Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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A Minnesota jury has signed a $28 million verdict for the injuries suffered by a teenager who is now a quadriplegic after the car in which she was passenger was struck by a school bus. The crash occurred in 2009 when Paige Anderson was just 16 years old.  Another passenger in that car was killed in the crash.

The case was tried to a jury in Itasca County, which assigned 10% of the fault for the crash to the bus driver. The rest of the liability was placed on the driver of the vehicle in which Paige Anderson was seated. The attorney representing her said that both drivers are insured against claims like this, but the insurance coverage is substantially less than this verdict. The attorney representing Paige Anderson was Stephanie Ball.

“Awards this large are very rare in greater Minnesota, but this was a unique and heartbreaking case,” Ball stated, adding that the jurors’ verdict “recognizes the tragic injuries suffered by a young woman whose life was just getting started.”

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An Alabama Circuit Court jury signed a verdict in favor of the family of Larry Albritton who was killed in a rollover crash on Oct. 7, 2013.  Albritton was driving a log truck when it overturned. An eyewitness to this incident said the rollover occurred not at a high speed but as though it were happening in slow motion.

The load of logs apparently shifted when the truck rolled over and crashed through the truck’s cabin, killing the driver. The jury determined that the cab guard on this particular truck was defective in design, manufacture and in warnings. This was a truck product liability lawsuit.

The jury also determined that the manufacturer of the cab, Merritt Equipment Co., acted with reckless disregard for the safety of others and in the way it designed the guard, manufactured and provided warnings related to its cab guards and that the cab guard itself did not protect Albritton as it was designed to do. The defendants included Merritt Equipment Co. as well as Pitts Enterprises and Volvo Trucks North America Inc. Pitts and Volvo trucks settled prior to the entry of the verdict. The verdict was entered against Merritt Equipment Co. as the only defendant.

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In this case a man was rendered unconscious after being exposed to toxic fumes in a large container while he was working inside of it.  Fortunately for this worker, he was rescued by the local fire department. His employer, Dana Container, wound up fighting citations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).  The administrative law judge and the Occupational Safety Review Commission upheld OSHA’s actions, and Dana then turned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for review. Because Dana has not provided a compelling reason to overturn the commission’s determination, the petition for review was denied.

Dana operates a truck-tank washing facility near the Stevenson Expressway in Summit, Ill. The tanks cleaned at Dana’s facility are long metallic cylinders used to transport products such as ink and latex. After the tanks were emptied at their destination, truckers then brings them to Dana’s facility for cleaning so that they can haul different products without changes.

Before washing a tank, employees drain any residual product from it.  Then employees insert a mechanical spinner that rotates scrubbers from one end of the tank to the other, simultaneously dousing it with soap or solvent (or both).  Then the tanks are given a final rinse of water and blown dry. Most of the time, this process works fine in cleaning the tanks. When it does not work, employees enter the tank and manually clean out the remaining sludge or residue. Because the tank space is confined and may contain chemicals that are hazardous to health, OSHA has promulgated regulations that require companies to enforce certain safety precautions when their employees enter these “permit-required confined spaces (PRCSs).”  29 C.F.R. ¶1910.146.

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Ignacio Maravilla was working as a laborer during a River North construction project at Wabash Avenue and Superior Street for Holy Name Cathedral on March 27, 2012. He was employed by Benchmark Construction Co.

As a 72-inch precast concrete flat-top slab was being hoisted, one of its imbedded steel lifting loops failed and broke off the slab, which struck Maravilla in the head and face.

The concrete slab with the imbedded loop inserts was designed and manufactured by the defendant Welch Brothers Inc. This lawsuit was for the injuries suffered by Maravilla because of the product defect of the concrete slab hoisting device.

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In 1993, the Luther Village Owners Corp. contacted Ken Bruce to see if he was interested in running a salon in their neighborhood. Bruce took ownership of the salon in 1994 and in 1996 formed Creative Designers, a corporation, which would run the salon. Bruce was president and operator of the salon.

Creative Designers employed all of the hairstylists who worked at the salon as independent contractors on one-year contracts. One of the stylists was the plaintiff, Ghada Hanna, who was hired in 2008.

