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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NYC personal Injury lawyer Richard SteigmanOur partner Richard Steigman and Hon. Rosalyn H. Richter, Appellate Division, First Department will be co-chairing the New York State Trial Lawyers Seminar “2018 CPLR Update”. This seminar will take place on Monday April 9  from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the NYTSLA office at 132 Nassau Street.

One of the key requirements of successfully managing a civil caseload is staying abreast of legislative changes and court decisions in the field of New York Civil Practice. This year in particular, there are substantial changes that every lawyer in this field needs to know. This seminar will provide an in-depth review of these new developments, including practice tips and pitfall warnings that are invaluable for the civil litigator.

Topics will include:

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NYC Fatal traffic accidents were at their lowest last January. During the first month of 2018, 11 people died in a traffic accident compared to respectively 18, 17, 13, 21 and 28 in January 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013. The only months when the number of monthly fatal auto accidents in New York City was this low was in March 2016 and in May 2017. The monthly number of traffic deaths never went below 11 in the city.

While traffic fatalities have been on a declining trend since Vision Zero started, the opposite occurred with traffic injuries. They have been on a rising trend. However recent numbers seem to show some signs of stabilization.  4,351 people were injured in a car accident in New York City in January 2018. That’s a little bit less than the 4,383 people injured in January 2017 but more than respectively the 3,654, 3,449, 3,899 and 3,993 people injured in January 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Globally, traffic accidents continue to increase in New York City. Despite being lower than most previous months, the number of traffic accidents in New York City reached 17,762 in January 2018 compared to respectively 17,126, 17,798, 15,977, 16,597, 15,599 in January 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013. January  is usually a month during which traffic accidents are lower than other months. The number of accidents is usually below the trend line in January.

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Two people died and 9 were injured in a fire accident in New York City. The fire started on the first floor of a building located on Hoffman Street near 87th Street in Belmont, Bronx around 1:30 am on Monday morning. After the fire broke out in one of the apartments on the first floor, tenants ran away without closing the door behind them to prevent flames from spreading. The fire quickly engulfed the rest of the building trapping residents on the second floor.  The scene was extremely chaotic as firefighters had to fight the flames to make their way upstairs to save the residents. 11 of them including a 7 year old girl were transported to the hospital, some with critical burn injuries. Two of them died shortly after.

Last December a similar fire accident occurred in the same neighborhood killing 13 people. The fire propagated in a similar manner in the building after a door was left opened by tenants as they were escaping their burning apartment. (Read previous post).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9zX2HV5k7o

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church fails to maintain buildingA man scavenging for construction material in a half demolished building was seriously injured after he fell through the floor. The accident occurred at a dilapidated Brooklyn building located at the intersection of Rutland Road and Brooklyn Ave in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.  The floor gave way under the weight of the 33 year old man and he got trapped. It took an hour for the paramedics and the firefighters to shore up the basement to take him out. The man was then rushed to the hospital where he was listed in serious condition.

Before being bought by the church next door, the building was a lounge. The church received a violation from the city Environmental Control Board for failure to maintain the building  after it partially collapsed. Concerned neighbors told the DOB at the end of January that the structure “was leaning”. The owner was supposed to raze the entire building but only half of it was demolished.

After the accident the DOB issued 3 violations to the church:

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entrance of the German Masonic homeA hard hat was in critical condition after he was hit by debris at a NY construction site. 49 year old Arian Hila was working on the renovation of the Germanic Masonic Home at 120 Western Highway in Tappan, NY. On Friday afternoon one of the debris chutes became clogged with construction material. Arian and another construction worker went inside the dumpster and tried to clean the chute from there. As they were trying to unclog it, the clogged chute detached and fell onto Arian. He was crushed by the debris and could hardly breath. Police officers, firefighters and paramedics all jumped into the dumpster and removed the debris to free him. He could barely breath. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

Adrian Hila is an idenpendant contractor employed by Atria Consulting 3. The property is owned by Noble Ninth Inc. The renovation of the building started in 2016. The accident is being investigated.

Read more in the Lohud

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Personal Injury Attorney Ben RubinowitzOur managing partner, New York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz, will be a member of the Faculty at the CLE Live Event “Case Framing, The Science and Art of Advocacy” that will take place May 4th and 5th at the Omni Parker House in Boston, MA.

Building a case a jury can believe in is fundamental to obtaining a favorable verdict. Renowned Rhode Island trial attorney Mark Mandell designed and built the Case Framing Model to do precisely that. This model is based on the idea that “just verdicts result when everything presented at trial is framed and sequenced to focus juror attention on the points you most want to make.” The key, then, is to focus the jury’s attention on what really matters.

