Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

by

A new DNA test has been developed by Qiagen to identify the human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus found to be associated with cervical cancer. Scientists state that this new test is an improvement on current testing methods and might eventually replace the Pap smear test as a way to diagnose HPV.

Early diagnosis is key in fighting all types of cancer, including cervical cancer. In fact, the most common pitfall doctors fall into regarding patients with cancer is failing to diagnose cancer early enough to provide treatment. This new test could reduce the number of missed cervical cancer cases and improve cancer patients’ outcomes.

The optimism around this new DNA test is based on the results of an 8-year study of 130,000 women in Indian that was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, financed by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, revealed that a single screening with the DNA tests met all the same standard as all other methods of early diagnosis of cancer.

Similarly, a study by the University of Chicago reports that a predictive model based on family history of breast or ovarian cancer can aid genetic counselors in diagnosing breast cancer in African women. Development of genetic testing for different ethnicities is important because research shows that genetic mutations vary among racial and ethnic groups.

Continue reading

by

Thousands of Americans across the country, Illinois, and in the Chicago area have suffered life-threatening kidney injuries after taking Fleet Phospho-Soda in preparation of colonoscopies and other surgeries. Fleet Laboratories is the principal manufacturer of Phospho-soda and has been promoting the product without warning of its drug side effects, which can include kidney damage and renal failure.

Studies have revealed that the link between Fleet Phospho-Soda and these side affects could be the result of calcium phosphate tubules that form in a kidney, which can lead to acute renal failure.

As far back as April 2002 a Health Canada advisory first warned the medical community that oral sodium phosphate solutions like Fleet Phospho-Soda can affect heart and kidney function. A later article published by the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2003 warned that this product could result in serious side effects, such as seizures and acute renal failure.

In December 2008 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a patient saftey alert which advised that oral sodium phosphates solutions should be available by prescription only. Immediately following that warning Fleet issued a recall of Phospho-Soda, which had been sold as an over-the-counter medication. In their statement regarding the recall, Fleet advised doctors to no longer directed patients to use this product for bowel cleansing.

Continue reading

by

Medtronic, the maker of Sprint Fidelis, a heart defibrillator cable, has taken its product off the market. But the problem with it still being used by some 150,000 people around Illinois and the country has resulted in several deaths in removing the defective cable.

Medtronic estimates that the cable has failed in a little more than 5% of patients after 45 months of being implanted. But as a preventive measure, some patients with working cables are having them removed.

Already 4 patients have died during extractions. It is feared that the toll could quickly rise if such procedures are not performed by skilled doctors at medical centers that have performed many of these operations.

“I think we are seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Charles J. Love, a cardiologist at who specializes in cable extractions. For many patients around Illinois, the big issue is who is skilled enough to remove these defective heart implants. It is thought that some surgeons removing the cables do not have the required skill level.

Continue reading

by

An Illinois worker was crushed by a tractor-trailer at a loading dock while working for his employer. He collected Illinois workers’ compensation benefits from his employer, Ensign, and then he and his wife sued three companies in strict tort liability. Baltzell v. R&R Trucking Co..

The three defendants were R&R Trucking Company, owner of the tractor-trailer; Freightliner Corp., the tractor manufacturer, and Lufkin Industries, which was the trailer manufacturer. All of the defendants in the Illinois liability case filed third party contribution claims against the employer, Ensign, which means that Ensign could be held liable for the injury, too.

Ensign became involved because the other defendants were acting on the theory of joint and several liability, which states that a defendant who has paid more than its share of damages may seek contribution from other parties. The idea behind joint and several liability is that those parties who are most at fault should pay their share, regardless of whether they had settled prior to the verdict, or if they were not named in the lawsuit.

After a Chicago federal district court jury trial, a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs was entered in the total sum of $13,980,120. The jury apportioned fault as follows: The plaintiff was not at fault; Freightliner was liable for 20% of the fault; Lufkin 10%; R&R 40%; and Ensign 30%. Under this verdict Ensign would be liable for $4,194,036.

However, Ensign attempted to reduce this amount by presenting evidence that its cap as set out according to a precedent set in Kotecki v. Cyclops Welding Corp. was $4,085,571.21 and that it had paid $873,953.31 already under the Illinois worker’s compensation claim. Under Illinois law an employer’s contribution liability is capped to an amount not greater than the employer’s workers’ compensation liability. This value which is generally referred to as the ‘Kotecki cap’ represents the maximum amount that an employer has to pay in contribution.

Ensign moved to waive its workers’ compensation lien seeking dismissal of the third-party contribution claims. The district court denied Ensign’s motion. The district court then reduced the judgment by Ensign’s Kotecki cap of $4,085,471.21 which left $9,894,548 shared by the liability defendants according to their percentages at fault.

Continue reading

by

Two families brought a lawsuit on behalf of oil refinery workers killed in a 1995 fire at the Clark oil refinery in Blue Island, Illinois. Each decedent’s estate received payment from Clark Refining under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act. The current case involves a liability suit the decedents’ widows filed against the parent corporation, Clark USA, Inc., of the subsidiary refining corporation. Forsythe, et al. v. Clark USA, Inc., 224 Ill.2d 274 (2007).

The plaintiffs in Forsythe alleged that cost-cutting by the parent company, Clark USA, resulted in dangerous conditions at the refinery that led to the deaths of the two workers. Specifically that the deep budget cuts resulted in improper training of workers, and that two untrained workers began dismantling a pipe without determining whether it was pressurized caused the explosion that killed their husbands.

