Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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A district court judge in Chicago granted the motion of defendant Ryobi Technologies Inc.  to exclude an expert witness as unreliable and irrelevant. Purportedly, it would have cost Ryobi $50 to $150 to install an automatic braking system on the table saw that sliced off Brandon Stollings’s index finger and portions of several other fingers in a “kickback” incident.

Under Illinois law, it is required that expert testimony is necessary to prove that a product was unreasonably dangerous.  Stollings wanted to call John Graham as his expert to testify that each saw sold without the safety device burdens society with an average of $753 in accident costs. The basis of Graham’s opinion was that the automatic braking system would have been 90 percent effective.

After this appeal was taken, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed ruling that the district court judge’s exclusion of Graham’s testimony on reliability grounds was an abuse of discretion because it “intruded too far into the province of the jury.” Graham’s expert opinion was relevant as to whether the Ryobi saw was unreasonably dangerous. 

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Tire Services Co. and AA Truck & Trailer Repair entered into an agreement that called for plaintiff Tire Services to sell approximately $450,000 worth of tires to AA Truck. AA Truck agreed and took delivery, but paid just $231,142 of that amount before it stopped making payments in December 2009. 

When the payments stopped, Tire Services filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County against AA Truck for the balance remaining unpaid, — $223,326 pursuant to the parties’ contract.

AA Truck claimed that it stopped making payments because the sales terms were confusing and that allegedly Tire Services changed the prices of the tires it sold to AA Truck. 

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Paul Junod, 51, a locomotive mechanic, fell from an elevated platform while changing shock absorbers at the Illinois Central Railroad’s Woodcrest shop in Homewood, Ill.  Junod suffered multiple fractures of his left wrist with median and radial nerve damage, which required open reduction internal fixation with a plate and screws inserted. Following the June 26, 2006 incident, Junod also developed post traumatic arthritis, chronic pain and increasing impairment of the hand. He will need future surgeries for hardware removal, nerve decompression and a possible wrist fusion.

Junod contended that the railroad chose not to provide him with adequate equipment to perform his job, which included a high-torque impact gun with deep well impact sockets, forcing him to use a breaker bar and box wrench to remove nuts from the shock absorbers. This made the task more difficult and allegedly caused Junod to lose his balance and fall off the platform.

Junod also argued that the platform was not equipped with handrails and a toe-board as required.

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On Sept. 24, 2010, Thomas DeSonia was driving his motorcycle with his girlfriend as his passenger. DeSonia was traveling about 40 mph northbound on Route 53 in Wilmington, Ill., when the southbound car driven by defendant Bernard Wall attempted a left turn in front of DeSonia. The motorcycle and the car collided. Wall was turning into a driveway so he could turn around and head back north. Because he had forgotten to purchase something while shopping at the store, he wanted to return there and thus the reason for the left turn.

Wall reportedly apologized to DeSonia at the scene.DeSonia alleged that the impact caused him to fall onto his back and slide about 35 feet on the pavement causing road rash, a laceration to his right hand that required 4 stitches to close and chronic back pain from his sacroiliac joint and L5-S1 nerves. DeSonia was treated with 3 epidural steroid injections, physical therapy, medicine and ongoing treatment. The issue of DeSonia’s permanent medical condition was barred due to the non-disclosure of his medical bills. Only a portion of his total medical bills were admitted and considered by the jury. DeSonia lost six months of work as a truck driver.

Wall said he did not see the motorcycle until the last moment because it was following too closely behind another car. 

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The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 3.9 million sports-related and recreation-related concussions occur in the United States each year. Most of the reported sports-related concussions occur in high school football. Continuing to play a sport with a concussion or symptoms of a head injury makes the young athlete extremely vulnerable to much more serious injury and even death.

