Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Advanced Tactical manufactures and sells PepperBall projectile irritants. The product, PepperBalls, resemble paintballs, but PepperBalls contain irritants and are designed to be used for crowd control by police, private security firms and similar organizations.

Advanced Tactical was headquartered in Indiana, though the company had at least one office in California. Advanced Tactical became the manufacturer of PepperBall items after it acquired trademark and other property in a foreclosure sale from a company called PepperBall Technologies Inc.

During the foreclosure sale, the chief operating officer of one of the PepperBall suppliers contacted Real Action Paintball Inc., a California company. The chief operating officer of this supplier asked Real Action whether it was interested in acquiring irritant projectiles. A deal was reached between the supplier and Real Action.

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On June 28, 2010, Dariusz Bosek was stopped at a red light in the northbound lane of Randall Road at Mill Street in Batavia, Ill. His vehicle was then rear-ended by a car driven by the defendant, Hildegard Maas. Bosek, 44, was injured in the crash; he sustained a left elbow injury, a painful tendon injury that required physical therapy, injections and eventually surgery in November 2011. Bosek made a full recovery after the surgery and has no permanent problems now. His medical bills totaled $38,620. He did not have any lost time from work as a delivery driver.

The 89-year-old defendant, Hildegard Maas, had been stopped behind Bosek but reported that she sneezed, which caused her foot to slip off the brake pedal. Maas was not present for the jury trial because she was in poor health and residing in a Colorado nursing home.

The defense admitted negligence at trial, but contested the extent of the plaintiff’s injury pointing to the minimal damage to the vehicles and a 7-month treatment gap from November 2010 to June 2011 in which Bosek was treated.

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The ruling by a Cook County trial judge mistakenly applying the collateral source rule against a jury verdict has been reversed. Hector Romero was alleged to have caused an automobile accident with the plaintiff, Sylvia Segovia. In that lawsuit, it was claimed that Segovia was injured while a passenger in her husband’s car caused by the negligence of the defendant Romero. Segovia’s husband, Rodolfo, was insured by State Farm, which paid for his vehicle repairs and reimbursed Sylvia $5,000 in medical bills under the “medpay” provision of the State Farm Insurance policy.

The medpay included $3,711 for treatment at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill.  State Farm filed a subrogation lawsuit against Romero seeking $10,766 for the medical care for Sylvia. Romero’s insurance carrier, American Heartland Insurance Co., settled with State Farm for a total of $5,383.

Later, when Sylvia brought a lawsuit against Romero, she listed her damages as including $4,560 as a hospital bill from Lutheran General Hospital. The jury returned a verdict in her favor for $5,395, which was the medical expenses, but offered nothing for her loss of normal life or her pain and suffering.

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A class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against a window manufacturer. The basis for the reversal of the approved $90 million settlement for the class-action lawsuit claiming defective windows was due to inequities with respect to the attorney fees of approximately $11 million; meanwhile, the clients — the consumers — would get less than $8.5 million in total.

According to a section of the court’s opinion written by Justice Richard A. Posner, the “class counsel sold out the class.” The settlement was approved by the district court judge and has now been reversed.

The class-action lawsuit claimed that casement windows manufactured between 1991 and 2006 for Pella Corp.’s “Pro-Line Series” had a design defect.

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Allen Plyler had purchased and installed a Whirlpool microwave oven for his home. Seven years later, in October 2006, Plyer used the microwave to heat up some food. Eight hours later, Plyer was awakened by a fire that began in the microwave. He tried to put out the fire but suffered physical and emotional injuries.

As a result of his injuries, Plyler filed a lawsuit against Whirlpool claiming strict product liability and negligent recall. At trial, the Whirlpool global product safety director testified about the defect in some microwaves that Whirlpool had recalled. The corporate product safety director testified that the microwave would catch fire only if it contained food splatters and was running immediately before the fire. Plyler testified at trial that the microwave was clean and wasn’t in use before the fire started.

The jury found in favor of Whirlpool on both the claim for strict product liability and negligent recall; Plyler moved for a new trial. The federal magistrate judge who considered the post-trial motion for a new trial concluded that a rational jury could have accepted the product safety director’s testimony, combined with Plyler’s testimony about the state of the microwave, and could conclude that Whirlpool was not responsible for Plyler’s injuries. The court also noted that the jury could have reasonably rejected Plyler’s argument that Whirlpool should have made additional efforts to notify him of the recall.