The salon where Hanna worked was renovated by Luther Village in 2008. A series of “flip-top countertops” were installed, which could be tilted and locked into an upright position to allow increased reach and then be lowered again for counter space. Maintenance and modifications to the salon fixtures, including the countertops, was carried out by Luther Village.

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Individual NFL retired players will receive up to $5 million of the $1 billion settlement that was reached with the NFL (National Football League). The NFL has recognized that current and former players are exposed regularly to different forms of brain concussions. Some of these injuries lead to neurocognitive or neuromuscular symptoms. The NFL brand of football is increasingly fast, including extremely talented and bigger players. All participants are subjected to serious injuries, including brain injuries.

The player lawsuits originally accused the NFL of hiding what it knew about the link between concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease found in dozens of former NFL players after their deaths. The settlement avoids the need for a trial and means the NFL may never have to disclose what it knew and when about the risks and treatment of repeated concussions.

The settlement covers more than 20,000 retired NFL players for the next 65 years. The league estimates that 6,000 former players, or nearly 3 in 10, could develop Alzheimer’s disease or moderate dementia. Continue reading

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Christopher Ramirez, 22, was painting an interior wall of a building where he worked as a handyman. He was standing on the 9th rung of a 14-foot ladder. The ladder shook, slid and then collapsed causing him to fall. He suffered a fracture to his left elbow and bimalleolar fractures to his right ankle.

Ramirez underwent surgery, open reduction internal fixation of the ankle fracture. Two years later, Ramirez underwent decompression surgery to release and reposition the compressed ulnar nerve in his elbow.

Ramirez continues to suffer pain, numbness and a reduced range of motion in his ankle. He walks with a limp. Ramirez will likely require surgery to address the neuropathy of the ankle’s peroneal nerve.

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The American Trucking Association is the largest trade association for the truck industry and is the lobbying arm of trucking businesses and companies. It is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry.

The American Trucking Association is pledging to seek passage of a new federal law when the Republicans control both the White House and Congress. This association has tried to block state laws that require additional rest breaks for truckers beyond what the federal rules require.

In other words, the American Truck Association is pushing hard to undo safety transportation regulations.

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Doris Neumann sued multiple companies, including MW Custom Papers LLC, a manufacturer of friction tape containing high levels of asbestos. In her lawsuit, she claimed she developed mesothelioma caused by her son’s clothing as a gas station attendant. He used a friction tape and wound up bringing stray asbestos fibers home, causing her to suffer secondary, or “take-home,” mesothelioma.

In the lawsuit, she claimed that MW Custom Papers knew or should have known the dangers of asbestos and should have warned users and families of take-home asbestos. MW Custom Papers moved to dismiss, asserting that take-home mesothelioma was not reasonably foreseeable under the Illinois Supreme Court rule found in the decision Simpkins v. CSX Transportation, Inc., 2012 IL 110662, 965 N.E.2d 1092 (Ill. 2012) and that MW could never know who the users and family members were and thus could not possibly warn them of the dangers of asbestos.

The motion was granted by the U.S. District Court judge in Chicago: The court concluded that it could not assess whether the injury was foreseeable and remanded the case so that the plaintiff could amend the complaint. Ultimately, the Illinois Supreme Court did not undertake the four-factor analysis and did not address whether a duty could exist as a matter of public policy, as the [5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] has held.

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Harvey Chernikoff, who had intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, lived with his parents and took a bus to his workshop job on a paratransit bus operated by First Transit Inc.  To safeguard passengers with disabilities from choking, the bus company’s rules prohibit passengers from eating or drinking.

However, one day, Chernikoff was eating on the bus and began choking. He was the only passenger on the bus and was seated right behind the driver. He was unable to speak with his airway obstructed, so he reached for help. More than three minutes passed before the driver noticed Chernikoff slumped in the aisle, unconscious. The bus driver, who was not trained in CPR, the Heimlich maneuver or other basic first-aid measures, called his dispatcher, which called 911.

Because of traffic, more than 8 minutes passed before an emergency medical team arrived. By that time, Chernikoff had died. He is survived by his parents and one adult brother.

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