Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Eduardo Guzman was employed by TDH Mechanical, which provided heating, ventilation and air conditioning services. TDH bought an insurance policy from Columbia Insurance Group to cover the period from April 2016 through April 2017. Rockwell Properties owned a part of the property under construction in Chicago.

Prairie Management & Development was the construction manager at this property. In February 2017, Prairie and Rockwell contracted with TDH to provide HVAC services at this property.

The contract contained provisions stating that TDH assumed responsibility and liability for any damages or injury of any kind to all persons and all property growing out of TDH’s work on the project. The contract also specified that both Prairie and Rockwell were to be named as additional insureds on TDH’s insurance policy.

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Tomas Buron was stuck by a delivery truck driven by Shane M. Lignar, an employee of Lily Transportation Co., on Nov. 27, 2017. The incident occurred in the parking lot of the Whole Foods delivery building in Munster, Ind.

Buron filed a lawsuit against Lignar and Lily in Cook County. Lignar and Lily moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the circuit court lacked personal jurisdiction over both. Lignar is an Indiana resident, the crash occurred in Indiana, and Lily is a Massachusetts corporation with “only limited operations in Illinois.”

Discovery was done on the jurisdictional issue and Buron submitted in his reply brief that the court had jurisdiction over Lily based on the company’s operations in Illinois. Buron further replied that Lignar worked out of the facility in Illinois, made pickups and deliveries in Illinois twice weekly and filed Illinois tax returns in 2018 and 2019. The Cook County Circuit Court judge denied the motion to dismiss before an evidentiary hearing or oral argument. Lignar and Lily petitioned for an appeal.

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During discovery in a negligence case, State Farm Insurance Co. retained outside counsel to defend Allison Rancour. In this Kane County case, the attorneys named Drs. Benjamin Goldberg and Michael Musacchio as controlled experts. The plaintiff requested a list of the amounts paid to each of the doctors in every case where they were hired by State Farm and the group of State Farm employees that practiced law in Chicago known as Bruce Farrel Dorn & Associates.

The defendant refused to comply and the court sanctioned the defendant and attorneys $25 a day for failing to comply. The attorney for the defendant and State Farm argued that the judge erred in commanding discovery from non-parties that had not been subpoenaed. And because neither the attorneys nor outside counsel hired by State Farm nor its client were employees of State Farm, the law firm claimed they could not be compelled to provide information possessed by State Farm.

The appellate court affirmed the discovery order but reversed the sanction because the outside firm used a “friendly contempt” for immediate review, thus the appellate court explained that there was no need to subpoena State Farm or the Bruce Farrel Dorn & Associates law firm because the discovery order was aimed at Rancour and the outside law firm. The decision of the appellate court was based on Szczeblewski v. Gossett, 342 Ill. App. 3d 344 (2003), and Oelze v. Score Sports Venture, 401 Ill. App. 3d 110 (2010) for the Second District. The court concluded that “the court correctly applied existing case law, which holds that a party has reasonable control over the documents possessed by her insurer.”

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Carol Loevy, 59, entered an intersection in her SUV.  Michael Tobin made a right turn in front of Loevy’s vehicle in his pickup truck. His pickup truck collided with Loevy’s SUV.

She suffered neck and lumbar spinal injuries, including a herniated disk at C5-6.  She was later diagnosed as having radiculopathy in her extremities.

Loevy was an artist earning $15 an hour but has been unable to return to work. Her medical bills totaled $80,000.

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Victoria Jeffords sued defendant BP Products North America, the operator of an oil refinery, Fluor Constructors International, the engineering and construction manager and MC Industrial. She claimed that her husband, Donald Jeffords, had been injured when he was employed by Central Rent-a-Crane, which BP contracted with to provide crane services. He fractured both feet and his back when he fell seven feet while on a 13-inch wide catwalk on the crane with no guardrail while checking the crane’s fluid levels.

The U.S. District Court Judge granted summary judgment for BP, Fluor and MC Industrial finding no duty was owed to Jeffords and no breach of any duty existed under the contracts, at common law, or under OSHA.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago affirmed, citing six reasons the defendants breached no duty owed to Jeffords, noting Jeffords could not sue his employer, Central Rent-a-Crane, as he had only a workers’ compensation claim.

