Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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For many years, radiation therapy has been considered one of the standard treatments given for cancer patients with more than half of all cancer patients receiving some type of radiation therapy. And while radiation does help save many lives, it also presents serious risks for patients and may cause life-threatening injuries or result in potential Illinois medical malpractice.

Therefore, when radiation is used, safety rules must be strictly adhered to because sometimes even the most powerful and technicologically complex machines go awry. And while new technology allows doctors to more accurately attack tumors and reduce certain mistakes, its complexity has created new possibiliities for error through software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training. When those errors and medical negligence do occur they can be devastating.

Hospitals and doctors trust computer systems and software to apply radiation in many cancer victims. However, there is no single agency that oversees medical radiation and no central clearing house of cases. Furthermore, radiation accidents are chronically underreported, and some states, including Illinois, radiation accidents are not required to be reported at all.

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Cook County construction workers face dangerous on the job conditions that your typical office employee does not encounter. And even with the best safety measures in place, sometimes construction site accidents happen. But in those situations where proper precautions were not taken by the construction company, there may be cause for a Cook County workers’ compensation claim.

A recent Cook County verdict illustrates such a situation. The case involved a 20 year-old construction worker who sustained a broken femur and a back injury after a fall from a scaffold while working as a construction laborer on a project at a public library in Mt. Prospect, Illinois.

At the time of the Cook County construction site injury, the construction worker was on a scaffold assisting bricklayers when he tripped over plastic wrap that had been placed to protect the construction project during the winter months. The worker tumbled through an opening in the scaffold and fell about 30 feet. In addition to his broken femur, he sustained a herniated disk in his lower back which later required multiple surgeries.

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This past Friday, the Union League Club of Chicago’s Public Affairs Committee presented the Cook County Board Presidential Candidate Forum. The forum was attended by candidates from all parties and was made possible by the Club’s Chicago Area Public Affairs Group and its External Relations subcommittee chair Chicago attorney Robert Kreisman.

The candidates included Cook County Board President Todd Stroger; Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown; Terry O’Brien, the President of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District; Chicago Alderman Toni Preckwinkle; former Illinois State Senator Roger Keats; and Green Party candidate Tom Tresser. In total the candidates included four Democrats, one Republican and one Green Party representative.

The forum was moderated by Andy Shaw, the executive director of Better Government Association and an award-winning Chicago journalist. As someone who spent 35 years covering politics, business, education and day-to-day news at a variety of media centers, Mr. Shaw was more than qualified for the job.

On hand was a variety of local, state and national elected officials as well as a host of press corps. A press conference was held immediately following the discussion and forum.

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Intersections are prime spots for Illinois car accidents. As drivers and pedestrians you should be extra cautious at intersections and crosswalks. A recent Chicago car accident illustrates just how dangerous intersections can be.

On the evening of January 10, 2010, an Illinois driver ran a red light on Chicago’s Southside and struck another vehicle. While the driver was cited for his negligence by the Chicago police, the Chicago car crash left two individuals from the second car in critical condition.

Unlike other areas of the roadway, where drivers are driving in similar directions, at intersections there are many different directions of traffic that converge. For example, in the above Illinois car crash, the driver running the red light struck the other car who was attempting to make a left-hand turn. Presumably when the driver was looking to turn left he was looking to make sure that oncoming traffic was clear and not for any drivers that were potentially disobeying the traffic signals.

While it is always a good idea to be a defensive driver and aware of your surroundings, this is even more important at an intersection. When auto accident victims are interviewed they often say that the other driver came out of nowhere. This could be attributed to the fact that there are so many factors to be aware of in an intersection yet our eyes cannot be looking everywhere at once. Therefore, when a driver comes from an unlikely source, e.g. from running a red light, it might seem that they appeared out of thin air. So please practice extra caution when driving or walking in intersections and make sure to always obey all signals and rules of the road in order to avoid potentially deadly Illinois auto accidents.

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The Illinois Supreme Court recently clarified the scope of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act in its decision in the pharmaceutical litigation case of De Bouse v. Bayer AG, et al., No. 107528. The Supreme Court ruled that a consumer could not bring an action claiming fraud under the Act if the consumer had not received deceptive information indirectly or directly from the defendant drug manufacturer.

In De Bouse, the plaintiff was claiming economic damages against Bayer AG, the manufacturer of the drug Baycol. The plaintiff had purchased and taken Baycol on three occasions prior to the drugs withdrawal from the market for its potential harmful side effects. It is important to note that the plaintiff was not alleging any damages due to the drug’s side effects.

The plaintiff’s case was brought under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Businesses Practices Act along with several other class action plaintiffs. The claim alleged that the plaintiff was harmed by the Bayer’s concealment of Baycol’s negative side effects because the drug manufacturer was able to inflate prices for Baycol as a result of its deceptive omissions regarding the drug’s potential side effects.

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Oftentimes cancer medical negligence cases in Illinois hinge on a failure to diagnose cancer in a timely manner. However, a recent Chicago wrongful death settlement deals with a different type of medical negligence surrounding a cancer patient’s treatment. In this case a woman with endometrial cancer died as a result of a perforated bowel, which her estate claimed was the result of her receiving 50 percent more radiation than was necessary.

