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Elected Equity Shareholder: Sammi L. Renken concentrates her practice in health care professional liability including medical malpractice, legal malpractice involving underlying health care litigation, medical product liability, and nursing home litigation. Ms. Renken has also successfully defended a variety of practitioners on licensure issues before the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR). Ms. Renken has defended multiple area hospitals, clinics, long term care facilities, urgent care centers, group homes for minors with developmental disabilities, same day surgery centers, individual physicians and nurses. She has defended claims across the spectrum of health care litigation including: birth injury, pharmaceutical and medical device product liability claims, cardiac care, emergency medicine, EMTALA claims, anesthesia related complications, surgical perforation and retained sponge claims, delay in cancer diagnosis, decubitus ulcer/wound care, plastic surgery claims, spinal cord injury, psychiatric care, restraints, organ transplantation, and medication error claims. Ms.Renken has participated in all aspects of cases that have gone to verdict in the Circuit Court of Cook County and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Johnson & Bell, Ltd. is pleased to announce that 18 shareholders have been acknowledged as 2012 Illinois Super Lawyers. The following lawyers who have been acknowledged and their specific practice areas are: Effective January 1, 2012, the State of Illinois’ Supreme Court appointed Johnson & Bell, Ltd. Shareholder Joseph R. Marconi as Advisor to the Judicial Conference Committee on Discovery Procedures. Mr. Marconi is the chair of the Business Litigation/Transactions group at the firm. On November 16, 2011, firm president, William V. Johnson, obtained a defense verdict in favor of the University of Chicago Medical Center following a two-week jury trial in which damages in excess of $45 million were sought. The lawsuit arose out of allegations that proper informed consent was not obtained by a transplant surgeon prior to a 2007 kidney transplant surgery where in the plaintiff was later found to have contracted HIV and Hepatitis C that was transmitted from the deceased donor. Plaintiff was one of our four individuals in the Chicago metropolitan area to have contracted HIV from transplants of organs from this deceased donor. These transmissions were the first to have occurred in the U.S. since 1986, and the case garnered national publicity. William V. Johnson, President/Shareholder, Johnson & Bell, Ltd. is a 1966 graduate of Chicago-Kent, Mr. Johnson is an acclaimed litigator who has tried many high-profile catastrophic injury and mass tort cases in Chicago and across the United States. A co-founder of Johnson & Bell, Ltd., Mr. Johnson has also served as the firm’s president since 1979 and during this tenure, the firm has grown to 120 attorneys. The firm, founded in 1975, has continually received national recognition for its trial and appellate advocacy, and has been acknowledge by American Lawyer’s Corporate Counsel Magazine as one of the Top 100 Law Firms in client satisfaction. Over the years, Mr. Johnson has tried virtually every type of civil injury case and has also defended many commercial liability, professional liability and trade secret cases throughout his career. On November 7, 2011, shareholder, Sharon L. Stanzione, and associate, Anna Mandula, obtained a verdict in favor of Community Hospital, following a six-day jury trial wherein damages in excess of $2.6 million were sought. The lawsuit arose out of allegations surrounding the wrongful death of a 25-year-old patient, with a condition called Hereditary Angioedema (HAE)—a very rare and potentially life-threatening genetic condition, causing episodes of swelling in various body parts. Patients with HAE often have bouts of excruciating abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting caused by swelling in the intestinal wall. The patient in this case was frequently hospitalized due to severe abdominal pain caused by her HAE condition and this was the very reason for the admission to Community Hospital from September 2 through 12, 2001. Throughout the admission, the patient constantly complained of severe abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting, and by day seven, the physicians decided to transfer the patient to a tertiary care center for treatment by a physician specializing in HAE. A transfer to Rush University in Chicago, Illinois, was arranged on September 11, but did not take place due to the terrorist attacks. On the morning of September 12, the patient was found unresponsive just minutes after the nurse left the room to speak with the patient’s physician. A Code Blue was immediately called, but efforts to resuscitate the patient were unsuccessful. The autopsy showed the patient died from a pulmonary embolism (PE) and this suit ensued thereafter against Community Hospital and the patient’s attending pulmonologist. At trial, plaintiffs argued that the hospital’s nurse failed to appropriately monitor the patient and recognize an emergency situation on September 12 and in turn call a physician sooner. Plaintiffs further argued that said breaches in the standard of care caused the patient’s untimely