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 Subway and Train Accident

Published on:

By

NYC transit servicesSubway accidents and bus accidents in NYC are difficult to avoid.  As millions of people are using the subways and buses in NYC every year, accidents happen. People are getting hurt, sometimes badly. Sometimes they die. Some accidents are caused by the negligence of the MTA New York City Transit. Over the last 5 years, the agency settled or adjudicated 4,592 negligence cases for a total of $431 million.  88 cases were settled for more than $1 million. A case was settled last year for $9 million. The victim was 19 year old Ali Muir, a pre-med student. Muir tripped in a hole on a subway platform. He fell on the tracks and was hit by a subway.Both of Muir’s  legs were amputated from the knees.  It took 6 years for his case to settle. Many NYC subway platforms have unfixed hazards that can cause dangerous slip and falls.

Any personal injury lawyer in the city knows that NYC transit cases are not easy cases. 49 tort attorneys are working full time for the agency, aggressively fighting every case. The agency is taking the time it needs to fight cases  because it only has to pay a 3% post judgment interest rate. Other agencies and litigants have to pay a   9% post  judgment interest rate on the money awarded at trial to victims. The 3% interest rate is an incentive for the NYC transit to take the time it needs post judgment to take lengthy Appeals of adverse judgments in cases.

Cases take so long to be settled that sometimes victims have to borrow money to pay for their medical bills or for their living. This  happened to 36 year old Pilar Ortiz. She suffered serious leg injuries after being struck by a MTA Bus while riding her bicycle. Ortiz had to undergo 20- surgeries to save her legs.  She was represented by two of our attorneys: Ben Rubinowitz and Peter Saghir. Rubinowitz and Saghir successfully fought the NYC transit agency who was blaming the victim for the accident. The case went to trial. Rubinowitz and Saghir were able to prove to the jury that MTA investigators were lying. Ortiz won the case after a 6 year battle.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

20 people died and dozens suffered personal injury  after two trains collided  head-on on a single track. The accident took place in Corato, near Bari  in Italy. The two trains that collided belong to a local private rail company, Ferrotramviaria SpA. The company operates around 20 electrical trains in the region. It connects Bari, the capital of Puglia with regional towns to the north and the airport, operating about 20 small electric trains. It serves mostly students and commuters.

Published on:

By

MTA_Metro_North_6710_on_New_Jersey_Transit_train_1728After several train accidents occurred in the New York area over the last several years, Metro North has been taking measures to improve safety and remedy disciplinary issues among the staff. Yesterday the NY Post announced that several employees who were accused of cheating on safety tests have been suspended.  These suspensions are the result of an investigation that was launched approximately two years ago after allegations of widespread cheating on safety exams. Last year 13 Metro North employees were arrested and charged after investigators discovered that workers obtained questions and answers from 8 safety exams over 3 years.

Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia

Published on:

By

Metro North Fire AccidentInvestigators found that the massive fire that erupted below the Metro North train tracks in New York last Tuesday was caused by illegally stored gardening chemicals at the The Urban Garden Center. The store located on E. 116th had its storage area between E.117th and E.118th Streets just below the Metro North train tracks. Despite storing large quantities of propane, fertilizers, firewood, soil and other gardening chemicals, the store owners never bothered to  asked authorities for a permit to store flammable material in this location. According to DNA Info if they would have done so the permit would have been denied.  The fire accident happened after employees at the Urban Garden Store Center spilled fuel on a hot generator while they were refueling it. Employees didn’t wait for the generator to cool down before refilling it. They sparked a fire that quickly turned into a massive blaze when it spread to the the flammable chemicals sitting nearby in the the storage area. According to the Gothamist there were at least 20 tanks of propane stored there illegally. The Metro North train services were interrupted until yesterday. Thankfully nobody was injured in this accident. Picture: courtesy of Ben Parkin on Twitter

Published on:

By

grade crossingA Metro North train crashed into a car in Bedford Hills NY last Wednesday.  The driver of the car was crossing the Green Lane railroad crossing when the car stalled. As the crossing gate started to go down she immediately realized what would happen next. She and her passenger quickly escaped from the car before it got hit by the train.  Thankfully nobody was injured in the crash. The service on the line was disrupted for thousands of passengers. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who has been campaigning for the Federal Government and the MTA to improve grade crossings reiterate its call for better safety measures. Read more in the Lohud

Picture: an example of grade crossing courtesy of Wikipedia

 

Published on:

By

Two people died and dozen others were injured in an Amtrak train accident that happened between New York and Philadelphia  in the NorthEast Corridor yesterday morning. Train 89, also known as the Palmetto, struck a backhoe, killing the operator of the backhoe and an Amtrak supervisor.  The train had left New York for Savanah, GA around 6:00 am and was near Philadelphia when the accident happened.  None of the passengers died but more than 30 of them were transported to the hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries.

