Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Personal Injury

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Alonzo Yanes suffered devastating injuriesThe Appellate Division of New York just allowed the largest award for Pain and Suffering ever in New York State History. Although the jury verdict was reduced, the Appeals court allowed $29 million for Pain and Suffering. This award represents an almost 50% increase from the next highest award — $20 million which was a recent decision from the same court.

The case was one that sparked national attention. A 10th grade student, Alonzo Yanes, was severely burned in his 10th grade chemistry class due to the negligence of his teacher Anna Poole and the New York City Board of Education.  The teacher, who had been performing the “rainbow experiment,” failed to take necessary safety precautions to protect the students in her class. In the experiment the teacher was using methanol, a highly flammable substance, and failed to ensure that the students were kept at a safe distance from the demonstration table, failed to provide goggles to the students, failed to ensure there was a fire blanket was in the classroom and conducted the experiment in a classroom which did not have proper ventilation or showers.

Alonzo was burned alive. As the teacher poured the methanol from a gallon jug into a beaker a large  fireball erupted and coated this young student with millions of droplets of burning methanol. Alonzo was screaming in agony —  but because there was no protective equipment in the classroom and no shower or fire blanket he kept burning while a teacher from another classroom finally entered the classroom with a fire blanket to smother the flames.

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injured hand of an elderly patientSadly elder abuse is quite common in the US. It is estimated that 5 to 10% of elders suffer abuse of various types such as physical or psychological abuse, financial exploitation  or neglect. Often those who are abused suffer multiple types of abuse together. Depression, chronic illness hospitalization and placement in nursing homes are often the direct consequences of these abuses. When an elder has little contact with the outside world except for his or her oppressors, the physicians are often the only ones who can determine if abuse occurs and raise the alarm. When physical abuse occurs, elder patients who show up at the emergency room often pretend they fell.  A good emergency physician should be able to differentiate between fall injuries and abuse injuries and raise the alert if necessary.

A recent study  published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine and led by Tony Rosen, Department of Emergency Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College / NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, in New York compares the injuries of 78 elder patients who were physically abused with the injuries of 78 elder patients who unintentionally fell. Here are some of the findings:

  • Bruises could be a sign of abuse. 78% of elders who were physically abused suffered bruises compared to 54% of those who fell
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Travis-ScottOur partner, New York Personal Injury Attorney Howard Hershenhorn  talked to Rolling Stone Magazine and the New York Times on behalf of our client Kyle Green who was left partially paralyzed after attending a Travis Scott Concert at Terminal 5 in New York in 2017 (see previous blog).

“Our client, Kyle Green, is devastated and heartbroken for the families of those who were killed and for those individuals who were severely injured. He’s even more incensed by the fact that it could have been avoided had Travis learned his lesson in the past and changed his attitude about inciting people to behave in such a reckless manner,” Hershenhorn said.

Kyle Green was attending a Travis Scott concert in Manhattan when he was pushed over a balcony by a surging crowd. He hit the ground and could not move anymore. Instead of being proprely taken care of by paramedics, Green was picked up by security guards who lifted him up  “without a cervical collar, backboard and other safety precautions” and dragged him toward the stage.

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golf-cart63,501 children and teenagers sustained personal injury in golf cart accidents in the US between 2010 and 2019 according to a recent study lead by Theodore J. Ganley, MD, Director of the Sports Medicine and Performance Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Chair of the AAP Section on Orthopedics.

Golf carts are being used in social events and driven by teenagers as young as 14 year old with minimal supervision

More and more, golf carts are being used outside the golf course for social events such as festivals or recreational use on farm land or community events.

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Best Law Firms - Standard BadgeOur New York Personal Injury Law Firm is proud to announce that Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf has been named a Tier 1 firm in New York City for 5 practices by U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” 2022. These practices are:

  • Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs
  • Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs
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During the third quarter of 2021, a total of 71 people died in crashes in New York City including 24 pedestrians, 5 cyclists, 9 passengers and 33 motorists. Since the Covid19 crisis started, auto accident fatalities in New York City have peaked and  street safety activists are pointing fingers at the de Blasio administration for failing to keep the streets safe.

