Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Fifty-year-old Dan Hebel suffered a rope burn while on a fishing trip in August 2004. Eventually he was referred to an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Craig Williams, at Illinois Bone & Joint Institute in Morton Grove.He first complained of an infectious process in his hand on August 23, 2004.One week later, Dr. Williams gave Hebel a steroid injection.The injection, however, caused the infection to worsen.

In this lawsuit, Hebel contended that the steroid injection was contraindicated by the underlying infection. Dr. Williams referred Hebel to Dr. Robert Citronberg for infectious disease management. Drs. Williams and Citronberg became co-treating physicians. Sometimes infections like this require antibiotic treatment and/or surgical involvement.

On November 9, 2004, Dr. Williams performed an incision and drainage procedure. Specimens from the surgery were sent for study and cultures. The pathology results were sent to both physicians, but the culture results were sent only to Dr. Williams and never sent to Dr. Citronberg.

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The Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth District reversed a jury’s verdict for defendants, which included OSF Healthcare System, in the Circuit Court of McLean County.  The case centered around an injury and subsequent death of a 3-year-old boy, Christian Rivera, in 2003. The jury trial was held in July 2011. 

During the trial, the family of Christian offered its expert witness, Dr. Finley Brown, to testify as a medical expert in family practice.

The defendants were allowed by the trial judge to cross-examine Dr. Brown for the issue related to his annual earnings as an expert witness for an 8-year period. Plaintiff’s counsel had argued against the broad timeframe, but the trial judge denied plaintiff’s motion to limit the timeframe. Defense used this testimony to say the jury that Dr. Brown was a “go-to guy for expert opinions.”

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In a May 16, 2013 New York Times opinion page editorial, written by assistant professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, Joanna  C. Schwartz, discussed the Affordable Care Act in relation to medical malpractice lawsuits. The article was titled, “Learning from Litigation.” The thrust of the article is that new evidence contradicts the “conventional wisdom that malpractice litigation compromises the patient safety . . .”  Professor Schwartz says that the opposite appears to be occurring;  that with more openness and transparency, hospitals are responding to the risk of litigation in positive ways.

Professor Schwartz interviewed dozens of hospital risk managers who confirmed that a hospital’s approach to lawsuits has begun to change. She says that hospitals have become more open to handling medical errors up front and are apologizing to patients when mistakes do happen in some cases.

The given reason that hospitals are more open to these types of solutions is that in disclosing errors up front, hospitals and patients tend to resolve matters much earlier, reasonably and much more cost effectively. 

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Joyce Bonner was injured in a fall and lost four of her front teeth. She received treatment from dentist Dr. Elliott Ostro to repair the damage. Ostro recommended four implants to replace the teeth. However, Ostro did not take x-rays or make molds of Bonner’s mouth before starting his work.

More than a year later, Ostro still had not managed to complete the implant work. Bonner stopped seeing him and started with a new dentist in 2009. The new dentist gave his opinion that Ostro had not properly prepared Bonner for the implants and restoration of her teeth. Bonner later filed a lawsuit against Ostro.

At the trial, Bonner called dentist Dr. Loren Goldstein to testify as an expert witness as to the standard of care required for implant surgery. Goldstein testified that Ostro had deviated from the standard of care by failing to take x-rays or molds of Bonner’s mouth before starting surgery.

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The defendant ophthalmologist, Seemin Khan, M.D., performed cataract surgery on the plaintiff, Frances Perkins, on March 19, 2008. It was discovered after the surgery that Perkins had a chronic detached retina. The retina is the light-sensitive tissue that lines the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye create an image on the retina, like the film in a camera.

The plaintiff alleged that Dr. Khan was negligent for choosing not to refer her for a B-scan ocular ultrasound or to a retinal specialist before deciding whether cataract surgery would be in her best interest. Since Perkins was not a good candidate for retinal surgery, the cataract surgery was found, or alleged to be, unnecessary.

