Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Certain jobs carry a degree of risk. For example, while an office worker would not typically be in danger of falling from a scaffold, this is a reality for many construction workers. As a result, these higher risk jobs often have various safety standards and procedures in place to try and minimize the risk for workers. Yet these safety rules are not always followed, which opens manufacturers and construction companies up to liability for workers’ injuries.

The Cook County wrongful death lawsuit of Jensen v. Earle M. Jorgensen Co., et al., No. 09 L 2754, involved the death of a worker killed during an industrial accident. The Illinois lawsuit alleged that various entities were involved in maintaining an unsafe environment which resulted in the circumstances that led to Jensen’s death.

Twenty-eight year-old Brian Jensen was working as a service technician for Katso, Inc.; in the capacity of his employment, Jensen performed maintenance on Katso products housed at various facilities. At the time of his death, Jensen and some co-workers were performing maintenance and repair work on an automatic storage and retrieval system manufactured by his employer’s parent company, Katso Machinenbau GMBH & Co. The machine itself was located at Earle M. Jorgensen, Co., an industrial plant located in Schaumburg, Illinois.

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For decades, summertime in Chicago has been synonymous with construction. But in recent years, summertime commuters are turning more and more to bicycles as their primary means of transportation. And while the use of this alternate means of travel is more environmentally friendly, it is also more dangerous for the commuters themselves. Take for example the Chicago bicycle injury lawsuit of Ashley Ferry v. Bryan Pendleton, Enterprise Leasing Company of Chicago, et al., 07 L 9024.

Ashley Ferry was a 23 year-old junior at Chicago’s Columbia College when she was riding her bike in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. Ferry was riding northbound on Milwaukee Avenue in one of Chicago’s designated bike lanes when she was hit from behind by Bryan Pendleton. At the time of the Chicago bike accident, Pendleton was driving a car owned by his employer, Enterprise Leasing Company of Chicago.

Eyewitnesses testified at trial that Ferry had been thrown forward over her handlebars and then landed on her head about 20 feet away. She lost consciousness and needed to be revived by paramedics at the scene before being transported to Illinois Masonic Medical Center for medical treatment.

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An Illinois slip and fall lawsuit was recently settled for $2.25 million. While the case involved fairly severe injuries, what was really unique was the plaintiff’s theory of liability.

In 2006, the 43 year-old plaintiff fell as she was leaving a Kmart store located in Midlothian, Illinois. As a result of the fall, she sustained a right knee fracture and tear in her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). In addition, she was diagnosed with a nerve injury that resulted in a foot drop. Since her fall at Kmart, the plaintiff has undergone a knee replacement and several additional surgeries aimed at repairing her peroneal nerve injury.

At her deposition regarding the Illinois personal injury lawsuit, the plaintiff testified that she fell after slipping on a sheet of paper that was lying in a puddle of water. That sheet of paper was actually a Kmart flyer; therefore, the plaintiff was able to connect the cause of her fall directly to Kmart. In addition, she blamed not seeing the Kmart flyer on a plant display.

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On June 24, 2011, a Union Pacific train traveling from Chicago to California was involved in a railroad crossing accident in rural Nevada. A semitrailer truck ran the crossing and struck the moving train, injuring several passengers and killing the truck driver and a crew member. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is currently conducting an investigation of what caused the crash and how it might have been prevented.

One of the avenues the NTSB is pursuing is whether or not the truck driver’s judgment was impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the train crossing accident. However, because the driver died as a result of the crash, the NTSB must examine autopsy records in order to make this determination. In addition, the NTSB is reviewing the truck driver’s driving history in order to gain insight into what might have happened.

The NTSB is also investigating the extent that the railroad itself contributed to the train accident. The NTSB will make sure that its safety standards were followed and that both the crossing lights and gates were operating correctly at the time of the train accident. However, report released by the Nevada Highway Patrol, who is also investigating the crash, stated that the warning lights and railroad gates were working at the time of the train accident.

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The U.S. Supreme Court examined a Vermont law that limited the use of patient information collected by pharmacies to determine whether or not 18 V.S.A. § 4631 violated pharmacies’ First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court held that the Vermont law did place unnecessary limits on the speech of pharmaceutical companies and had failed to justify these limits within the law itself. Therefore, the Court found Vermont’s Confidentiality of Prescription Information statute to be unconstitutional as it currently stands in Sorrell v. IMS Health, No. 10-779.

The Vermont law at issue, 18 V.S.A. § 4631, sought to limit pharmacies from selling their client’s demographic information to pharmaceutical companies. Basically, whenever a patient fills a prescription at a pharmacy, information on that patient is generated. The pharmacy then sells that information to “data miners,” who compile the data into coherent reports, which are then sold to pharmaceutical manufacturers. The drug companies then use this data for “detailing”, a process through which they promote their medications to doctors in the hopes of increasing the sale and use of their drug.

The goal of §4631 was to limit the practice of detailing by eliminating the role of the data miners; under the law, pharmacies were no longer able to sell patients’ information to data miners. The law sought to limit the commercial use of patient information and its sale to pharmaceutical companies. However, it did allow this information to be used in other ways, e.g., for medical research purposes. In fact, it was this arbitrary divide of what was allowed and what was not that led to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sorrell.

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Federal preemption has long been a hot button issue in pharmaceutical drug cases, with consumer advocates arguing that drug companies should be held to the sometimes higher state standards. However, the U.S. Supreme Court appears to have reversed the federal preemption stance it took in Wyeth v. Levine. In Wyeth, the Court held that the negligence claim against the pharmaceutical company was not preempted by federal regulations and that the drug company was liable for its failure to provide adequate warning of its drug’s dangers.