A total of 14,335 people were injured in traffic accidents in New York City during Q3 2021 compared to respectively 13,437, 16,083, 16,300, 15,860, 16,048, 13,998, 13,472, 14,900 during Q3 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. Before 2015, the passengers category  was the one with the most injuries with usually between 5,000 and 6,000 passenger injuries during Q3. In 2015 after the introduction of the Vision Zero program, passenger injuries significantly declined to 4,121 while motorist injuries jumped from 4,502 to 6,043. The increase in motorist injuries is linked to an increase in accidents related to distracted driving and more and more people using their cellphone while driving. After the first year of Vision Zero, passenger injuries during Q3 went back above 5,000 and then, back below 5,000 after the Covid19 crisis hit in 2020. Motorist injuries, mostly linked to distracted driving continued to rise reaching a record high in 2019 with 7,437 motorists injured during Q3.

New York Auto Accident injuries by category during Q3
6,349  motorists were injured in car accidents in New York City during the third quarter of 2021 compared to 5,931 for the same period of 2020 and 7,437 for the same period of 2019. Motor vehicle accident injuries reached a peak during Q3 2019 in New York City and then dropped to levels never seen since 2014 when the Covid19 crisis hit.  They were up during this year’s Q3 but not as high as what they used to be during Q3 2019.

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New York Personal Injury Attorneys Rubinowitz and TorganTrial work is not for the faint of heart. Personal Injury Attorneys, well aware their clients are relying on them to help overcome life-altering events, must do everything within the bounds of ethics and the law to win their case—while also anticipating and properly handling any challenges created by their own clients’ actions. In their recent Trial Advocacy column in the New York Law Journal, Ben Rubinowitz and Evan Torgan explore issues which may arise during client intake and witness preparation, as well as the duty to correct potentially false testimony.

Read the column here

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Most of the time in high schools and colleges, athletic trainers are the first to diagnose and provide care to a young athlete when he or she suffers injury.  Traumatic brain injury or concussion is one of the most common injuries suffered by young athletes during fall sports. Proper diagnostic and response are crucial to prevent further injury or even death.

Researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have been working for several years on finding a test that can be quick, efficient and easy to use for busy athletic trainers and other healthcare providers.  So far they found that the Visio-Vestibular Exam is a  reliable test that can be performed in a few minutes to find out if someone suffers from concussion. Last year we wrote a blog about the various elements of this test and recently researchers at the CIRP confirmed its efficiency. Researchees made additional research  to detect if the visio vestibular performances in healthy athletes might change between the beginning and the end of sport season. They found that there was no difference in the performance of the visio vestibular of  healthy athletes before the sport season and after the sport season, therefore supporting the previous findings that visio vestibular deficiencies can be attributed to concussion.

Quick and efficient

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FDA-logoAfter a recent study pointed fingers at the mismanagement of medical device recall by the FDA (see previous blog),  further investigations are confirming an outdated and broken system that leaves patients at risk of serious injury and death as unaware doctors continue to use defective devices on their patients.

A recent example of this outdated process is the recall of a sleep apnea ventilator device manufactured by Philips. It is not clear so far as to when exactly, Philips executives found out that the foam used to dampen the noise of the machine was breaking down and could potentially be inhaled or ingested by patients, exposing them to carcinogenic or toxic effects. However, the company announced publicly, on April 26th, while reporting Q1 earnings that it was creating a provision of 250 million Euros to cover costs related to possible risks to users in some sleep and respiratory care machines. While the company had probably already identified that the defective devices were the ones manufactured between April 2007 and April 2021, it waited almost two other months to initiate a recall and warn consumers of potential carcinogenic and toxic effects.  After the issuance of the recall, the FDA issued a safety communication on June 30. It took until July 22nd for the FDA to classify the recall as class I event and publish a public notification.

Does this mean that all patients have been contacted and had their ventilator changed? Not at all. In the actual process, the customers of the manufacturer, such as the hospitals, the providers, the retailers or the distributors are in charged of contacting the patients and they usually don’t do it.  Instead, doctors wait for the patients to come in with symptoms.

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Haunted Houses can cause injuryIf you ran  away from a scary character in a haunted house,  hit a wall and broke your nose, even the best personal injury lawyer will probably not be able to get you compensation because of  what is called “the assumption of risk”. The assumption of risk is a legal doctrine under which an individual is barred from recovering damages for an injury sustained when he or she voluntarily exposed him or herself to a known danger.

When you or your children, enter a haunted house you know that you might be scared and as a result have irrational behaviors that might result in injuries but you agree to take this risk. Therefore if you suffered injury as a result of being scared, it will be difficult to sue the haunted house for damages.

Over the years, some people have tried anyway but most of them lost their case:

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