Mark has created a two-day seminar to teach the fundamentals of Case Framing. The program begins with an introduction to Case Framing, then delves into the latest developments in decision science and psychology, and ultimately finishes with practical guidance on how to apply the model to your cases.

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location of the fatal accidentA man and a woman walking on Howard Street in New York City suffered critical injury after being hit on their heads by a falling piece of fire escape on Friday afternoon.

The man, identified as 58 year old Richard Marchhart from Long Island, succumbed to his injuries a day after his hospitalization. He left behind a wife and three children: a daughter going to high school and two sons going to college.

The injured woman is a 24 year old artist who was on her way to a studio at the New York Academy of Art on Franklin Street.

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https://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneysblog.com/files/2018/02/New_York_City_Housing_Authority_logo.svg_.pngLead based paint exposure can cause serious personal injury, especially to young children. Lead poisoning builds in the body over months, sometimes over years.  A small quantity of lead such as paint on the wall or dust is enough to create severe mental and physical impairments in children and a larger quantity can lead to death. Lead paint was widely used to paint residential interiors in the past but  after its toxicity was discovered it wasn’t used anymore. Lead paint can still be found on the walls of old buildings that haven’t been renovated for a long time. Some of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings for example still have lead paint. NYCHA was supposed to inspect its buildings and address issues but recently the Department of Investigation found out that NYCHA not only failed to inspect buildings for lead paint but also falsified documents to pretend inspections occurred (see previous blog).

NEGATIVE HEALTH EFFECT FROM MOLD INVESTIGATED TOO

On Monday the New York State Department of Health announced that it was opening an investigation over the health impact of NYCHA’s failures to tenants in Southern Queens. The Health Department will not only study the consequences of lead paint exposures but also health problems related to mold. Mold is affecting thousands of  NYCHA apartments. It can cause asthma and other serious respiratory diseases. Additionally the Health Department will also study the health impact of the recent heat and hot water outages. Since October including during the coldest days, more that 320,000 NYCHA tenants (80%)  have been experiencing heat or hot water outages. These outages are especially unhealthy for younger or older tenants.

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Auto accident deaths NYC 2017In 2017, 102 pedestrians, 20 cyclists, 24 passengers and 63 drivers died in auto accidents in New York City compared to respectively 134, 18, 17 and 54 in 2016.

According to the traffic collision data released monthly by the NYPD, a total of 209 people died in traffic accidents in 2017 compared to a total of 223 in 2016 and 286 in 2013 before Vision Zero was launched. This is the lowest number of motor vehicle accident fatalities ever recorded since the city started to create statistics in 1910.

The decline in traffic fatalities is mostly due to the decline in pedestrian deaths that went down by 39% from 168 in 2013 before Vision Zero to 102 in 2017. During that same time fatal bicycle accidents almost doubled going from 11 to 20. Passenger deaths stayed almost stable from 23 to 24 and motorists fatalities declined by 25%.

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New York Personal Injury Lawyer Howard Hershenhorn
Our partner, NYC Personal Injury Attorney Howard Hershenhorn and his team including Christopher Donadio and Anthony Gair have filed notices of claim against the City of New York, the Hudson River Park Trust and the State of New York for more than $600 million on behalf of 20 individuals who were either fatally struck or injured during the terror attack that occurred on October 31, 2017. The attack occurred on the Hudson River Greenway, a popular Manhattan bike path along the Hudson River.  Our personal injury law firm represents the families of 7 of the 8 bicyclists who were killed by the terrorist, as well as 13 individuals who were injured. Our clients include families and individuals from Argentina, Belgium and New York.

Our New York personal injury lawyers believe that authorities failed to “to implement measures and precautions to prevent vehicles from intentionally entering the bicycle path despite the fact that it was foreseeable”. It was foreseeable, based on various prior incidents, including the death of Eric Ng who was killed by a driver on the same bike path in 2006.  In addition, following Mr. Ng’s death, multiple studies have shown that necessary precautions were needed to prevent motor vehicles from driving on the Hudson River Greenway bike path. Also, for the past ten years, safety advocates have been asking for the installations of steel bollards and other safety measures to prevent cars and other motor vehicles from driving on the bike lane. The City of New York, Hudson River Park Trust and State of New York were presented with detailed plans to prevent collisions between cars and cyclists on the bike path. Unfortunately, no action was taken.

In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security, in light of concerns that terrorist groups using vehicles to ram innocent people, issued a warning to the City of New York and State of New York about the need to secure public pedestrian and public bicycle areas from motor vehicles. Again, despite this warning, no action was taken.