Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Daniel Scavetta, who had a history of intravenous drug abuse, began seeing internist Dr. James Agresti. Dr. Agresti prescribed Suboxone. After a colonoscopy revealed multiple polyps, including one that was too large to remove, Scavetta was referred to a colorectal surgeon, Dr. Joel Nizen.

A CT scan showed a 1.9 cm lesion in Scavetta’s liver and an enlarged spleen. This prompted the interpreting radiologist to recommend that Scavetta undergo an MRI of his abdomen. Although Dr. Nizen performed surgery approximately two weeks later, he did not investigate the lesion.

Approximately 13 months later, Scavetta saw blood in his urine. The CT scan and MRI revealed a 4.2 cm liver mass. Scavetta was subsequently diagnosed with having Stage IV hepatocellular carcinoma.
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Doe, age 35, was hospitalized for treatment of pneumonia. Doe’s pneumonia cleared, but follow-up X-rays taken one month later and seven months after that showed a suspicious lesion on her lung. The radiologist interpreting the X-rays chose not to note or record the lesion.

Almost three years later, Ms. Doe underwent a CT scan, which formed the basis of a diagnosis of Stage IV inoperable non-small cell lung cancer.

The lawsuit alleged that the delayed diagnosis of lung cancer reduced Ms. Doe’s chances of survival from 85% to 10% in that the lesion measured 1 cm when first seen but had grown to 3.5 cm by the time she received the diagnosis.
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Eric Smith, 47, had been diagnosed with hypertension and suffered an intracranial hemorrhage at home.
He was assessed at a hospital and then transferred to another hospital for neurosurgical intervention in the event his hemorrhage worsened.

Smith remained stable at the second hospital and, several days later, was moved yet again into a third hospital where he was administered high doses of antihypertensive drugs and diuretics.
Smith’s condition initially improved at the third hospital but then began to deteriorate. This included the development of a dangerously low blood pressure.

Smith then suffered a series of ischemic strokes, which led to quadriparesis and dysphagia. He is now dependent on others for 24-hour-a-day care. Dysphagia is the medical term for swallowing difficulties. Some people with dysphagia have problems swallowing certain foods or liquids, while others cannot swallow at all. Other signs of dysphagia include coughing or choking when eating or drinking.
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When Juanita Norton, 88, fell in her yard, she was taken to the local emergency room. At the hospital, she was diagnosed as having multiple pelvic fractures.

She was admitted to the hospital for pain control and rehabilitation when placed on DVT (deep vein thrombosis) prophylaxis.

During the hospitalization, Norton experienced pain, nausea, vomiting and constipation. Later, she had difficulty breathing. Unfortunately, Norton died three days after her hospital admission.
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Ms. Doe, 41, underwent a laparoscopic hysterectomy that was performed by Dr. Roe, an obstetrician. During the procedure, Dr. Roe discovered that a morcellator was unavailable and that the doctor could not complete the surgery as she had anticipated. A power morcellator is a surgical tool that surgeons use to cut bigger chunks of tissue into smaller ones usually during laparoscopic surgery. Surgeons use this tool mainly in gynecological procedures such as laparoscopic hysterectomy, as in this case.

Dr. Roe then bivalved Ms. Doe’s uterus manually and finished the surgery. Ms. Doe experienced postoperative sepsis and peritonitis.

An exploratory laparotomy revealed that Ms. Doe had a perforated bladder, small intestine, and rectosigmoid colon, as well as an injured urethra. A laparotomy is a surgical procedure with small incisions to the abdominal wall to gain access into the cavity.
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Thomas Lapsley went to a nearby hospital emergency room where doctors ordered a CT scan of his abdomen and pelvis. The scan revealed a lesion on his liver. A follow-up liver CT scan was ordered to rule out metastatic disease. There was nothing in the report as to the symptoms Lapsley might have experienced that prompted him to go to the emergency room.

After the CT scan, a surgeon, Dr. Ben Davis, did an exploratory laparotomy and repaired Lapsley’s gastric ulcer.

Over the next week, as Lapsley was admitted to the hospital, he did not undergo further evaluation of the liver mass and allegedly was not informed of the mass at his discharge. Eighteen months later, another doctor referred him for yet another CT scan. That scan led to a diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic cancer. Sadly, Lapsley died just one month later.
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Mr. Doe, 56, had a history of hypertension and dyslipidemia. He experienced shortness of breath over a three-month period and consulted Dr. Roe’s physician assistant. The physician assistant, who was a named defendant in this case, performed an examination reported as normal. Mr. Doe then underwent an in-office EKG, which showed a normal sinus rhythm.

Mr. Doe was scheduled for a stress test and a follow-up visit approximately one month later. However, before these appointments took place, Mr. Doe suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.

Mr. Doe had worked as a part-time security guard and was survived by his wife and two adult daughters.
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Maria Elena Fernandez, 71, fell and fractured her ankle. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she was met by orthopedist Dr. Charles Jordan who ordered Heparin, a blood thinner, to treat Fernandez’s risk of deep vein thrombosis. The doctor also ordered a compression boot to handle the fractured ankle.

Three days after that hospital admission, Dr. Jordan sent Fernandez to St. Anne’s Nursing Care & Residence with orders that she receive anticoagulants.

Despite this doctor order, Fernandez did not receive the anticoagulant medicine at St. Anne’s Nursing Care.
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Alexis Dameron was held in contempt for refusing to comply with the Circuit Court of Cook County’s discovery order. Under the order, she was required to disclose the report of Dr. David Preston to the defendants Mercy Hospital & Medical Center and several physicians who were defendants in this lawsuit.

Dameron initially disclosed Dr. Preston as an Illinois Supreme Court Rule 213(f)(3) controlled expert witness in her answers to defendants’ interrogatories. She subsequently moved to
redesignate Dr. Preston as a Rule 201(b)(3) consultant and thus shield Dr. Preston’s report, which would otherwise be discoverable under Rule 213(f)(3), along with any other documents from a comparison electromyogram (EMG) and/or nerve conduction study (EMG study) Dr. Preston performed on Dameron.

The plaintiff, Dameron, filed an interlocutory appeal pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 305(b)(5) and the appellate court reversed, holding that Dr. Preston could be redesignated as a Rule 201(b)(3) consultant and that Dameron could shield Dr. Preston’s report and EMG study from discovery. The Illinois Supreme Court allowed the defendants’ petition for leave to appeal.
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In this medical malpractice jury case, a Cook County Circuit Court judge rejected a request by the plaintiff, Jill Bailey. She had requested a non-pattern jury instruction on “loss-of-chance.” The judge’s decision resulted in a reversal of a defense verdict. Bailey alleged that Jill Milton-Hampton died because of a delay in diagnosing her suffering from sepsis or toxic shock syndrome when she twice went to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital in Chicago.

The judge relied on the case of Cetera v. DiFilippo, 404 Ill.App.3d 20 (2020) for the decision to refuse the instruction. The judge was justified in concluding that the long-form version of the pattern jury instruction on proximate causation, Illinois Pattern Jury Instruction (Civil) No. 15.01, adequately explains the loss-of-chance doctrine.

The Illinois Appellate Court for the First District reversed a judgment for the four emergency room physicians and their employer, Emergency Medicine Physicians of Chicago (EMP). They disagreed with Cetera stating that IPI 15.01 “does not distinctly inform the jury about loss-of-chance, i.e., that the jury may consider, as a proximate cause of a patient’s injury, that a defendant’s negligence lessened the effectiveness of the treatment or increased the risk of an unfavorable outcome to a plaintiff.
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