Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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The Illinois Appellate Court recently examined a landowner’s duty to warn visitors of an open and obvious hazard in Paul T. Swearingen v. Momentive Specialty Chemicals, Inc., No. 11-2088 (December 7, 2011). The personal injury claim examines whether a company and its employees owed a duty to a truck driver to warn him against the danger presented by a low hanging fire extinguisher system.

In March 2010, the plaintiff, Paul Swearingen, was working as a tanker truck driver for Transport Service Co. During the course of his employment, Swearingen delivered a tank of chemicals to a Momentive Specialty Chemicals facility located in Carpentersville, Illinois. After parking his truck in Momentive’s unloading bay, one of the Momentive employees asked Swearingen to open his truck’s dome.

Swearingen reports that he climbed his truck’s ladder to access the dome opening, at which point he noted some low hanging piping located a few feet above the truck’s dome. The piping was bright red and was reportedly part of Momentive’s fire extinguisher system. Swearingen proceeded to climb on top of his tanker, at which point he struck his head on the piping and fell off his truck. Swearingen filed a personal injury lawsuit against Momentive in which he claimed the chemical facility was responsible for his injuries.

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The Illinois Appellate Court reviewed the personal injury lawsuit of Anderson v. Anderson, 2011 Ill.App. (1st) 10034 (Sept. 30, 2011), to determine whether or not the trial judge had correctly ordered a new trial. After reviewing the case facts and the jury’s decision, the appellate court disagreed with the trial judge and reversed his order for a new trial. As a result, the not guilty verdict entered against the two defendants in Anderson stands.

Anderson arose out of a two-vehicle collision between a mini-van driven by defendant Sean Anderson and a vehicle driven by defendant Frank Fratto. The personal injury claim was filed by the six passengers in Anderson’s van at the time of the car accident and was brought against both of the drivers involved in the intersection accident. The personal injury claim alleged that both Anderson and Fratto were at fault for the auto crash and therefore were both responsible for the plaintiffs’ injuries.

However, the Illinois jury found in favor of both defendants and failed to find either at fault for the intersection accident. Rather than letting this verdict stand, the trial judge ruled that the verdict was invalid and granted a new trial. When defending his ruling, the judge stated that “the jury’s finding that neither was negligent given the facts of this case is unreasonable and against the manifest weight of the evidence. The jury had the discretion of apportioning the fault between the two parties, but a wash of liability is not an option when the injured is not an active participant in the cause of the incident.”

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Illinois medical malpractice lawsuits rely on the assumption that a doctor, nurse, or facility violated the appropriate standard of care; therefore, all medical malpractice lawsuits require parties to establish the jury with a concept of what was in fact the acceptable medical standard of care. The jury is then instructed as to how to analyze the medical malpractice case when making decisions regarding the standard of care. Therefore, if a jury were given incorrect instructions on how to evaluate the medical standard of care, then it might affect the jury’s reasoning and eventual verdict.
The Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit of Jane Studt et al. v. Sherman Health Systems, No. 108182 was brought before the Illinois Supreme Court in order to determine whether the Illinois jury was given the incorrect version of Illinois Pattern Jury Instruction 105.01. In an unexpected twist, the Supreme Court held that the jury did receive the wrong jury instruction version, but still upheld the jury’s original verdict.

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A Cook County hospital infection decision by the Illinois Appellate Court clarifies what types of medical records are discoverable. The court ruled in Joseph Zangara and Wayne Dziamara v. Advocate Christ Medical Center, Paul Gordon, et al., Nos. 1-09-1911 and 1-09-1914, that the defendant hospital was required to produce records documenting the number of MRSA infections at the hospital for a three month period.
The Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit involved two consolidated MRSA lawsuits filed against Advocate Christ Medical Center. Joseph Zangara and Zigmund Dziamara were both hospitalized at Christ Medical Center during the same time period in 2005. Both Zangara and Dziamara acquired MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas, during their admissions; however, Zangara survived the infection, while Dziamara did not. Both Zangara and the estate representing Dziamara filed civil lawsuits against Christ Medical Center that accused the Oak Lawn hospital of negligent management regarding its infection control procedures.

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A jury in a Southern Illinois federal district court entered a $95 million jury verdict in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against a retail store and one of its managers by a female employee. Ashley Alford v. Aaron’s Rents, Inc., Richard Moore, et al., 08 cv 00683, included widespread claims of sexual harassment by the store manager and allegations of inaction on behalf of the company itself.

Twenty year-old Ashley Alford worked at Aaron’s, Inc., a nationwide chain that offers rent-to-own appliances and furniture. Alford’s lawsuit claimed that in November 2005 her store manager began calling her degrading pet names, accompanied by inappropriate touching, groping, and pinching. In addition, the store manager, Richard Moore, began giving her gifts, which were accompanied by him stating that he expected some form of sexual acts in return.

After six months of this behavior, Ashley took action by calling the company’s sexual harassment hotline. However, while this did result in the regional supervisor coming to her local store, he failed to take any action against the supervisor. And even worse, the regional supervisor discussed Ashley’s sexual harassment allegations in front of the very supervisor she had filed a complaint against.

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It is one of the first things you learn in driver’s ed and is repeated over and over again to new drivers: always keep your eyes on the road. However, this advice is useful not only for new drivers, but for experienced drivers, too. Take for instance the case of Benton Chapman, a 44 year-old truck driver who took his eyes off the road to adjust his radio and caused a multiple car accident on an Illinois expressway, Estate of Lafi Nofal, M.D., deceased, et al. v. Benton Chapman, Cardinal Transport, et al., 06 L 2263.

Immediately prior to the Illinois car crash, Chapman was driving a tractor-trailer truck along Illinois Interstate 55. Traffic was flowing at a reasonable speed and Mr. Chapman looked away from the road for a minute to adjust his XM Satellite radio. However, when he looked back to the roadway, Chapman discovered that the flow of traffic had slowed significantly and that he was driving way too fast.

Unfortunately, Chapman didn’t even have enough time to brake before crashing into the car immediately in front of him. Dorothy Walsh, that car’s driver, was killed as a result of the rear-end collision. However, Chapman’s truck did not stop there, but continued in its path, striking another vehicle driven by Magdi Hussein, a bobtail trailer, and three other vehicles. The severity of the Cook County highway accident caused the Stevenson Expressway to be closed for five hours.

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A Cook County jury returned a $5.42 million medical malpractice verdict in favor of the family of a woman who had been battling cancer. The Illinois wrongful death lawsuit claimed that the plaintiff’s oncologist negligently prescribed the patient a chemotherapy drug despite its known side effects. The decedent died as a result of the fatal lung damage she developed after taking the chemotherapy drug, at which point her family filed the lawsuit. The decedent was survived by her husband of 35 years and two adult children.
The decedent had been diagnosed with Stage III Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but had been responding well to a chemotherapy program which involved a four different medications. One of those four drugs was Bleomycin, an anti-tumor drug that is typically prescribed in combination with other chemotherapy medications.
Bleomycin is well-known to have the potential for causing severe lung problems. Patients taking the drug are closely monitored for any signs or symptoms of developing lung disease, including discomfort breathing, shortness of breath, wheezing, fever, or chills.

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