Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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An Illinois family was decimated by the wrongful death of a 27 year old woman, April Simmons, who was eight months pregnant when the vehicle driven by John Homatas ran head-on into her SUV near South Elgin, Illinois. The Illinois wrongful death lawsuit claimed that the West Chicago strip club, Diamonds Gentlemen’s Club, owned and operated by On Stage Productions, Inc., was negligent when its employees assisted an apparently drunk patron, John Homatas, and his friend into Homatas’s car, Simmons v. Homatas, 236 Ill.2d 459, 925 N.E.2d 1089 (Ill. 2010), and thus was liable for the Illinois car and SUV accident.

The Illinois wrongful death case revolved around the fact that the drunk driver and another man had gotten drunk at the club and were ejected by bouncers. Homatas was seen in the club’s men’s room vomiting. The employees then escorted Homatas and John Chiarello out of the club. The Illinois car crash with woman’s vehicle occurred only fifteen minutes after Homatas left Diamonds. Chiarello was also killed.

The strip club does not serve liquor, but patrons were allowed to bring their own. Because of that fact, Diamonds argued it was not responsible for Homatas’ bad acts. In fact the Illinois wrongful death case had been argued in the circuit court on Diamonds’ motion to dismiss. The motion was denied and an appeal was taken. The review went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled that the club did make itself accountable for Homatas. The facts were that the bouncers had instructed the valet service to bring around Homatas’ car to the front and left it running for him.

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The Illinois Appellate Court recently reviewed questions of insurance policy limits regarding an Illinois trucking accident. The Illinois truck crash involved a truck and three semi trucks who were all employed by the same company, Wayne Wilkens Trucking. The issue in Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Munroe, 7th Cir., No. 09-3427, was whether the relevant accident constituted one single claim or whether it was three separate claims.

The three tractor-trailers were driving in a convoy format, heading northbound on an Illinois highway. At the time of the truck accident the individual driver, Joshua Monroe, was driving southbound in opposing lanes of traffic. The second truck in the convoy was trying to pass the first truck, but veered back into line when he saw Monroe headed towards him. However, the driver of truck two did not do so fast enough and Monroe’s tractor-trailer hit the back of the second vehicle, which in turn caused Monroe to spin into truck three.

As a result of the Illinois truck crash, Monroe sustained severe burns and several broken bones. His claim against the three trucks’ employer, Wayne Wilkens Trucking, alleged that his injuries were the result of three separate acts of negligence on behalf of Wilken’s employees. It alleged that driver two negligently attempted to pass another vehicle when it was unsafe, that driver one failed to yield to the driver two, and that driver three was tailgating driver three. Monroe’s claim further alleged that because there were three separate acts of negligence that there should also be three different claims.

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Like most extras working on Hollywood movie sets, Gabriela Cedillo most likely was required to sign a waiver prior to working on the set of Transformers 3. However, even if she had signed a waiver, Paramount Pictures, the production company producing Transformers 3, could be held liable for her severe injury while working as an extra on set. The Chicago personal injury lawsuit was filed in Cook County earlier this month, Adolfo Romo, etc. v. Paramount Pictures, et al., No. 10 L 11309.

On the date of her personal injury, Cedillo was participating in a scene with over 75 other extras. She was driving her car in the opposite lane of a flatbed truck hauling multiple cars. The scene involved a stunt wherein two of the towed cars would rise in the air and then flip, all while being pulled at over 50 mph. The scene was made possible by the use of a pulling cable.

However, on the date of injury the cable and bracket broke loose, whipping various parts into the oncoming lanes where the extras were driving. A large piece of iron struck the roof of Cedillo’s car, resulting in her severe personal injuries, including loss of vision in her left eye, permanent left sided paralysis, a brain herniation, and abdominal injuries.

Cedillo spent over a month in Loyola University Medical Center’s intensive care unit and remains in a rehabilitation facility for further treatment. Several surgeries later, she is still unable to speak and is being fed through a tube in her stomach.