When the case was in the trial court, the court granted a motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs appealed this motion at the Illinois appellate court level, and the appellate court reversed and remanded. The defense petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court for leave to appeal the appellate court decision.

The Illinois Supreme Court granted defense’s petition to consider whether a parent company can be held liable under a theory of direct liability for the manner in which it controls its subsidiary’s budget, and if so, then whether the Workers’ Compensation Act’s exclusive-remedy provision immunizes that parent company from liability.

Continue reading

by

In a recent Illinois pharmaceutical error case, the First District Appellate Court of the State of Illinois reversed a $25 million punitive damage award against Walgreen Co. in Marston, etc. v. Walgreen Co., 1-07-0209. The case revolved around the death of an elderly man who was given the wrong prescription allegedly as a result of a pharmacy mistake. The 77 year-old decedent had requested an anti-gout medicine, but was instead given a drug that treats diabetes by lowering blood sugar.

The court upheld a Chicago, Cook County jury award of $6.35 million in compensatory damages after finding that the plaintiff established that taking wrong drug caused the decedent’s kidneys to fail, which led to his death. The plaintiff died during pretrial proceedings.

At trial, the Walgreen’s pharmacist testified that he incorrectly filled the decedent’s prescription. Evidence was also presented that suggested the pharmacist was abusing narcotics and stealing pharmaceuticals from the Walgreen’s store. The evidence showed that the pharmacist did not remember if he was taking drugs on the date of the misfilled prescription.

Continue reading

by

In 2007 Medtronic recalled their heart device, the Sprint Fidelis Cardiac Leads, which has caused the deaths of at least 13 people. Essentially the product, the Sprint Fidelis cardiac leads, connects the patient’s heart to a defibrillator. Along with deaths, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has received about 2,200 reports of serious injuries related to the leads.

The Sprint Fidelis lead is at the center of Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., a medical device liability lawsuit that is receiving a lot of attention from the legal community because of the involvement of preemption issues.

Yet despite the FDA recall and the highly publicized Riegel lawsuit, around 150,000 people still have the leads from this device in their body and it is still in widespread use amongst Illinois residents. Typically doctors decide to leave a fractured heart device lead in place when implanting a new one. Doctors are faced with a difficult choice when confronted with the large number of people who rely on this product because of the high degree of injury associated with it.

Last week the FDA issued an advisory to physicians regarding patients that would benefit from having the failed leads extracted, which urged the physicians to ensure that the procedure is performed by a physician skilled in removing these type of failed leads.

Continue reading

by

Preeclampsia is a condition that results in high blood pressure and leaky blood vessels during pregnancy. It has been estimated that 5% of pregnant women in Illinois will be affected by preeclampsia and that about 300,000 woman per year are affected in the United States. A growing body of evidence suggests that women who develop preeclampsia double their risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

In most cases the symptoms of preeclampsia disappear soon after delivery, so most women never have to think about it again. But in light of recent research findings women with a history of preeclampsia might need to think about it after all.

One study found that these women had a higher propensity for forming blood clots. Research from 2007 found more hardening of the arteries of women who experienced abnormal high blood pressure in pregnancy. Other studies have found that women with preeclampsia had more heart attacks, strokes and blood clots later in life when compared to other women who did not have preeclampsia.

Continue reading

by

The Moot Court Team of the John Marshall Law School of Chicago headed by Mary Nagel, their faculty sponsor, argued their moot court competition at Chicago’s Kreisman Law Offices before Civil Justice Attorney Robert Kreisman.

Moot Court is an activity where law students participate in simulated appellate court proceedings. However, moot court is actually more challenging than real appellate proceedings because students have to argue both sides of the critical issues in the case. The John Marshall Law School law students will be arguing both the appellant’s position and the appellee’s position in the national competition to be held in Cincinnati.

The issues of the fictional case involved pharmaceutical preemption by federal law, similar to those at issue in Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc and Wyeth v. Levine. The federal preemption issue revolves around whether or not warning language as to medical devices or pharmaceuticals approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) are open to medical device liability lawsuits or product liability lawsuits under state law if those medical devices or drugs had been approved by the FDA. The law students also argued issues of punitive damages and constitutional law. The underlying case was on appeal to the supreme court from appellate level after a jury verdict of $900,000 was entered against the defendant pharmaceutical company. The appellate court denied a reversal of the compensatory damages, but remittur was allowed on the punitive portion of the verdict.

Continue reading

by

My brother is a physician and psychiatrist who frequently lectures on the benefits of certain drugs for prescription by family practice physicians, or other practicing physicians. At a recent gathering he reported that he played on the absurdity of drug companies distributing products carrying their name and logo by starting his speech by raving about his stay at the local chain hotel near Chicago’s O’Hare airport because they gave him a pen and notepad.

While my brother dismisses drug company’s efforts to win doctors over with pens and notepads, there is a lot of skepticism raised by watch groups about the impropriety of doctors promoting pharmaceuticals especially given the rise of pharmaceutical lawsuits. Recently, drug companies have been prevented from distributing pens, cups, and notepads with its insignia names or drug products. And while my brother and others in the medical field feel these types of freebies are harmless, there are other ways that pharmaceutical companies exert their influence that are much more serious.

The American Medical Students Association (AMSA) is now objecting to the influence of drug companies in medical schools’ educational curriculum. The case of a professor at the Harvard Medical School illustrates this point. In his class the professor promoted the benefits of a cholesterol drug and seemed to belittle a student asking about its side effects. It turns out that this particular lecturer, also a physician, was not only a full time member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, but a paid consultant to ten drug companies, including five makers of cholesterol treatments.

Continue reading