However, in Pliva v. Mensing, No. 09-993, the Supreme Court ruled that a pharmaceutical manufacturer could not be sued under state law for failing to warn consumers about its drug’s risks. This decision seems to go against the Court’s ruling in Wyeth just two years ago; both lawsuits deal with federal preemption issues and involve states setting higher safety regulations than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Yet in Wyeth, the Court held the drug company responsible, while in Pliva, the Court ruled the pharmaceutical lawsuit was barred under federal preemption.

Yet on closer inspection, there appear to be some key differences between the facts surrounding the drug warning labels in Wyeth and Pliva. The main issue in both the Wyeth and the Pliva pharmaceutical cases involved an FDA regulation referred to as “changes being effected” (CBE). Under the CBE regulation, a drug manufacturer may modify its warning label without prior FDA approval if the modifications will improve the drug’s safety. Under CBE regulations, the FDA approval comes after the warning changes, not before; however, the assumption is that the warning changes in such matters are so important to consumer safety that the FDA will eventually approve those changes.

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A recent Cook County personal injury lawsuit involving a railway worker who was injured at work exemplifies many of the typical components for worksite injury lawsuits. Not only were there several defendants involved whom the injured worker held responsible for his work injury, but the defendants alleged that the railroad worker was actually responsible for his own injury. It was up to the jury in James Barnicle v. Belt Railway Company of Chicago, 06 L 1325, to decide who was at fault for the railroad accident.

In order to determine who was at fault, the jury must first examine the case facts. At the time of the work accident, 48 year-old James Barnicle was working as a railroad switchman for The Belt Railway Company of Chicago. His duties involved switching railcars traveling in and out of the Exxon Mobil plant located off Cicero Avenue. However, as he was engaging a track switch, it unexpectedly jerked towards him, causing an injury to his lumbar spine.

Barnicle claimed that the specific track switch was defective and that Exxon Mobil had prior notice of this defect. Plaintiff’s lawyers attempted to establish the prior notice by submitting evidence that other employees had reported that the switch was difficult to operate and in need of repair. The idea being that if the jury believed that Exxon knew that the track switch was defective, but did nothing to repair the switch, then Exxon would be responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries.

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Typically auto accidents occur between two vehicles engaged in the driving process. It is fairly unusual for a driver to hit a parked car or standing vehicle without some contributing factors. Yet that is what happened in the Chicago bus accident that resulted in the Illinois personal injury lawsuit of Jose Maldonado v. Leona Meade, 09 L 6610 (Cook County).

In 2007, Jose Maldonado, a CTA bus driver, was sitting in his disabled bus. The bus was facing northbound on Chicago’s Sheridan Road, its flashers on. At the same time, the 89 year-old Leona Meade was driving her car northbound on Sheridan Road. Despite being on the opposite side of the street as the parked bus, Meade somehow managed to crash her car into the front of Maldonado’s CTA bus.

As a result of the Chicago car-bus accident, Maldonado suffered a torn labrum in his right shoulder. The labrum is the area of cartilage around the shoulder socket that helps stabilize the shoulder joint. An injury in this area can require a lengthy recovery, during which time shoulder mobility is extremely limited.

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Jeep Grand Cherokees might face a recall due to a product defect that causes the increased risk for fuel fires following rear-end collisions. The auto recall would affect 1993 to 2004 Grand Cherokee models; however, Chrysler denies the need for a Jeep recall and the National HIghway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has not yet instituted one. Yet there are at least different three crash tests showing that Grand Cherokees are more likely to catch on fire following rear end collisions that similar SUVs manufactured during the same time period.

The various crash tests were conducted by Karco Engineering and The Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory; Karco has previously performed crash testing for the NHTSA. One test conducted on 1995, 1996, and 1999 Grand Cherokees resulted in significant gasoline leaks following rear-impact crashes. These gasoline leaks not only put the Jeep passengers at risk, but could also pose a fire threat to the occupants of the striking vehicle.

Likewise, another investigation of Grand Cherokeesfrom 1993-2004 was conducted because of over 254 deaths resulting from “172 fatal fire crashes” involving those Grand Cherokees models. The majority of these investigations are focusing on the Grand Cherokee because of similar results showing that the Grand Cherokee’s fuel system is much more likely to pose a fire threat than those used in similar vehicles. For example, comparable Ford Explorer models were much less likely to catch fire following a rear-end collision; in crash tests, Ford Explorers’ fuel system typically remained intact following these collisions.

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The first case to go to trial in the series of Cook County pharmaceutical negligence lawsuits against Baxter International received a $625,000 verdict against the pharmaceutical manufacturer. The Illinois lawsuit of Estate of Johansen v. Baxter International, Inc., et al., 09 L 11175, was filed after the plaintiff, Steven Johansen, died as a result of receiving contaminated Heparin distributed by the defense.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against Deerfield-based Baxter International, Inc. and Scientific Protein Laboratories, its supplier, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discovered that the companies had been selling contaminated Heparin. The tainted Heparin was discovered to contain oversulfated chondroitin sulfate, which is a synthetic chemical created from animal cartilage that is typically distributed as a dietary supplement. According to tests run by the FDA, the false chemical mimics the real drug, Heparin.

However, not only does the oversulfated chondroitin sulfate not have the same blood thinning effects of Heparin, but can actually cause adverse reactions in patients taking it. The synthetic chemical has been found to cause vomiting, difficulty breathing, a drop in blood pressure, and other severe reactions. The plaintiff, Steven Johansen, first received low doses of the contaminated Heparin during dialysis treatment in December 2007, with no obvious reaction. However, Johansen later received a second, much higher dose of the contaminated Heparin, which resulted in his death five days later.

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