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On Jan. 26, 2011, 23-year-old Jerry Oswalt was riding his bike from one dog walking customer’s home to another, riding southbound on Sacramento Avenue near its intersection with Logan Boulevard. Oswalt claimed that he entered the intersection on a green light but was hit at the bike’s rear tire by the defendant’s eastbound car, which ran a red light. The defendant, Esther Fragoso, was claimed to have caused Oswalt to fall and strike his head on the road knocking him unconscious. When he regained consciousness, his head was bleeding and he staggered out of the intersection to a nearby grass median with his bike and laid down.

Oswalt, in addition to the concussion he suffered, sustained a six-inch cut to the right temple area above his eye, facial scarring, a tiny cortical fracture, right orbital hematoma, right knee pain and contusions.

Fragoso, 77 and retired, argued that she had a green light and that Oswalt went through a red light. She also said that her vehicle never made contact with Oswalt’s bicycle and that she saw him lose control of his bike on the wet, snowy pavement and fall to the ground.

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The U.S. Justice Department reached a settlement with Johnson & Johnson, which is the maker of Risperdal. The settlement of $2.2 billion and a misdemeanor plea comes after a long investigation into the marketing of the pharmaceutical product, Risperdal. It is an anti-psychotic drug known to deliver harmful side effects, especially to young boys and young men most often prescribed the medicine.

In this case, the Department of Justice engaged several whistleblowers around the country to help the investigation and act as Johnson & Johnson informants. In fact, collectively, the whistleblowers will receive upwards of $167 million for their efforts.

The whistleblowers took great risk in assisting the Department of Justice in this investigation. Some of the whistleblowers went undercover, wore a wire, helped in prepping the department lawyers for depositions and otherwise risked their livelihood and their careers.

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On July 19, 2007, Jose Torres was a day worker hired by Brandenburg Industrial Services Co., a contractor responsible for labor, material, equipment and supervision. The contractor agreed to provide all of the safety measures necessary for the demolition of the Gutmann Leather operation and tannery on the Chicago River. Gutmann had closed in 2006, and it chose to demolish its tannery. The tannery had been in operation since 1870.

Gutmann hired Gabriel Environmental Services because of federal Environmental Protection Agency guidelines regarding heavy metal contamination caused by the tannery’s operation. Gabriel was hired to assess the site, plan what action needed to be taken and hire a contractor to prepare the Gutmann property for sale. Gabriel also was to supervise the work that was being done in the demolition. Gabriel hired Brandenburg to do the demolition work.

In turn, Brandenburg hired Windy City Antique Brick Co. to retrieve, organize and haul away bricks at the site. Jose Torres was killed when a front-end loader owned by Brandenburg and operated by another Brandenburg employee ran into him.

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a decision dismissing Six Flags from a Cook County lawsuit. The case arose following the death of Thomas Lee of Pleasant Prairie, Wis. Lee was a heavy equipment mechanic for a Wadsworth, Wis., contractor hired by Six Flags to dismantle the structure of its Splashwater Falls ride.

In March 2008, Lee and his co-workers disconnected and removed a motor on the ride’s platform, leaving an opening 43 feet above the ground.

As Lee was connecting cables from a crane to equipment, he fell through the opening and died. His wife, Donna Lee, filed a lawsuit against Six Flags in Cook County in July 2010 alleging that the theme park owner knew of the dangerous conditions and failed to exercise reasonable care to protect workers who were working on dismantling the ride.

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Wisconsin has a long history of protecting private and public labor unions. In fact, before 2011, Wisconsin granted broad protections and privileges to public-sector unions. This all changed when the Wisconsin legislature passed a new budget bill known as Act 10. This act reduced state and municipal employers’ collective-bargaining obligations to non-public safety employees in the public sector.

In a lawsuit brought by two public employee unions and an individual union member, the defendants argued that the changes by the Wisconsin legislature infringed on their First Amendment petition and association rights, and that Act 10 denied the union members equal protection under the law.

The U.S. District Court granted the state’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and the unions, the plaintiffs, brought this appeal.

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