Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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In a lawsuit and jury trial in which the defendant, Mel Richard Krumske, admitted liability causing injury to the plaintiff, Kevin Burkhamer, Burkhamer’s attorney asked on direct examination whether the defendant ever called the plaintiff to “apologize” for causing the crash. Krumske’s attorney then immediately objected and requested a mistrial. The trial judge sustained the objection and acknowledged at a sidebar that an instruction to the jury to disregard what might be an inadequate remedy for the unfair prejudice likely caused by the improper questioning would be given. However, the judge postponed ruling on the request for a mistrial and did not rule on the motion to render a mistrial until after the jury’s verdict.

At the end of the jury trial on damages, the verdict for the plaintiff Burkhamer was $175,000. The jury was discharged. But before the judgment was entered, the defendant’s attorney reminded the judge about the lingering motion for a mistrial. Concluding the verdict might have been “inflated by passion” the judge said she was granting “the motion for a new trial,” although Krumske, the defendant never filed a posttrial motion.

The Illinois Appellate Court accepted an immediate appeal by the plaintiff under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 306.

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Julie Sheridan injured her right shoulder, right knee, left arm and the back of her neck after she was involved in a three-car crash at the intersection of Ogden Avenue and River Drive in Lisle, Ill., in February 2010. After the crash, Sheridan refused an ambulance and did not receive medical treatment that day. Instead she drove 300 miles to her home in Union, Mo., and saw a doctor there for symptoms one day later.

She received pain and anti-inflammatory medication for her symptoms, which she said did not relieve her pain. An orthopedic surgeon who saw Sheridan in May 2010 tried but failed to discover her reported numbness, tingling and decreased strength.

The orthopedic surgeon testified during the trial that Sheridan had full range of motion in her neck and left shoulder, normal grip strength in her left hand, normal reflexes in her left arm and proper sensation throughout her left hand. The orthopedic surgeon could not identify the cause of her symptoms.

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On Nov. 21, 2010, Amelia Scott was driving her Grand Prix southbound on Interstate 57 in Marion County, Ill., when her car was hit by the southbound truck owned by EQ Industrial Services Inc. and driven by Warren Himes. Scott, 42, claimed a right shoulder injury that required rotator cuff repair surgery and shoulder manipulation under anesthesia. She also suffered a knee injury that required arthroscopic surgery, permanent post-concussion syndrome, memory loss and aggravation of a back/neck pain and fibromyalgia.

Scott claimed she was unable to raise her right arm above her shoulder. She is on permanent pain management, which includes spinal cord stimulation and prescription medicine. She will need a future knee replacement surgery. Her past medical bills alone totalled $143,508. The expected future surgery may cost $45,000.

The defendant admitted liability before trial and conceded that Scott’s shoulder and knee injuries were related to the crash but disputed the nature and extent of the other injuries claimed by Scott. The defendants denied Scott suffered permanent memory loss, cognitive deficits, psychological damage or aggravation of her pre-existing neck and back pain, as she was actively undergoing treatment for those conditions before this incident.

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The Illinois Appellate Court for the First District recently reviewed a case regarding the piercing of a corporate veil. Piercing the corporate veil is a practice in which a lawyer will prove that the corporation that would otherwise protect its shareowners from personal liability is really a façade or fiction that allows for the “piercing” of that veil to recover from the true owners. The appeals panel reversed a trial court’s decision that dismissed plaintiffs’ claim in a case involving whether the plaintiffs were employees or independent contractors.

Piercing the corporate veil is not a cause of action but instead a “means of imposing liability in an underlying cause of action.”

A firmly established corporate entity stands on its own unless its corporate veil is pierced for different reasons. In many cases, once a party obtains a judgment against a corporation, the party then may attempt to pierce the corporate veil of liability protection and hold the dominant shareholders responsible for the corporate judgment.

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Chanttel Ortiz was 19 and seated in the rear passenger seat of a car driven by Luinis Sosa Rosa when an unidentified SUV allegedly cut off the car from the left. The driver, Sosa Rosa, veered to the right shoulder but saw a tanker truck parked ahead. Sosa Rosa braked, leaving about 90 feet of skid marks, but the left front of the car struck the tanker’s right rear corner.