death. Attorneys Stanzione and Mandula argued that the nurse acted reasonably on September 12 by performing a head-to-toe assessment of the patient, which revealed that the patient was in ten out of ten abdominal pain. The patient was in so much pain that she even refused scheduled breathing treatments. The fact that the patient had conversations and refused her breathing treatments was significant since plaintiffs argued that the patient was in a respiratory emergency. However, and as explained by defense expert, Dr. Michael Ehrie, patients in crisis do not have conversations nor do they refuse breathing treatments. Moreover, because the nursing assessments involved interaction and conversation with the patient, the nurse certainly would have recognized an emergency. Stanzione and Mandula also argued that the nurse appropriately followed the physician’s care plan by working with the patient on breathing exercises, which helped the patient’s condition improve. After completing the assessments, the nurse appropriately followed all physician orders pertaining to the patient, obtained lab results, and paged the physician with a condition report. After making the page, the nurse even returned to the room to re-assess the patient and provided additional care. As far as causation, Stanzione and Mandula argued that the nurse’s conduct was not a proximate cause of the patient’s death since there was no evidence that the nurse caused the PE or that the nurse should have diagnosed a PE. After deliberating for just over two hours, the jury returned a defense verdict. For more information about the case, please contact Kathy Starbuck, Director of Marketing, Johnson & Bell, Ltd., at 312.984.0273. In Bielskis v. Louisville Ladder, the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in defendant's favor. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit considered whether the district court properly struck plaintiff's expert's report under the Daubert standard and then whether summary judgment was properly entered in Defendant's favor. The Plaintiff had fallen from a three-foot-high mini-scaffold when it collapsed at a worksite. Plaintiff had obtained the mini-scaffold seven years prior when his former employer gave it to him fully assembled. Plaintiff filed suit against Louisville Ladder under a product defect theory and alleged that Defendant failed to properly test and inspect the threaded stud of the caster stem that failed. In support of his theories, Plaintiff retained an expert who concluded that the stud failed due to a brittle facture caused by excess stress brought by over-tightening of the threaded caster stem. The District Court struck the expert because the expert's conclusions were not supported by data or testing to support the brittle facture theory. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Court of Appeals held the District Court "was within its discretion to conclude that [the expert's] methodology sounded more like the sort of '[t]alking off the cuff' -- without data or analysis -- that we have repeatedly characterized as insufficient." Without expert testimony, Plaintiff could not prove his case and summary judgment in Louisville Ladder's favor was affirmed. The District Court proceedings were conducted by John W. Bell and Charles P. Rantis. The appeal was briefed and argued by Garrett L. Boehm, Jr. Gregory D. Conforti gave a presentation entitled Settlement Negotiations and Alternative Dispute Resolution: Using the ADR to Minimize the Impact of Trucking Litigation on December 5-6, 2011 at the American Conference Insititute: Trucking Litigation in Orlando Florida. Seminars/Speaking Engagements Joseph B. Carini, III of Johnson & Bell, Ltd. spoke at the International Association of Claim Professionals (IACP) U.S. Regional Conference on Thursday, June 2, 2011 in New York. Mr. Carini co-presented on "Avoiding and Resolving Construction Disputes - Construction Claims". Mr. Carini is co-chair of Johnson & Bell's construction group and a member of the Construction Steering Committee of the ALFA Construction Law Practice Group. The International Association of Claim Professionals is an insurance industry professional association that provides a forum in which claim professionals can network with their peers, enhance their knowledge regarding claim issues and trends, and freely exchange views and ideas. The Association, through its activities, strives to enhance the development and professionalism of its membership and foster goodwill among insurance organizations worldwide. For more information about this organization please visit their website at: www.iaclpro.com Joseph R. Marconi of Johnson & Bell, Ltd. was a Moderator on the panel discussing Keeping Economic Damages Down: Advanced Application of Basic Concepts at the ALFA Business Seminar on Thursday, March 3, 2011 in Hollywood, FL. Mr. Marconi also participated in a panel discussion that focused on the current E-Discovery trends and policy concerns. Eric W. Moch of Johnson & Bell, Ltd. spoke at the National Society of Professional Insurance Investigators (NSPII), Training Seminar on Friday, June 6, 2010, in Willowbrook, IL. Mr. Moch presented to a group of insurance professionals on the topic of Statutory Immunity for Information Sharing Among Insurers in the Fight Against Fraud. |
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