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The American Association of Justice (AAJ) is an organization dedicated to supporting plaintiff trial lawyers. From September 23, 2010 through September 26, 2010, the AAJ hosted a case workshop for trial lawyers in Baltimore, MD. Chicago personal injury attorney Robert Kreisman of Kreisman Law Offices was selected as a faculty member for the Baltimore workshop.

The workshop focused on working up specific cases for trial. Trial lawyers in attendance were encouraged to bring their real cases for pending trials so that they could be fine-tuned by their peers. Along with other trial lawyers and trial consultants, lawyers from around the country brought their own cases to be tested, analyzed and sequenced for upcoming trials.

This legal education program has been a regular of the AAJ for many years. The program schedule began each day with morning presentations made by experienced trial lawyers and trial consultants who shared their vast knowledge on a range of topics. The afternoons then involved various workshops where small groups of three to four attorneys focused on specific cases and topics.

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The Illinois Appellate Court recently reviewed a trial court’s summary judgment ruling in an Illinois auto accident case. The trial court had granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment under the Dead Man’s Act following the death of Edward Henry, one of the defendants. However, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed the lower court’s decision and remanded the Illinois personal injury claim back to the trial court. Ladys Balma and Linda Gallup v. Edward Henry and Cynthia Grosvenor, No. 2-09-1301.

The Illinois Code of Civil Procedure has an act called The Dead Man’s Act (735 ILCS 5/8‑201). In Balma, the defendant Edward Henry died before the case came up for trial. Henry’s estate and the other defendant, Cynthia Grosvenor, brought a motion for summary judgment, citing the Dead Man’s Act as grounds for the Illinois personal injury case‘s dismissal.

Under the Dead Man’s Act, “no adverse party or person directly interested in the action shall be allowed to testify on his or her own behalf to any conversation with the deceased . . . or to any event which took place in the presence of the deceased.” Therefore, the defendants in Balma argued that because the decedent’s evidence deposition had not been taken that there was no testimony that could be used in his defense at trial. The trial court agreed and therefore granted the motion for summary judgment, which in essence dismissed the Illinois auto accident case.

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An Illinois chemical plant is denying allegations that toxins it dumped into the groundwater in the 1960s and 1970s is linked to a cancer cluster. Rohm & Haas Chemical Co. insists that the several brain cancer cases occurring among current or former residents near their Illinois plant are an unfortunate coincidence. However, the numerous plaintiffs, some with wrongful death claims, in Branham v. Rohm & Haas Co. disagree. The case is set for trial in Philadelphia and is anticipated to be an eight to 10 week trial.

In addition to the negligence claims against the Illinois plant, the plaintiffs have also accused the company of fraud and covering up the potential dangers of their dumping practices. The lawsuit involves an eight-acre sludge pond located about 50 miles northwest of Chicago that was the dumping site of the plant’s chemicals. The sludge pond was constructed without any liner to prevent these chemicals from leaking into the groundwater. Nearby residents used well water, or groundwater, on a daily basis for everything from drinking to showering and cleaning.

According to the plaintiff’s lawsuit, the toxins in the contaminated water eventually broke down into vinyl chloride, a carcinogen, which was then released into the air whenever the contaminated water was used. While over 30 plaintiffs have individual claims filed against Rohm & Haas, each relies on the same theory of negligence – that their cancers were caused by exposure to groundwater that was contaminated by toxins dumped by the chemical plant into the unlined sludge pond.

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The most recent in a round of settlements reached following a 2005 Metra train derailment have resulted in $1.45 million to Catherine Kozi-O’Donnell, a woman who sustained injuries in the Illinois train accident. The Joliet resident’s leg was badly broken during the train accident and required knee replacement surgery.

Earlier this summer Metra reached a $2 million settlement with a man who suffered hip, shoulder, and leg injuries following the Illinois train derailment. In addition, the surviving families of two passengers who were killed as a result of the 2005 train accident, Jane Cuthbert and Allison Walsh, settled their claims with Metra for $11 million.