Perkins, 59, suffered ongoing chronic pain following the cataract surgery, underwent three later retinal surgeries and still has chronic left eye pain.

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A new study shows that energy drinks may increase blood pressure and lead to a dangerously high heartbeat.

The study is an analysis of seven previous studies. It showed that these drinks appeared to disturb the heart’s natural rhythm. Over time, the drinks may lead to an irregular heartbeat or death and raise blood pressure, according to the study. The study results were presented by the American Heart Association on March 21 during a convention in New Orleans.

Two commonly sold energy drinks are Monster Energy Assault and Rockstar.

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More than 15,000 women die of ovarian cancer each year, which makes it the fifth leading cause of death among American women. A new study shows that 60 percent of the women who develop ovarian cancer do not receive the medical care they need that could prolong their lives. The Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) annual meeting on women’s cancer presented the study March 11, 2013.

This research was conducted on more than 13,000 patients from 1999 through 2006. Researchers who conducted the study said the lack of proper care for the women patients was the result of inexperience among doctors and hospital staff.

Women with ovarian cancer should be treated by surgeons who see a lot of patients each year with the disease, researchers found. They also said the women should stay in hospitals where a high volume of women with ovarian cancer are treated once the disease is diagnosed.

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The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments soon on whether a generic drug maker can be held responsible for a patient’s injuries. The case is considered very important for pharmaceutical companies, federal regulators and patients who take generic drugs. Some experts estimate that generics make up 80 percent of all drugs taken by people in the United States.

The case before the high court will involve Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., which sold a drug called sulindac, an anti-inflammatory. This medication was given by a pharmacist to a patient named Karen Bartlett, who was suffering mild shoulder pain in 2004. Bartlett, who lives in New Hampshire, claims she began taking the drug and, only a few weeks later, suffered an intense reaction to it. Her skin began to peel off, she was forced to live in a burn unit in a nearby hospital and later was in a medically induced coma. She lost her vision and is now legally blind. Also, she alleges that the medication permanently damaged her lungs and esophagus.

Bartlett sued Mutual, saying the company should be liable for her injuries. She took her case to federal district court, where a jury awarded her $21 million. An appeals court upheld that verdict in 2010; now the case is headed for the high court.

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A 36-year-old nurse was seen by the defendant obstetrician Larry Overcash, M.D. The physician was alleged to be negligent in performing a bilateral removal of both of Ms. Fief’s ovaries. She had consented to removal of only one ovary. However, at the Peoria Day Surgery Center, both of the Fief’s ovaries were removed by Dr. Overcash, who also perforated her colon during the surgery. The perforation of the colon led to several other hospitalizations and medical expenses in excess of $200,000.

The jury’s verdict of $1.2 million against both Dr. Overcash and Woman’s Health Institute, Ltd. was made up of the following damages:

• $1,050,000 on the negligence claim which included $300,000 for past and future pain and suffering;
• $500,000 for past and future loss of normal life;
• $250,000 for medical expenses; and
• $150,000 was for medical battery because of the wrongful surgery in removal of both ovaries plus $150,000 for pain and suffering from the removal of the unnecessary surgery removing the right ovary.

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The Illinois Supreme Court has decided an appeal as to whether or not res judicata in a refiled medical-malpractice complaint barred its refiling. In the underlying case, Brandon and Daphne Wilson claimed that Edward Hospital in Naperville, Ill., was liable for the negligence of doctors under the theory of actual and apparent agency.

The hospital was granted a summary judgment order on the actual-agent allegations and the Wilsons voluntarily dismissed their complaint, but refiled it within one year. Edward Hospital then moved to dismiss the case based on res judicata, which essentially means that the issue has already been finally adjudicated by the court.

Under the Supreme Court decision in Hudson v. City of Chicago, 228 Ill.2d 468 (2008) and Rein v. David A. Noyes & Co., 172 Ill.2d 325 (1996), res judicata bars a refiled lawsuit when:

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