Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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A 56-year-old woman, Shirley Walker, who was wheelchair-bound, was receiving transportation services from a company known as LocoMotion. LocoMotion was a county-subsidized bus service. While the wheelchair was being loaded onto the transportation van by a mechanical lift, she found that she had been left alone and unattended. Walker released the chair’s brakes believing that she would roll onto the van. But the wheelchair rolled backward and it fell off the lift. She fell with the wheelchair, which resulted in her suffering a fractured neck.

After the incident, Walker was paralyzed from the neck down until her unfortunate death. She was just 56 years old.

The Walker family brought a wrongful death lawsuit that claimed that LocoMotion’s owner was responsible for choosing not to strap Walker’s wheelchair onto the lift or stand behind her as she rolled onto the van. Before the case went to trial, the matter was settled for $500,000.

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The federal court rules are different than those in Illinois. Lawyers who may be used to operating under the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure need to be aware of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a), which says, “A motion to alter or amend a judgment must be filed no later than 28 days after entry of the judgment.” Under the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, 735 ILCS 5/2-1202(c) and 5/2-1203(a), one is allowed 30 days to ask a state court judge to reconsider a judgment.

Unfortunately for Patricia Banks and her lawyer, she may have been following the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure rather than Federal Rule 59 when she asked the federal district court judge to reconsider the summary judgment it entered against her and in favor of the defendants.

Banks sued her former employer, the Chicago Board of Education, and her former supervisor, Florence Gonzalez, alleging race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related violations of federal and state law. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

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In a case involving a default judgment in the amount of $421,582 against an Illinois corporation, Mama Gramm’s Bakery requested that a Cook County judge pierce the corporate veil of Silver Fox Pastry and put the liability on Haitham Abuzir. Abuzir was never a director, officer, shareholder or employee of the corporation, Silver Fox.

In the attempt to pierce the veil, Mama Gramm’s alleged that Abuzir funded Silver Fox, “made all business decisions” and “exercised ownership control over the corporation to such a degree that separate personalities of the corporation and defendant did not exist.” The trial judge dismissed the complaint for failing to state a cause of action against Abuzir. The Illinois Appellate court reversed that decision and provided an opinion on the issue of “whether the veil may be pierced to reach non-shareholders.”

The underlying case that resulted in a default judgment was a trade secret case. The appellate court discussed the ways to create and organize a sham corporation. “In some instances, the wrongdoer neither holds stock nor serves in an official capacity. Making officer, director or shareholder status a pre-requisite to veil-piercing elevates form over substance and is therefore contrary to veil-piercing’s equitable nature.”

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On Oct. 2, 2009, the car driven by defendant Monica Carroll, a 57-year-old attorney, rear-ended James Anderson’s car on northbound Illinois Interstate 94 between Lake Cook Road and Route 22.  Anderson was a 66-year-old retiree who alleged that the impact caused neck pain or accelerated a degenerative condition in his cervical spine, which required physical therapy, steroid injections and radiofrequency ablations to alleviate his pain.

Radiofrequency ablation is utilized to reduce pain. An electrical current produced by a radio wave is used to warm up the area of pain usually a nerve tissue, which in many cases leads to decreasing the pain signals from that specific area.

Anderson was told by his treating physician that he would require fusion surgery for a C4-5 disc herniation and degenerative cervical spine with the possibility of a 3-level fusion procedure needed at C4-7. However, Anderson has not undergone the surgery. At trial, Anderson produced past medical expenses of $55,000 although $125,000 for future surgery costs was barred by the court.

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On June 4, 2008, 70-year-old Edward Wasik, a retired school teacher, was a customer at Ridgeway Chevrolet, an automobile dealer located in Lansing, Ill. Wasik was walking behind the service bays in the service department when he was struck by a car backing out of the service bay.

The car that hit Wasik was driven by the defendant, Barry Boer, a mechanic at the dealership. Boer was operating another customer’s car, but apparently was looking forward while moving in reverse. Boer struck Wasik with that customer’s car, injuring him.

Wasik sustained injuries to his lower back, ribs and left knee, which resulted in arthroscopic surgery, physical therapy and continuing injections to the left knee as well as physical therapy to his back.

