Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Gary, 44, suffered from chronic neck pain. He underwent a cervical injection procedure at a surgical center and was treated by an anesthesiologist. After Gary was placed lying faced down during this procedure, the surgical staff discovered that Gary was not breathing. He was resuscitated and hospitalized. However, Gary died six months later due to complications from hypoxia or a deprivation of oxygen, which undoubtedly occurred while he was undergoing the cervical injection and was not breathing.

Gary had been a railroad worker earning about $90,000 a year and was survived by his wife and two minor children.

Gary’s family filed a lawsuit against the anesthesiologist alleging that the doctor chose not to monitor Gary during the cervical injection procedure and failed to timely respond to the fact that Gary’s vital signs showed signs of hypoxia. It was also maintained that the doctor chose not to intervene before Gary suffered the hypoxic event.

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On Aug. 31, 2010, 58-year-old Romil Pityou went to the Gerstein Eye Institute in Chicago with complaints of pain, redness and decreased vision in his right eye. He was treated by the defendant Melvyn A. Gerstein, M.D., an ophthalmologist. Over the next three weeks, he continued to undergo treatment by Dr. Gerstein. Two days after his last visit to the Gerstein Eye Institute, he went to a hospital emergency room where he was referred to a cornea/retina specialist who diagnosed him with endophthalmitis, which is an infection of the inner eye.

Pityou filed a lawsuit against Gerstein Eye Institute and Dr. Gerstein, maintaining that both were negligent by choosing not to properly treat his corneal infection. Without treatment, the delay caused him to suffer endophthalmitis, blindness of the right eye and a shrunken eyeball. He was fitted with a prosthetic shell.

The defendants contended that their treatment of the corneal ulcer was proper and within the standard of care. The defendants said the plaintiff’s eye corneal infection was not related to the corneal ulcer and that the endophthalmitis was likely caused by bacteria that was introduced to the eye during a prior cataract surgery.

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The U.S. Supreme Court says it will not hear an appeal from Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary, Janssen, which had been penalized $124 million for deceptive marketing of its anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal. The federal district court has entered a ruling that Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. should pay penalties for violating South Carolina law. In 2011, it was found that Janssen had been downplaying the effects of its drug Risperdal by claiming that it was safer than other similar competing medications.

The total penalty of $124 million for deceptive marketing was the largest drug marketing award in state history and largest penalty levied for violations of the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act.

It was claimed that Janssen knew that Risperdal was related to health problems that they hid from doctors. Instead, Janssen publicized studies that it claimed were evidence that the drug lowered incidences of diabetes and weight gain when compared to other similar medicines. Those claims were false.

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Kastriot Sadiku, a 29-year-old student who had used oxycodone, went to a hospital suffering from vomiting and impaired respiration among other symptoms. He was seen by an internist, Dr. Joseph Hederman, who gave Sadiku supplemental oxygen and began to monitor his heart and blood oxygenation.

When Sadiku’s condition worsened, he was attached to a respirator.

About an hour and half later, Dr. Hederman consulted an intensivist, Dr. Steven Bonzino, who diagnosed acute respiratory distress. Dr. Bonzino adjusted Sadiku’s supplemental oxygen.

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Carol Haas was 68 years old when she went to a nearby hospital where she was diagnosed with a myocardial infarction — a heart attack. She underwent an angioplasty performed by a cardiologist, Dr. Kevin Boyle.

Apparently because of some blocked artery or arteries, she underwent an angioplasty, which is a method used to open up clogged or blocked arteries. This procedure is performed by a cardiologist who threads a thin tube through a blood vessel in the arm or groin up to the involved site in the artery. The tube has a tiny balloon on the end. When the tube is in place, the doctor inflates the balloon to push the plaque outward against the wall of the artery. This widens the artery and restores blood flow. During that procedure, Haas developed extensive intracoronary thrombi, or clots and other heart damage; she required an emergency coronary bypass.

Haas suffered a cardiogenic shock and was transferred to another hospital so that she could be evaluated for a heart transplant. Unfortunately, she died before the evaluation. Haas was survived by her husband and five adult children.

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John Ficke was 50 years old when he developed a growth on his chest. His treating dermatologist performed a shave biopsy and sent the specimen to Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where a dermatology pathologist, Dr. Asher Rabinowitz, interpreted the growth as noncancerous. However, one year later, Ficke underwent a punch biopsy of the same growth and Dr. Rabinowitz reported this time the presence of desmoplastic melanoma.

Ficke underwent treatment including chemotherapy and radiation. However, the unfortunate part is that the cancer had metastasized and progressed to Stage IV.