Too often, athletes whose competitive spirit drives them to continue participating even after what amounts to a concussion, return to playing. If in fact the athlete has suffered a concussion, returning to play increases the risks of serious injury or death many times. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 7.6 million students participated in high school sports in 2009-2010.  Of those, 1.1 million were playing football.  Those participants in football had nearly twice as many athletes participating as the second most popular sport, track and field. Softball ranked third with 540,000 student-athletes nationwide.

Concussions are common in sports. The student athlete and coach may not understand the consequences resulting from concussions sustained during sports play.It has been estimated that 300,000 sport-related concussions occur in the United States yearly. Forty-one percent of the concussions sustained by athletes occurred while playing football, while 22 percent resulted from girls’ soccer. Incidents of concussions are on the rise. Because of that obvious statistic, Illinois has enacted regulations emphasizing the dangers of concussions and the ramifications of non-treatment. 

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On June 27, 2009, Michael Gibson was a back-seat passenger in a car that was rear-ended by defendant Louise Damen at LaGrange Road (Route 45) and Interstate 80 in Will County, Ill.  Gibson, 18, maintained that the impact caused his left knee to hit the console inside the car, tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament. Gibson also claimed a torn right rotator cuff in his right shoulder and neck injuries.  He underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and later an interior cruciate ligament graft reconstruction/repair surgery, and is at increased risk of future injury to the knee.

Two other persons in the Gibson vehicle were injured and also sued but took a non-suit on the day of trial.

The defendant Damen,  64, argued that Gibson did not seek treatment until two days after the crash. She also said doctors who examined his knee within days of the accident found it to be stable without swelling or any signs of ACL tear. Damen said an MRI taken less than one month post-accident showed an intact ACL, but only a possible meniscus tear.

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Conxall Corp. was the supplier of custom cables and connectors to its customer, Mine Safety Appliances Co. (MSA), the third-party defendant in this case. 

MSA later provided drawings and 3-D (3-dimensional) models to the defendant ICON Systems to enable it to offer a quote and supply the same product.

The plaintiff Conxall contended that the drawings were trade secrets. ICON argued that the drawings and files contained no information that was actually secret or otherwise unknown in the industry. In furtherance of that argument, it maintained that the drawings and models were not needed to create ICON’s product, that ICON’s product was an improvement on Conxall’s product and that MSA had no duty to keep the materials confidential.

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A Los Angeles County jury entered a verdict in favor of the family who died in a fiery crash with a semi-trailer truck on Thanksgiving 2009. 

The Asam family was on its way from California to Oregon to visit relatives for the Thanksgiving weekend.  Kylie Asam, who was 9 at the time, and her 11-year-old brother, Blaine, managed to escape from the family’s SUV after it was hit from behind by the semi-trailer truck on Interstate 210.

Kylie and Blaine unfortunately saw their parents and an older brother get burned alive after the vehicle they were trapped in caught fire. 

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The Bank of New York filed to foreclose on a mortgage owned by the decedent, Ruth Hatch. 

The foreclosure named her heirs as defendants. In December 2003, Jesse Hatch, the son of Ruth Hatch, filed a motion to dismiss. He claimed that he was an heir and that the Bank of New York had failed to obtain personal jurisdiction over him.

In the Jesse Hatch motion, he attached an affidavit stating that he had mailed a copy of the motion to the bank’s attorneys.  Thereafter, the bank contacted Hatch to inform him that a hearing was set for the next month and the bank would move for summary judgment, default judgment of foreclosure and sale and appointment of a foreclosure sales officer. 

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In October 2007, John Walls suffered a work injury at I-Maxx Metalworks Inc. when “a stair stringer and/or perimeter cable protection failed.”

Walls filed suit against I-Maxx, Turner Construction, Frontier Construction and against Waukegan Steel Sales. The lawsuit alleged that Waukegan Steel negligently chose not manage, operate and maintain the work premises in a safe way, failed to inspect, failed to provide a safe workplace or provide proper fall protection.

By the contract with subcontractors, I-Maxx was solely responsible for the “means, method and safety of employees while on the job site.”

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