Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago has dismissed an appeal from a U.S. District Court judge. In an extremely sad case, Robert Lindner’s parents, Burton and Zorine Lindner, were driving under a bridge near north suburban Glenview, Ill., when a Union Pacific freight train derailed overhead. The derailment caused the collapse of the bridge crushing the Lindners in their car. Their son brought a lawsuit against Union Pacific and a wrongful death action in Illinois state court alleging that Union Pacific’s negligence caused the accident and his parents’ wrongful deaths.

At the time the lawsuit was filed, there was complete diversity between the parties. That means that the residencies of the plaintiffs and the residencies of the defendants must be of different states. The decedents were residents and citizens of Illinois. The residency determines diversity jurisdiction. Mr. Lindner was acting as a representative of the estate.

Union Pacific is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Omaha, Neb. Union Pacific removed the case to the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago because of the complete diversity of the parties.

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A nationally recognized art critic and historian, Gerald J. Nordlund, visited the Art Institute of Chicago at 111 S. Michigan Avenue on Sept. 5, 2009. He was 82 at the time. After leaving the Art Institute, Nordland stepped onto a retaining wall, which separated the sidewalk along Columbus Drive from a driveway serving the Modern Wing at the east side of the museum.

Nordland alleged that the height differential between the top of the retaining wall and the adjoining sidewalk caused him to fall as he attempted to step back down to the sidewalk. He struck his head and suffered facial injuries and a subdural hematoma and permanent sight loss.

The defendant, Interactive Design Inc., argued that the design of the retaining wall met the architectural standard of care and that Nordland’s contributory negligence was the proximate cause of his fall. The defense at trial also denied that his vision loss was related to this occurrence.

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A wrongful-death verdict that was vacated by a trial judge was affirmed on appeal by the Illinois Appellate Court. The jury’s verdict of $4.25 million was reached in a wrongful-death trial awarded to the family of a woman killed in a highway crash. But the trial judge vacated the verdict after it was revealed that the woman was married and that her parents and siblings were not her heirs under Illinois law. The judge would not let the woman’s husband file an amended complaint finding that he engaged in fraud with the woman’s family.

In an opinion that covered 107 pages written by Justice Robert E. Gordon, the panel found that the trial court was correct in vacating that verdict. But in a partial reversal, the panel will allow the woman’s husband to file an amended complaint.

The parents and eight siblings of 28-year-old Hawa Sissoko sued Alfred C. Baggiani and Roadway Express, the driver and owner of the semi-trailer that struck and killed Sissoko in 2007. She was standing behind her car in the right lane of the Indiana Toll Road outside Chesterton, Ind., when the accident occurred.

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The issue in this case was how to calculate the lien-payment math in a personal injury lawsuit that involved treatment at the county-owned Stroger Hospital. The Illinois Appellate Court ruled that health-care service liens must be calculated from the total amount a plaintiff recovers, not from the amount after attorney fees and costs have been deducted.

There were actually two cases that were consolidated from the Circuit Court of Cook County. Each involved plaintiffs injured in car accidents and treated at Stroger Hospital. Each plaintiff settled the case and then moved to adjudicate their health-care service liens, arguing that legal fees should be deducted from the sum before calculating what they would owe the county for their medical treatment.

The law in Illinois caps the total amount of health-care liens at 40% of the settlement or verdict amount. When liens reach that threshold, lien-holding health-care professionals get a 20% cut, while any health-care providers get the remaining 20%.

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On Nov. 9, 2012, Hawree Amin was riding a bicycle eastbound on Winnemac Avenue in the city of Chicago, traveling through the intersection at Clark Street. The defendant, Karl Fujihara, driving eastbound in his car came alongside a car on the left. Amin maintained that Fujihara suddenly veered to the right to avoid a protruding manhole cover and hit Amin’s left shoulder with his car’s right side-view mirror and caused Amin to fall off his bike. He landed on his right knee.

Amin, 26, is an auto mechanic. He sustained blunt trauma contusions and ligament injuries to his left shoulder and right knee. He also suffered a sprained right ankle, low back strain and neck pain.

The defendant Fujihara argued that Amin, who is blind in one eye, rode his bike into the side of Fujihara’s car, denied that he veered to avoid any manhole cover, denied that Amin ever fell to the ground and disputed the extent of his claimed injuries.