Ficke and his wife brought a lawsuit against the Columbia University Hospital and Dr. Rabinowitz claiming a failure to correctly diagnose the melanoma, which the plaintiffs argued was present on the very first biopsy but missed by the defendants. The claim did not include lost income.

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In this Cook County, Ill., medical malpractice and wrongful death case, the hospital, Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services Inc. and Dr. Perry Marshall D.O. have appealed the jury’s verdict in favor of the family of the decedent, Georgia Tagalos.

On July 9, 2006, the plaintiff, Ted Fragogiannis accompanied by his mother, Georgia Tagalos, went to visit a friend in Bourbonnais, Ill. She was a long-time sufferer of asthma. During the ride home, Fragogiannis noticed that his mother began wheezing and gasping for air. She used two different inhalers, but her condition did not improve. She went into respiratory distress. Fragogiannis called 911 and arranged for an ambulance to meet them on the highway and take his mother to the hospital. According to the paramedics’ protocol, Tagalos was taken to St. Francis Hospital, which was the nearest hospital.

Tagalos arrived at the hospital at 1:45 p.m. and at that point she could no longer speak, but she was still responsive. Dr. Marshall was the emergency room’s attending physician. He was summoned by the nurse to address what had become a respiratory emergency. Dr. Marshall was at Tagalos’s bedside within minutes, but the parties disagreed about how many minutes elapsed. Dr. Marshall instructed a fourth year emergency room resident physician to see Ms. Tagalos and indicated that she might need to be intubated. The fourth year emergency resident, Dr. Julie Mills, assessed the patient and determined that an emergency intubation was required. At 1:56 p.m., 11 minutes after arriving at the hospital and while Dr. Mills was preparing for intubation, Tagalos became unresponsive.

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Jennifer Lee, 17, was injured during a physical education class at her Naperville North High School. Section 13-211 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedures states that when a minor is injured by a negligent act she will get two years from her 18th birthday to sue. However, in this case, Jennifer Lee was 17 when she was injured.

Section 8-101(a) of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act imposes a one-year deadline for negligence claims against public entities. In the Lee case, Section 13-211 and another case, Bertolis v. Community Unit School District No. 7, 283 Ill.App.3d 874 (1996) where the plaintiff sued the school district and the school board a day before her 20th birthday were persuasive.

In the Bertolis case, Jennifer Bertolis was 15 when she was injured at her high school. She relied on Section 13-211 in suing the district and its board the day before her 20th birthday. In the Illinois Appellate Court’s majority opinion, it was stated, “Because the limiting provisions of the Tort Immunity Act are to be strictly construed against public amendments and the public policy of this state has long favored preserving the meritorious claims of minors, we hold the limitation period of Section 13-211 of the code governs this action.”

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A Cook County jury entered a $351,000 jury verdict for 14-year-old Arkadiusz Sztuk who arrived at the emergency room at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill., with complaints of lower left abdominal pain. He was examined and treated by the defendant pediatric emergency room physician, Dr. Jagvir Singh.

In the medical negligence lawsuit filed on his behalf, it was alleged that the defendants, including Advocate Health & Hospital Corp. d/b/a as Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Dr. Singh, were negligent in choosing not to diagnose left-sided testicular torsion, choosing not to perform a testicular examination to rule out torsion and failing to surgically prophylactically fix or fasten the right testicle or the right-sided torsion.

Testicular torsion takes place when a testicle rotates twisting the spermatic cord that brings blood to the scrotum. With the reduced blood flow, the results of the torsion can be very painful and cause swelling. Testicular torsion most commonly occurs to boys between the ages of 12 and 16. In most cases, testicular torsion requires emergency surgery. If treated quickly, the testicle can be saved. However, if the blood flow has been cut off for a long period of time, the testicle may be so badly damaged as to require its removal.

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Darian Wisekal had a pap smear in August 2008. The slide was sent to Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp). A LabCorp technologist errantly interpreted the slide as “negative for intraepithelial lesion and malignancy.” A squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL) is an abnormal growth of cells on the surface of the cervix, commonly referred to as squamous cells. When diagnosed, this condition may lead to cervical cancer but can be diagnosed using a pap smear. Wisekal died of cervical cancer some three years after the errant read of the slides. She was survived by her husband and two daughters.

John Wisekal, Darian’s husband and her personal representative of the estate, filed a medical malpractice and wrongful death case in Florida’s state court. The lawsuit was removed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The Wisekal family claimed that as a result of the misread, Wisekal’s cervical cancer spread and became untreatable. The defendants denied a standard of care failure and also maintained that the disease, cervical cancer, which was the cause of her premature death, was not subject to diagnosis in 2008. The defendants argued that even if the LabCorp cytotechnologist had correctly interpreted the relevant Pap smear as atypical, she would not have presented with cervical cancer.

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