Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Elaine Shafran was stopped at a stop sign on Portwine Road and Orange Brace Road, in Riverwoods, Ill., when northbound defendant, Atsuko Alvarez, rear-ended a minivan behind the plaintiff, pushing the van into plaintiff’s station wagon.  The plaintiff, a 56-year-old special education teacher, alleged that the impact caused aggravation of a pre-existing arthritis in her lumbar spine.  She said she incurred medical bills of $18,000.

The defendant denied that Shafran was injured in the accident at all. She said that plaintiff waited until 9 days after the crash to get medical treatment. She first went to a chiropractor 15 months after the crash. The plaintiff, Shafran, was involved in 3 later accidents; in all of them, she was not at fault. Shafran testified that she had experienced low back pain since she delivered her first child in 1982.

During trial, the plaintiff’s medical testimony came from her internist and her chiropractor. On the defense side, the defendant hired an orthopedic surgeon to testify as to the damage feature of the case. 

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A $5 million jury verdict was handed down in the first of the federal multidistrict litigation cases involving patients claiming injury from the body scan contrast agent gadolinium. The Ohio jury found GE Healthcare chose not to provide the necessary health risk warnings with patients with impaired kidney function when gadolinium is used in a body scan. The gadolinium product is a contrast dye used in MRI and other radiographic scanning.

The plaintiff in this case developed an untreatable skin disease called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) as a result of being injected with the Omniscan for magnetic resonance angiogram. Omniscan is the prescription medication with gadolinium as a product that is used to screen patients for acute kidney injury or other conditions related to reduced renal function.

The drug makers of the Omniscan product, GE Healthcare, Bayer and Covidien have defended hundreds of lawsuits claiming injuries from the gadolinium-based contrast agent products. 

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A flatbed tractor-trailer driver was assigned to load and deliver 7,000-pound concrete barriers. The barriers were being loaded into rows onto the driver’s trailer. The truck driver was standing next to his trailer strapping down the first row of barriers when a crane operator was loading the second row. 

As the crane operator was moving a barrier, it struck another one in the truck causing it to fall onto the driver. He suffered a traumatic, below-the-knee amputation of his left leg.

The driver, age 44, underwent several surgeries resulting in an above-the-knee amputation of the leg. He has been working with prosthesis, but continues to undergo revisions and adjustments. His past medical expenses totaled $283,700. He has not been able to return to work. The trucker faces very limited prospects for long-term employment because of his limited formal education. He is undergoing retraining for a different line of work compatible with his training.

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The Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments in a car accident case regarding a lawsuit brought against a deceased motorist. Two years after a 2008 car crash, the plaintiff, Sandra Relf, filed a personal injury lawsuit against a motorist she believed was negligent in causing her injuries.

The issue in this case was that the defendant, the man that Relf sued, had died three months after the car crash. Under Illinois law, there is a procedure for the event of the death of a plaintiff or defendant during the course of the legal process. In this case, the trial court ruled in favor of the defendant, finding that Relf had not properly sued the correct party, the estate of the decedent. But on appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court First District overturned that order.

On review by the Illinois Supreme Court, the plaintiff contended that she was unaware that the defendant, Joseph Grand Pre Jr., had died. Once Relf learned of the death of Pre, she amended the complaint and named an employee of the plaintiff’s lawyer’s staff as the special administrator of the Pre estate. However, as a matter of fact, Pre’s family had opened a probate estate months before Relf filed the original lawsuit. The defendant argued that Relf should have known by a simple on-line search of the Cook County court system that the defendant, Pre, had died and opened up a probate estate.

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On Dec. 19, 2010, 38-year-old Paul Romano was driving southbound on Pulaski Street in the City of Chicago when the defendant, Kathleen Suchan, driving eastbound on 87th Street, went through a red light and crashed into the plaintiff’s vehicle. Romano was not treated by paramedics and did not go to the hospital after the crash. However, he went to a chiropractor three days after the incident with complaints of lower back pain in his legs. 

Romano contended that the collision caused a tear in his lower back, which was diagnosed by MRI three weeks after the occurrence. The MRI also showed a moderate degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine. 

The plaintiff was treated with 20 visits at a chiropractor and saw an orthopedic surgeon four times. He had not undergone any treatment for the condition since August 2011. Plaintiff had been hired to start a new job as a personal trainer just before the incident, but was unable to start the job because of his injuries.

