Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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On Aug. 17, 2012, 66-year-old Maria Giotta underwent an outpatient CT scan with contrast at the Presence Resurrection Hospital. She began to experience an adverse reaction to the contrast solution during the scan, but the CT technician chose not to recognize or appreciate her dilemma. The CT technician discharged her from his care despite the fact that she was still hot, flushed and dizzy.

Just moments after she left the radiology department she experienced a fainting episode in the hospital hallway and collapsed to the floor landing on her left hand. Giotta sustained displaced proximal phalanx fractures of all four fingers on the left hand, two of which were open fractures requiring emergency open reduction internal fixation and six months of physical therapy. She had expended $32,340 for medical expenses. She continues to have permanent left hand stiffness, pain and limited grip strength.

Her attorneys, Michael S. Fiorentino and Samantha L. Israel, represented her and made a demand before trial of $395,000. Giotta’s attorneys asked the jury in closing argument to return a verdict of $1.6 million. The only offer made by the hospital to settle this case was $75,000.

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A trial judge in Jackson County, Ill., refused to follow the case law found in Stanton v. Rea, 2012 IL App (5th) 110187 when calculating the amount of the hospital’s lien amount. In the case of Alma McVey, who was injured after a waitress dropped a tray of drinks on her foot, the issue was how much Memorial Hospital-Carbondale would receive for its $2,891 medical services bill still unpaid.

McVey settled her personal-injury case against the waitress’s employer for $7,500. Under Stanton, attorney fees and litigation expenses should have been deducted from the settlement before calculating the hospital’s share of the settlement. The judge in the McVey case ruled that McVey’s attorney was entitled to $2,250; the hospital would receive $2,500 and the remaining $2,750 would go to the plaintiff, McVey.

The Illinois Appellate Court for the 5th District reversed that ruling, concluding that “the trial court erred in refusing to follow Stanton and begin calculations after the settlement has been reduced by attorney fees and costs.”

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On May 21, 2015, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed a general rule as a matter of law with respect to suicide. Maria Turcios brought a wrongful death lawsuit based on her husband’s suicide. The lawsuit alleged that it was caused by the defendant’s intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit was filed against DeBruler Company as the agent for Colonial Park Apartments. Her husband was Nelsyn Caceras, who was also known as Ricardo Ortiz. The plaintiff alleged that she and her family had suffered through many efforts by the defendant apartment complex to throw the family out of their apartment stating that the building was being demolished. In fact, the apartment building was torn down.

The Supreme Court reviewed de novo the trial judge’s grant of the defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s wrongful death and survival claims. The Illinois Appellate Court vacated the order and remanded the case. The Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the dismissal order.

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In a confidential arbitration and settlement, Mr. Doe, age 64, suffered severe injuries in a car accident. Doe was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed as having angle closure glaucoma, a condition in which the iris bulges forward to block the eye’s drainage system. Mr. Doe was given drops, a topical steroid, and an antibiotic. For several days, the doctors continued to watch Mr. Doe determining that he was not yet a candidate for eye surgery due to his weakened physical condition caused by the car accident.

About 2 ½ weeks after the car crash, Mr. Doe was discharged with instructions to follow up with an eye clinic in two weeks. However, Mr. Doe’s vision deteriorated, and he was later taken to a hospital emergency room. At that hospital he underwent emergency bilateral iridotomies. A laser iridotomy uses a focused beam of light making a hole on the outer edge or rim of the iris. The opening allows fluid to flow between the front part of the eye and the area behind the iris. The iridotomy is also the procedure used in angle closure glaucoma patients. Despite this intervention, Mr. Doe now has a lack of light perception in his left eye and only the ability to count fingers at four feet in his right eye.

Mr. Doe brought this lawsuit against the ophthalmologist who supervised his care at the hospital claiming the doctor chose not to properly treat the angle closure glaucoma by, among other things, ordering frequent checks of his intraocular pressures, performing timely laser iridotomies, examining him in the days before his discharge from the hospital and arranging for immediate follow-up care. Mr. Doe did not claim any lost income. At an arbitration, Mr. Doe received an award of $3 million for his damages. The attorney representing Mr. Doe was Kevin Donius.

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Kent Higgins inhaled chlorine gas at the Holiday World Amusement Park when the ride he was on malfunctioned. Higgins suffered chronic asthma and reactive airways dysfunction syndrome, or RADS, as a result of the alleged negligence of the defendant, Koch Development, the owner of Holiday World Amusement Park.