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On Nov. 11, 2007, Daniel Heimbrodt was driving eastbound on Highway C in Burlington, Wis., when his car collided with the vehicle operated by Robert Jones, which was traveling northbound on Highway U. Jones had a stop sign at the intersection while Heimbrodt did not.

Jones erroneously believed that Heimbrodt had a stop sign. Heimbrodt, 20, was injured in the crash. He suffered a herniated disc at L4-5 with immediate pain and developing radiculopathy, which required physical therapy, pain injections and acupuncture as well as pain medication. Future surgery was recommended. Heimbrodt lost four months of work as a heavy equipment operator. His lost time from work totaled $41,088.

Heimbrodt did return to work full time after the four months off, but he has not missed any time since then; however, he claims he may need to change careers to a less physically demanding position.

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Patricia DeBoo, 61, was shopping at Menard’s when she was struck in the head by a bathroom vanity that was inadvertently pushed off a high shelf by a Menard’s employee. The worker was operating a forklift in an adjacent aisle and attempting to bring down some merchandise from the high storage shelf.

DeBoo alleged in her lawsuit that she suffered a cervical end-plate fracture3 at C-6, right sternoclavicular injury at L4-5, facet arthropathy and sacroiliac joint injury, which resulted in more than $44,000 in medical bills.

The defendant admitted liability, but argued at trial that only the spinal fracture and sternoclavicular injury were related to this incident. The defendant maintained that the low back injury was not related to this accident.

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Carolyn Catchot slipped and fell at a shopping mall called the Shops at North Bridge in December 2008. She claimed that she had not noticed water on the floor before she fell, but as she lay there she found her hands and pants were damp with water and noticed a maintenance worker holding a mop and a bucket nearby.

A housekeeper for UNNICO, Sead Hodzic, was responsible for patrolling the area of the mall where Catchot fell. Hodzic’s rounds would have taken him through the area about 10 minutes before the fall and again about 2 minutes before it. As was his practice, after he passed through the area, he walked about 60 feet farther to the end and then returned and noticed Catchot on the floor.

Catchot filed a lawsuit against UNNICO, which was the maintenance and janitorial service for the mall. She also named as a defendant Macerich Management Co., which manages the mall. Catchot claimed in her lawsuit that both defendants were negligent in their maintenance of the premises and that their negligence was the cause of her injuries.

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In late March 2008, Fortino Fonseca was working for RG Drywall, a subcontractor hired by Clark Construction Group, LLC. While Fonseca was carrying a 100-pound sheet of drywall, he tripped over an electrical pipe that was on a hallway floor. Fonseca fell and the drywall broke on top of him.

As a result of the fall, Fonseca suffered injuries that required surgery on his back and right shoulder. On Feb. 1, 2010, Fonseca filed a lawsuit naming Clark Construction Group, LLC as a defendant. During the next 14 months after the filing of the lawsuit, some other defendants were added and some were dropped. By April 15, 2011, the defendants who remained were Clark Construction and Maron Electric, which was a subcontractor hired by Clark Construction to do the electrical wiring for the building.

In the lawsuit, Fonseca claimed that Maron chose not to clear the construction area of debris and that Clark had chosen not to property supervise the work that was being done.

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On Feb. 27, 2008, Michelle Eells, 39, was driving eastbound on Route 38 toward DeKalb, Ill., when an oncoming westbound pickup truck driven by the defendant, Dustin Grinstead, crossed the centerline near Kishwaukee Community College and crashed into her vehicle. The eastbound vehicle driven by Wayne Domin, who was working for Sysco, was driving behind Eells and subsequently rear-ended Eells’s car following the first impact between Eells and Grinstead.

Eells claimed that she injured her neck, back and right arm and hand, which resulted in three surgeries. She had an excision of ganglion cyst on the right hand/wrist and injection for DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis, right elbow surgical release of radial nerve entrapment and radial tunnel syndrome and cervical fusion, which occurred in September 2010. Eells also claimed that she can no longer work as a dental hygienist and is currently unemployed. She had claimed medical bills amounting to $167,582. She also claimed lost time from work at $111,691 and future lost time.

Eells sought to hold the defendants Grinstead and Domin/Sysco 50% each at fault. Grinstead had an automobile insurance policy limit of $100,000. According to the law, if Domin/Sysco was found at least 25% at fault they would be jointly liable for all of the damages.

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