Decedent Patricia Quirk was diagnosed with stage three endometrial cancer and received all of her radiation treatments at Chicago’s Little Company of Mary Hospital. While the first third of her radiation treatments were appropriate, it was the last two-thirds of her radiation treatment that resulted in the Chicago hospital’s medical negligence. In essence, the decedent was ‘over-radiated’, receiving two times as much radiation at each treatment than was necessary and safe.

Even radiation given in appropriate amounts comes with some negative side effects, including nausea, fatigue/malaise, and hair loss. Yet when given in overwhelmingly large amounts, radiation can have disastrous effects on one’s body, as the decedent’s case unfortunately illustrates. The large doses of radiation eventually caused decedent’s bowel to perforate, or tear, which resulted in a blood infection and her eventual death.

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Common sense tells us that anytime a car accident involves a pedestrian that the results are not going to be good. Pedestrians are no match for the steel and speed of a moving vehicle. However, with immediate medical attention a fatal outcome may be averted. Unfortunately, a west-side Chicago woman was not offered this chance; she was a victim of a hit and run.

Late this evening an 82 year-old woman in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood was walking across the street when she was struck by a car. The motorist not only failed to report the Illinois automobile accident, but also fled the scene. Police were able to apprehend the driver thanks to eyewitness reports.

The automobile driver has been charged with failure to report an accident involving death and for leaving the scene of an accident involving an injury or death. The individual was also cited for operating his motor vehicle without insurance and failure to give the right of way to a pedestrian.

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Kreisman Law Offices is proud to announce that its founder, Chicago attorney Robert Kreisman, has been included in the 2010 Illinois Super Lawyers list.

According to the publishers of Illinois Super Lawyers 2010, there is a three-step process for deciding whether or not a candidate makes the cut. First, candidates must be nominated by their peers or hand-selected by Super Lawyers to even be considered for distinction.

After a candidate pool is created, the Super Lawyers department reviews each individual candidate based on a wide range of criteria, including professional achievement, honors and awards, pro bono/ community service, and other outstanding achievements.

The final step is a review of those candidates by peers, other Illinois attorneys, in the same or similar area of practice. This three step process acts to produce a “well-rounded list of attorneys”, with only 5% of the lawyers in Illinois meeting this rigorous criteria.

Robert Kreisman of Kreisman Law Offices is honored to have made the cut and be recognized for his achievements and success in obtaining favorable outcomes for his clients.

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After a long and complicated battle, a major victory for class action and product defect lawsuits was noted in the case of Carideo v. Dell, Inc. In light of new events, the United States District Court Judge found that the computer company’s mandatory arbitration clause and class action ban was “unenforceable”.

Citing product liability claims, Carideo alleged that Dell manufactured and marketed laptops priced between $1,300 and $1,700 that were defectively designed and manufactured. Upon the filing of Carideo, Dell moved to compel arbitration based on its mandatory arbitration clause. Under this clause, the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) was assigned as the arbitrator and class actions were banned. Furthermore, Dell’s forum consumer contract also has a Texas choice of law provision. In June 2007, at Dell’s urging, Texas law was applied to Carideo, which resulted in arbitration being ordered by the court.

However, the following year another case involving similar facts, McKee v. AT&T, the Washington Supreme Court struck down AT&T’s class action ban and held that the phone company’s new choice of law provision was unenforceable. Shortly after the McKee decision, Minnesota’s Attorney General sued NAF, which prompted the company to announce it would no longer be arbitrating consumer disputes. And because NAF was the mandatory arbitrator assigned to all of Dell’s cases, Carideo’s decision was reevaluated by the original judge.

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The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed a Cook County medical malpractice jury verdict in favor of the defendant doctors regarding the death of an orthopedic surgeon from an allegedly misdiagnosed malignant nasal polyp. The plaintiff’s appeal had focused on alleged violations of the Dead Man’s Act. Agins v. Otolaryngology Group, Ltd., et al., No. 1-08-3207.

The facts of the case begin when the decedent presented to an otolaryngologist complaining of a severe nose bleed for six days straight. On examination, it was found that the decedent had a 5-millimeter opening to the airway on the right side with severe scarring and a polyp on the anterior part of his right nose. The bleeding was stopped by the doctor through cauterization and the decedent was advised to get a CT scan and referred to another doctor with more expertise.

The decedent continue to follow up with the same physician group over the next few months. Then about five months later the decedent followed up with yet another physician who diagnosed the polyp as neuroblastoma cancer. While the polyp was removed, the decedent died from the cancer two years later.

In the Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit brought by the decedent’s widow, it was claimed that the otolaryngology group that the decedent saw several times during the summer of 2000 and who had cauterized the decedent’s nose bleed but did not otherwise evaluate or treat the decedent’s condition, which in turn led to the failure to diagnose the cancer. However, the defendant doctor claimed that he never saw the decedent in his office.

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