The 2005 Illinois train accident resulted in the death of the two women and 117 injured passengers. In Illinois, whenever there are large numbers of plaintiffs filing personal injury lawsuits against one similar entity, typically their claims are broken up into manageable groups. While these groups might initially all be treated as one entity in order to aid the discovery process, eventually they are placed on different litigation schedules. This schedule allows the defendant to stagger their response to the different individual lawsuits. Not only does this help the defendant, but it also helps the plaintiff by insuring that each’s case receives equal attention.

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The Illinois Supreme Court evaluated a Chicago personal injury case involving a slip in fall accident on a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) platform. The issue in the case was whether the CTA, as a common carrier, owed a duty to protect its passengers from a natural accumulation of ice on its outdoor platforms. Krywin v. Chicago Transit Authority, No. 108888.

Under Illinois law the CTA is recognized as a common carrier, which is any person or company that is engaged in the business of transporting goods or people. Illinois case law has long established that a common carrier “must use the highest degree of care which is practicable in order to provide passengers with a safe passage from its trains”. In Krywin, the plaintiff’s personal injury complaint maintained that the CTA’s negligence led to her slipping on an icy platform and fracturing her left leg.

The Chicago train company responded by stating that it owed no duty to the plaintiff under the natural accumulation rule. This rule states that a property owner does not have a duty to remove snow, ice, or water that has naturally accumulated on the owned property. The natural accumulation rule typically applies to landowners and has generally not been extended to include common carriers.

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A New Hampshire jury awarded the state’s highest product liability verdict ever when it awarded Karen Bartlett $21 million for the injuries she incurred as a result of taking Sulindac, an anti-inflammatory prescription drug manufactured by Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. The jury found the drug company liable for Bartlett’s injuries based on the concept that it should have known that the drug was unreasonably dangerous. Bartlett v. Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., Inc.

Bartlett was initially prescribed Sulindac to treat her shoulder pain. However, quickly after beginning the medication she began to experience skin irritation and a sensation of having “pebbles” in her throat and eyelids. Eventually these symptoms worsened as the drug continued to essentially burn Bartlett from the inside out, leaving her with burns to over 65% of her body. In addition, Bartlett was left legally blind despite undergoing 12 eye surgeries. Bartlett was eventually diagnosed with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN).

The main legal issue in the pharmaceutical liability case was whether or not the drug, Sulindac, was unreasonably dangerous and whether the pharmaceutical company should have known that it was dangerous. At the trial the plaintiff’s attorney presented evidence demonstrating that Sulindac has been linked with incidents of SJS/TEN. Furthermore, plaintiff demonstrated that the occurrences of SJS/TEN among consumers taking Sulindac was higher than any other anti-inflammatory medication on the market.

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An Illinois Appellate Court recently ruled on spoliation issues in an Illinois product liability lawsuit. A spoliation claim can be brought if an entity, in this case Enterprise Leasing Company of Chicago, destroys or loses evidence that would be an important component of a potential lawsuit. Generally the court preserves an entity’s duty to preserve evidence; however, the trial court in Esther Brobbey, et al. v. Enterprise Leasing Company of Chicago, No. 1-08-3474, dismissed a spoliation claim against the car rental company.

When renting a 2003 Chevrolet Astro van from Enterprise, John Brobbey noted that the vehicle jerked and wobbled upon application of the brakes. He advised the agent of his findings before driving off with the vehicle and was told that the brakes were fine. However, two days later the brakes failed while Brobbey’s wife was driving the van, causing her to lose control. The vehicle rolled over several times and ended up landing in a ditch.

A little over a year after the Illinois auto accident, General Motors had issued a recall of its 2003 Chevrolet Astro vans regarding a suspension defect that could result in loss of control of the vehicle. Typically in an Illinois product liability case when a product defect is the potential cause of a party’s injuries the plaintiff needs to demonstrate that the specific product in question is defective. This is typically done by performing a thorough inspection of the product, which in this instance would be the Astro van. However, by the time the plaintiffs were aware of the recall the Astro van they were driving had already been destroyed, thus giving rise to the spoliation claim against Enterprise.

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