Higgins, the plaintiff, hired a causation expert physician, but the doctor was barred. The issue was whether this expert could be substituted with his treating pulmonologist to act as his expert under the guidelines of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

The trial judge barred Higgins’s causation expert. He then offered up his treating pulmonologist to act as his expert on causation. The district court judge found that the treating physician was unqualified to opine on the effect chlorine gas has on the human pulmonary system. The basis of the barring was under the Daubert criteria and methodology, which was found to be too uncertain to determine its reliability.

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Koni Johnson filed suit against two emergency physicians and their employer, Cook County, alleging the doctors were negligent in their treatment of her spinal cord injury. She had gone to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, a/k/a Cook County Hospital a day after she slipped and fell injuring her back.

Johnson alleged that the county violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (42 U.S.C. Section 1395dd) by choosing not to provide appropriate screening and to stabilize her medical condition before discharging her.

Cook County, which owns and operates Stroger Hospital, requested summary judgment based on Sections 6-105 and 6-106 of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act. The defendants argued they had provided appropriate treatment for the condition the emergency room doctors diagnosed, which was muscle spasm and back and buttocks bruises.

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On April 29, 2004, 36-year-old Tamara Greico sprained her ankle during a bowling match. She was diagnosed in the emergency room of a hospital with a severe ankle sprain. She had wrapped it and was given crutches and told to keep her ankle elevated before being referred to an Alton, Ill., clinic.

The physician’s assistant and medical assistant at the clinic testified at the jury trial that they saw Tamara the next day and made a similar diagnosis while also giving her a walking boot, medication and instruction for exercising the ankle. Tamara returned to the clinic on May 5, 2004 complaining of more pain and numbness in her toes. A physician and one of the defendants, Dr. Bruce Vest, testified that he examined her and considered the possibility that she had a deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot, but ruled it out and did not order anticoagulant therapy.

Two days later, Tamara’s employer found her lying on the ground near her car in the office parking lot, lapsing in and out of consciousness. She was taken to the hospital where she complained of breathing problems before going into cardiac arrest.

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Brett L., 12, underwent a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy at a children’s’ hospital. After the procedure, Brett was extubated and transferred to the hospital’s post-anesthesia care unit (PACU).

Over the next 90 minutes, Brett‘s parents noticed that he was snoring. A nurse refused the parents’ request that Brett be repositioned. The parents then sought other help and found a nurse’s aide who turned Brett over to find that he was not breathing at all.

Despite resuscitation efforts, Brett died. He was survived by his parents and two siblings.

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This case was resolved in a confidential settlement. It dealt with an injury to a 50-year-old woman who underwent a hysterectomy performed by an obstetrician. During the surgery, it was revealed that a surgical sponge was missing. The doctor then performed a cystoscopy to examine the woman’s bladder and also repaired the bladder, which had been torn during the hysterectomy.

The obstetrician failed to notice that the woman’s ureters had been sutured closed during the bladder repair. The ureter is the tube that takes urine from the kidneys to the urinary bladder. There are two ureters. Each of the two ureters is attached to a kidney.

The woman suffered damage to both kidneys because of the sutured closed ureters and now suffers from frequent urinary tract infections and urinary stress incontinence.

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Gwendolyn Brown was a 50-year-old woman who had been suffering from back pain. She underwent three epidural steroid injections that were given by a pain specialist, Dr. Dennis Doherty, at the Southeastern Pain Ambulatory Surgery Center. During the third epidural procedure, which was done under conscious sedation, it became difficult for the doctor and assistants to maintain Brown’s airway, and she stopped breathing for periods of times. Dr. Doherty and his nursing assistant continued with the procedure, even though his patient was not breathing from time to time.

Brown was later transferred to a hospital where she was diagnosed as having severe anoxic brain damage, which is the condition that follows a period of time when the brain is not fully or sufficiently oxygenated. Most severely brain damaged patients lose many cognitive and motor functions that include speech, sight, walking and other extremely debilitating deficits. Unfortunately, Brown died six years later. She was survived by her husband and three adult children.

Brown’s husband on behalf of her estate and family sued the surgery center, Dr. Doherty and his employer for medical negligence alleging failure to timely respond to an emergency situation during the epidural procedure — that period of time when Brown was unable to breath. The lawsuit alleged that the defendants should have turned Brown over from the prone position, provided a bag mask and started CPR in light of her critical oxygen status.

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