A team from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived yesterday at the site of the accident. They started to investigate the reasons why a maintenance crew was working on an active track. In a statement New York Senator Chuck Schumer indicated that it was highly possible that human error was the cause of the accident. He said that the Amtrak’s chairman, Mr Anthony Cosica told him that Amtrak employees have to follow a rigorous 20 step procedure to obtain clearance to place equipment on the track. Schumer added that a possible breakdown in communications between the train dispatchers and the maintenance crew may have been at the origin of the crash.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

Kew_GardensA commuter was killed after being dragged by a New York City Subway. The accident happened yesterday night at the Union Turnpike-Kew Gardens in Queens, NYC around 6:45 pm. The man was boarding the southbound F train when he got caught between the doors. The train then took off, dragging the man along the platform.  He was transported to the hospital where he later died. The New York Post reported the man may have been intoxicated. The police are investigating.

Door holding is something that New York Subway riders are practicing everyday but in this case a part of the man’s clothes apparently got caught in the closed doors and the engineer may have in fact received a signal that the doors were closed.

Picture: the subway station where the accident happened, source Wikipedia

 

 

 

Published on:

By

train accident fireAlmost a year ago 6 people died and 15 others were injured (including seven severely)  in a Metro-North train accident  between the Valhalla and Mount Pleasant stations in New York.  The Valhalla railroad accident that happened on the evening of February 3rd 2015 was the deadliest in Metro-North history.

Ellen Brody, a mother of three was driving her SUV through the Commerce Street rail crossing in Valhalla. The vehicle got stuck inside the crossing gate when it descended. The approaching Metro-North train engineer spotted her too late and crashed into her vehicle. She was killed in the accident along with 5 other train passengers who were sitting in the lead car of the train. An alleged defective third rail became dislodged and entered the first car of the train. Investigators believe the fuel from the car combined with the sparks of the dislodged third rail ignited the fire that ravaged car 4333 (see picture from the National Transportation Safety Board Investigation on the left).

Our partner, NY train accident attorney Howard Hershenhorn is representing the wife of one of the victims. Last week he filed a negligence lawsuit against Metro-North and its engineer Steven Smalls Jr. as well as the town of Mount Pleasant. The lawsuit lists multiple reasons for the defendants alleged negligence. Among them:

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

howard Hersenhorn smallNew York Train Accident Lawyer Howard Hershenhorn  is representing one of the four victims who were killed when a sleeping engineer derailed a speeding train in the Bronx in 2013. He was recently quoted in a Lohud article related to this accident. Here is what he told the newspaper about the NTSB leniency toward William Rockefeller, the train operator:   “I think it’s an outrage that the NTSB gave him a pass because of the alleged undiagnosed sleep apnea, and his shift being changed. For God’s sakes, he’s a train operator.”

The article indicates that in the years before the fatal train accident, union members questioned the safety of  the Spuyten Duyvil curve and recommended installing a a system that automatically activates the brakes on a speeding train when an engineer is unresponsive but Metro-North never addressed their concern.

Read the complete article 

 

Published on:

By

As part of its investigation into the Amtrak train accident that killed 8 and injured more than 200 people, the National Transportation Safety Board thoroughly analysed the engineer’s cell phone calls, texts, data and cell phone tower transmission activity records from the phone carrier; and records from Amtrak’s on-board Wi-Fi system. This analysis indicates that the engineer was not using his cell phone while operating the train.  Read the NTSB press release

  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
Badges
Super Lawyers Best Lawyers Martindale-Hubbell
SEE NEW JERSEY DISCLAIMER PAGE- AWARD METHODOLOGY