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Susan Danzig and Carla Davis, plaintiffs, attended a student play put on by the Professional Theater and Dance Youth Academy (dance academy) at the Woodlawn facility at The University of Chicago Charter School Corp. (charter school) on Feb. 24, 2017. While there, the plaintiffs were instructed to sit on a bench by an employee of the charter school. The bench collapsed, injuring both Danzig and Davis.

The plaintiffs filed an identical one-count negligence lawsuit against the dance academy and the charter school on March 20, 2018. The charter school moved to dismiss the complaint, claiming the case was barred by the statute of limitations, citing the Illinois Tort Immunity Act, section 101(a), which requires claims to be filed within one year of the alleged injury.

On June 28, 2018, the plaintiffs filed a response and the dance academy moved to dismiss and filed a counterclaim against the charter school for contribution. The charter school moved to dismiss, also citing the one-year statute of limitations.

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Tomasa Cuevas was traveling in her SUV with her two children, Alejandro, 16, and Maritza, 11. Amarjit Aulakh, an employee of Rai Transport Inc., drove his semi-tractor-trailer through a red light.  This caused a T-bone collision with Cuevas’s vehicle.

Tomasa Cuevas, 42, suffered fractures to her skull and face as well as a traumatic brain injury. Alejandro, who was in the passenger seat, also suffered skull and facial fractures and a traumatic brain injury.  Alejandro was a successful high school cross-country runner who may not be able to return to the sport.  Maritza was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after this horrific crash.

Cuevas and for her children sued Rai Transport, alleging liability for Aulakh’s choosing not to obey a red light. The Cuevas family alleged that Aulakh had been involved in fourteen prior collisions and was driving with a suspended license at the time of this incident. The lawsuit did not claim lost income.

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Donald Peace was driving to work in rainy conditions in the middle of the night.  As he drove along a two-lane highway, Keith Rock attempted to back out onto a side street, blocking several lanes of the highway. Rock was driving a tractor-trailer for Berkeley Scrap Metal.

Peace’s vehicle crashed into the Berkeley Scrap Metal tractor-trailer that was blocking the street; he suffered fatal injuries. He was survived by his wife and two adult children.

The Peace estate and family sued Berkeley Scrap Metal, alleging liability for Rock’s choosing not to keep a proper lookout when backing onto the side street.

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In this appeal, the defendant Michael Maschmeyer’s conduct as a member of the plaintiff, Chicago Roof, Deck and Garden LLC (CRDG), led to an appeal regarding the claimed interest owed CRDG. Plaintiffs Darren Flynn and Tomasz Bartosiewicz owned the rest of the membership interest.

After a bench trial, the trial judge found that Maschmeyer breached his fiduciary duty as a member of CRDG by taking business opportunities that should have been first offered to CRDG. The trial court entered judgment in favor of CRDG and against Maschmeyer as follows: (1) $1,768,927 in compensatory damages, (2) $236,350 in prejudgment interest, and (3) $651,104 in punitive damages. The total judgment in favor of CRDG and against Maschmeyer was $2,656,381.

However, the trial judge also found that CRDG was required to compensate Maschmeyer for the fair value of his membership interest upon his disassociation from CRDG, which the court found occurred on June 16, 2014. The trial court determined that the fair value of Maschmeyer’s membership interest was $2,867,376 and entered judgment in favor of Maschmeyer and against CRDG in that amount. After setting off the amount of the judgment against Maschmeyer, the trial court’s judgments resulted in a net judgment in favor of Maschmeyer and against CRDG in the amount of $210,995.

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M Construction Ltd. was doing utility construction, including digging a 9-foot trench to place pipes in the ground. The company’s foreman instructed employees to enter the trench to dig under a pipe.

The unprotected trench collapsed, killing Rigoberto Tovar, an M Construction employee.  He was just 25 years old and was survived by his wife and stepdaughter.

Tovar’s wife, individually and on behalf of his estate, sued M Construction Ltd., alleging it negligently ordered its employees to work in an unprotected trench and chose not to properly train workers on trench safety.

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