The Sosa Rosa car was propelled across 40 feet of snow-covered grass and became wedged under the trailer of a second truck, which had stopped on a plant’s access road.

Ortiz suffered multiple injuries including injuries to her face that caused scarring and affected the function of her right eye. She also suffered a transverse process spinal fracture at C-5 and a fracture to her left, non-dominant wrist.

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In the majority opinion given in a substitution of judge denial and subsequent appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court held that the denial of a motion for substitution of judge for cause is not a final order. The court cited the case of In re Marriage of Nettleton, 348 Ill.App.3d 961 (2004). Instead the court stated that it is an interlocutory order that is appealable on review from a final order.

In this case, the HOB I Holding Corp. and the Eva Buziecki Trust appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court when its request for a substitution of judge as a matter of right under Section 2-1001(a)(2) of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure was denied. The moving parties relied on Rule 304(a) finding that there was no just reason to delay enforcement or appeal of that March 27, 2014 order denying the request for substitution of judge.

The majority opinion – noting “it is well-settled law that the mere inclusion of a Rule 304(a) finding in a non-final order does not make the order appealable under the Supreme Court rules and concluded that Rule 304(a) did not provide this court with jurisdiction because the March 27, 2014, order denying a substitution of judge did not ‘become’ a final order simply by including the statutory language.”

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In this case, which was settled as a confidential settlement, the plaintiff Ms. Doe was traveling on a northbound interstate highway when she stopped because of heavy approaching traffic. The defendant Roe, a commercial truck driver, rear-ended Doe’s car causing her to collide with the vehicle in front of her.

Doe suffered hand and cervical injuries and later underwent several surgeries, including a cervical fusion at C5-7.

Doe, a medical unit clerk, missed more than three months of work amounting to $25,000 in lost earnings. Her medical bills were $355,000. Doe, 51, has recovered fairly well from her injuries and surgeries.

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Michael Sprick, a German citizen, was traveling through the United States for an extended bicycle cycling trip. He was an enthusiastic and avid cyclist. While he was riding his bicycle on a shoulder of a two-lane road in Virginia, a truck driver, Norman Marchant, driving a Freightliner truck at about 55 mph, drove onto the shoulder of the road and struck Sprick. Sprick was ejected from his bicycle and thrown more than 100 feet.

Sprick, 40 at the time, suffered multiple severe injuries and went into cardiac arrest, which resulted in anoxic brain damage. Sprick was airlifted to a medical center where doctors diagnosed a traumatic brain injury, including axonal shearing, cerebral acceleration trauma, left occipital ischemia with hemorrhaging, hydrocephalus and spastic quadriparesis.

He also sustained multiple spinal and rib fractures, a pulmonary contusion and collapsed lung and injuries to his spleen. Sprick was placed on a ventilator and was treated for three months incurring $591,000 in medical expenses.

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The Illinois Appellate Court has reversed a jury verdict of $3.6 million as being too speculative and without enough discovery. The unpublished order was issued remanding Nazmi Nomat’s automobile-injury case back to the Circuit Court of Cook County to determine again how much he should receive in damages in the case where the defendants admitted liability.

This time, however, the defense will be able to conduct more discovery and Nomat won’t be able to present an expert who testified about $1 million in lost wages.

In the new trial on damages, Nomat, who is now 49, will have to again attempt to prove damages resulting from the October 2009 automobile accident that he was involved in. Nomat suffered injuries to his lower spine and right ankle. Although Nomat was released from the hospital the same day of the crash, he subsequently saw a chiropractor and other physicians for neck, lower back, left shoulder and right ankle pain and treatment through March 2010.

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Scot Vandenberg and his wife maintained that their allegations in an unfiled tort complaint triggered insurance coverage for an accident that injured Scot, paralyzing him during a party he attended on a 75-foot yacht.

Scot was severely injured when he fell off a bench at the edge of a top deck of the yacht to a lower deck. The original complaint he filed against the companies that owned and maintained the yacht (along with several corporate officers) alleged that the defendants were negligent because there was no railing on the upper level of the yacht.

Two of the defendants sued in this case were insured by Maryland Casualty under a policy that excluded coverage for bodily injury claims involving the ownership, maintenance or use of a watercraft.

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