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On May 8, 2010, James Choragwicki was driving southeast on Willow Springs Road in Willow Springs, Ill., when the defendant, Marek Szkodon, was traveling southwest in his car on Archer Avenue and went through a red light. This resulted in a T-bone collision with the front of the plaintiff’s vehicle striking the passenger side of the defendant’s vehicle.

The plaintiff, age 52, claimed the crash caused cervical strain and aggravation of his pre-existing lumbar degenerative disc disease. Choragwicki was not treated by paramedics at the scene and did not go to the hospital after the crash. He first sought medical treatment three days later when he went to his primary care physician complaining of neck, back and left wrist pain.  Physical therapy was prescribed by his doctor. 

Plaintiff began experiencing radiating low back pain into his right leg for the first time several weeks after the crash. He did have  pre-existing degenerative disc disease, which was without symptoms prior to the accident. Plaintiff underwent 4 months of physical therapy, receiving one epidural injection into his lumbar spine in December 2010 and made a full recovery by January 2011 with no complaints since that time. Plaintiff missed 4 ½ weeks of work as a UPS truck driver. 

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A meeting of Illinois U.S. Senators Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk was held on May 29, 2013 at the Union League Club of Chicago. After the meeting with the nominee for the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Zachary Fardon, the senators met with local press.A news conference was held. In selecting Mr. Fardon, Senators Durbin and Kirk emphasized the importance of forceable prosecution of gun and gang violence in Chicago.  It was said several times at the news conference that guns, gangs and drugs are the source of repeated violence that has afflicted most of the Chicago area. 

Senator Durbin first summarized the meeting with nominee Mr. Fardon, and Senator Kirk then addressed the press, stating the importance of focusing on gun and gang violence as opposed to emphasizing political corruption. Although both political corruption and gun and gang violence have been in the news in the past, reports of gun deaths are reported daily in Chicago’s major newspapers.

According to Senator Durbin, “Zachary Fardon is a dynamic pick for a U.S. Attorney for the Northern District, and I hope the Senate moves quickly to confirm him.”

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On Dec. 26, 2005, Leobardo Ramirez, age 36, was stopped on eastbound Cermak Road at a red light at Wentworth Avenue in Chinatown. He was rear-ended by the defendant, James Spalla, who contended he was going less than 5 mph at impact. 

Ramirez claimed that he suffered permanent discogenic low back pain (not operated on), with referred pain in his lower extremity. Ramirez claimed to have lost ten months of work as a high school janitor. 

The defendant Spalla, age 33, was a Chicago firefighter who had just gotten off his overnight shift at the Chinatown firehouse located on Cermak just west of where the crash took place.

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In 2003, plaintiff Amy Stanton was a passenger in a car driven by the defendant, Carolyn Rea. Stanton was injured and hospitalized after the car crashed. The driver of the other vehicle in the accident was uninsured. In October 2007 the case proceeded to a jury trial. The trial judge entered a verdict on liability against Rea on the issue of liability. The case was then submitted to the jury on the issue of damages wherein a verdict in the amount of $13,506.80 was entered. The trial judge then entered an added judgment in the amount of $4,501.44 for out-of-pocket expenses related to the bringing of the case through trial. 

The issue on appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, Fifth District, was the adjudication of the health care providers’ liens. There was a total of $5,806.02 in medical liens. At the trial level, the judge applied the Illinois Health Care Services Lien Act (770 ILCS 23/1) as to the adjudication of the medical liens. It required that plaintiff’s counsel reduce attorney fees to 30% of the verdict. The Health Care Services Lien Act maximizes at 40% of the amount of the verdict to the payment of medical liens. This would allow a plaintiff to receive no less than 30% of the judgment or settlement.

The error in the case was that the trial judge, in an attempt to apply the Health Care Services Lien Act, did not consider the out-of-pocket expenses in making the calculation. That resulted in a zero recovery for the plaintiff after paying attorney fees, out-of-pocket expenses and the health care liens. 

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At a Breakfast @ 65 forum held May 15, 2013, panelists David Hoffman, former Inspector General, Kathleen Petrowsky, Federal Security Director at O’Hare International Airport for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Thomas Durkin, Chicago civil rights attorney and widely known for his commitment to the rule of law, took the podium to discuss safety, security and privacy in light of the April 15, 2013 terrorist attack in Boston.

Panelists discussed protection of the public’s safety and security while still providing for civil liberties under the U.S. Constitution. 

Mr. Hoffman addressed the issue of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution relating to unreasonable search and seizures and the right to remain silent. Mr. Hoffman discussed the advances made in technology that deal with security in all areas, from surveillance by drones to eavesdropping and e-mail monitoring. 

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