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On Aug. 28, 2010, Peter Chilton was driving a 2009 Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle with his girlfriend riding on the back. Chilton was stopped at the red light on Grand Avenue at the intersection with County Road in Waukegan, Ill., when the defendant, Joshua Uhlir, who was driving his vehicle westbound, hit Chilton and his girlfriend from behind causing minor damage to the motorcycle.

Chilton, 55, maintained that the force of the impact caused his motorcycle to move forward and fall to the right side. In his effort to prevent the bike from falling over he felt a pop in his right shoulder. He did not immediately go to the emergency room or see a doctor and did not receive medical attention until he went to his primary physician three days later complaining of right shoulder pain.

Chilton sustained a tear in the shoulder, but he did not need surgery. He also suffered aggravation of pre-existing degenerative changes in his cervical spine.

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James Folta had stopped working at Ferro Engineering 41 years before he was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma. He claimed that while working for Ferro Engineering he was exposed to “tremendous amounts of airborne asbestos fibers.” According to the lawsuit, Folta knew that exposure to asbestos dust was dangerous, but Ferro Engineering did not warn him and did not provide respiratory safety equipment.

By the time Folta received the fatal diagnosis, the statutes of repose had expired for claims under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act (the statute is 25 years) and the Workers’ Occupational Diseases Act (the statute is 3 years after the claimant stopped working for the employer).

As Folta had no other available course of action, he filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County claiming that his mesothelioma was caused by the negligence of Ferro Engineering. Because of the exclusive-remedy provisions found in the Workers’ Compensation and Occupational Diseases statutes, the lawsuit was dismissed. Continue reading

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Ricky Bottensek, 44, was working as a landscaper for his brother’s company, which turned out to be a third-party defendant in this case, Bottensek Inc. The job site was in Rochelle, Ill. On Feb. 28, 2008, the defendant, Fischer Excavating, was digging a trench for the installation of a stilt fence. The Fischer employee and defendant, Rod Hagemann, was operating a rented trenching machine, cutting a trench in the frozen ground.

Bottensek was working behind the machine, holding a fence stake steady while his co-worker waited to strike the stake with a sledgehammer to drive it into the trenched ground, when Hagemann lost control of the trenching machine causing the trencher and attached cutting chain to shift backwards. The cutting chain entangled one of Bottensek’s legs and pulled them partially through the rotating chain causing severe injuries to both of his legs.

He sustained an open fracture of the right femur, closed fractures of the left distal tibia and fibula with dislocation and a large complex degloving wound to his left lower leg, requiring multiple surgeries and probable future ankle fusion surgery.

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Jeremy Droege and his five family members, including his wife, his mother, and three children, ages 7, 5 and 3, were passengers in a car that was struck head-on by a truck driven by James Benson for J.B. Hunt Transport on Oct. 2, 2010. The Droege family was in a car traveling northbound on Route 29 in Sparland, Marshall County, Ill., when Benson’s southbound truck tractor, without an attached trailer, crossed the center line into the northbound lane and crashed head-on with Droege’s van near North Street.

Stephanie Droege, 32 and the wife of Jeremy, was the most seriously injured and remained hospitalized for 23 hours, while the other five plaintiffs were treated in the emergency room and released. She suffered cervical fractures at C-6 and C-7 with a closed head injury causing traumatic brain injury, leaving her at increased risk of epilepsy.

Jeremy Droege, 32, was the driver. He suffered a knee bone contusion and soft tissue neck and back injuries. His mother, Betty, 75, also suffered injuries. The three children, ages 7, 5 and 3, had only emergency room care but experienced emotional distress and nightmares after the crash.

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Pilot Flying J, a truck stop fueling and restaurant chain that is common along Illinois and U.S. highways, has agreed to pay $92 million in fines to the federal government for a scheme to cheat truck drivers out of agreed-upon diesel fuel rebates. The agreement was reached with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee and Pilot Travel Centers, LLC d/b/a “Pilot Flying J.”

It was alleged that the scheme cost the company’s truck driver customers more than $56 million. The agreement came after 10 Pilot Flying J employees pleaded guilty to involvement in the plot to defraud Flying J customers.

Pilot Flying J is one of the largest trucker diesel suppliers in the United States. Flying J offered rebates and discount programs to encourage loyalty among its trucking customers. The discounts offered by Pilot Flying J varied among its numerous truck stops making it difficult for customers to know whether they were getting their agreed-upon discounts. The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that in some instances, Pilot Flying J instructed its sales staff how to reduce the rebates in order to make some discounts more profitable.

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