and the product Jack3d contained unsafe ingredients or adulterated ingredients as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The unsafe ingredient, known as DMAA, contains two substances that have been associated with fatalities and liver failure. USPLabs is located in Dallas, Texas, which has been named in these lawsuits along with GNC Holdings Inc., which has partnered with USPLabs in marketing these dietary supplement products.

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Clarence Roach was a car man working for Union Pacific Railroad at the West Side rail yard in Chicago where commuters’ rail  cars are inspected and repaired. Roach was earning about $60,000 per year. On Feb. 1, 2008, Roach was hit by a train performing a “shove,” where a rail car was coupled to a commuter train that was being assembled.

Roach suffered several serious injuries, including “degloving” injury to the right leg, which tore the skin off the underlying tissue. Roach was treated by several doctors and then returned to work 13 months later on March 9, 2009.

On May 16, 2008, Roach filed a lawsuit against Union Pacific Railroad alleging negligence against Union Pacific. In March 2010, with his case still pending, Roach suffered a stroke. He died on May 14, 2010 at the age of 57.

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Daniel Nickell filed a lawsuit against the officers and directors of Engineer Support. He claimed it had improperly diverted financial benefits by backdating stock options, which decreased the value of the corporation for its shareholders. Nickell was a shareholder of Engineer Support Systems Inc. (ESSI). ESSI merged with DRS Technologies in January 2006.

In Nickell’s lawsuit, he alleged that the officers and directors made material misrepresentations to induce the merger at a reduced price for the company in exchange for DRS assuming responsibility for the backdating scheme.

The trial judge dismissed Nickell’s lawsuit on the grounds that his claims were pleaded as a shareholder derivative claim and that he did not have standing to sue the ESSI directors and officers for his individual claims. Nickell appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri, which affirmed the dismissal of his case.

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