Our 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:
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.
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.
We are proud to announce that our Partner Christopher J. Donadio has been named as the President of the New York City Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA).
The American Board of Trial Advocates is a national organization that was founded in 1957 with the goal of protecting citizens’ access to the courts. In addition, the organization focuses on teaching civics and constitutional history to educators, students and journalists. It is an organization that is comprised of both plaintiff and defendant trial attorneys. Membership into American Board of Trial Advocates is limited to those attorneys who have tried a minimum of ten trials to verdict.
The New York City Chapter of ABOTA was formed when Robert Conason, a renowned plaintiff’s trial attorney (and former Managing Partner of Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf), and Harold Schwab, a preeminent defense trial attorney, brought together the top plaintiff’s attorneys and top defense attorneys to establish the New York City Chapter.
A physician committed serious medical malpractice and crimes by hooking up chronically ill female patients with heavy doses of opioids and abusing them sexually. The abuse has been going on for 15 years according to 22 pending lawsuits, hospitals ignored patients complains and failed to inform future employers about these complains.
63 year old Ricardo Cruciani would develop personal relationships with his victims. He would prescribe them significant amounts of opioids and required “in person” appointments to get a refill. When the patient would arrive in his office he would ask for sexual favors in exchange for their prescription. If the patient refused, Cruciani would deny their refill.
This sordid scenario has been going on for at least 15 years in multiple States as during his career, Cruciani worked at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Union Square, at the Capital Institute for Neurosciences in Hopewell Township, N.J and at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He lost his medical license after he was found guilty of indecent exposure and groping 7 patients in 2017 in Philadelphia. At that time he did not go to jail but he was registered as a low-level sex offender.
Volvo recalled another 195,000 potentially defective motor vehicles last week in the US after the company learned that a US driver was killed by the rupture of an air bag inflator. According to Volvo, the front driver’s airbags inflator of XC70 and V70 wagons models from 2001 to 2007 was manufactured by ZF/TRW and could potentially explode and send shrapnel in the car.
The 195,000 vehicles recalled in the US last week are part of a worldwide recall covering around 768,000 vehicles.
The recall is reminiscent of the problem faced a few years earlier by bankrupt Japanese airbag inflator manufacturer Takata. Defective Takata air bag inflators caused the death of 18 people worldwide including 19 in the US. 400 people were also injured in defective Takata air bag inflator explosions.
The FBI believes that dozens of underage girls have been sexually exploited by a man who lured them into filming sex acts in hotels by promising them modeling gigs. 33 year old Rigoberto Garcia, a Mexican man living illegally in the US has been recently arrested after the FBI found that he has been sexually exploiting girls under the age of 18 by filming them having sex in hotel rooms since 2014. The FBI says dozen of girls or more have been abused and they are asking anyone who might have been victimized to call them at 212-384-1000.
Rigoberto Garcia, a wannabe actor, has been using several fake names that include “Chris Perez”, Nate Floriano”, “Sean Alvarez”, “Steven Skyler” or “David Schineberg”.
According to a federal court indictment, Garcia was was charged with multiple counts of coercion and enticement, and sexual exploitation of a minor in connection with seven underage victims. He is also facing charges with 4 other child victims.
Trial 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
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.
After 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.
Two childhood friends were driving back home from an after-hours party when the one driving ran a red light and crashed into another car. The passenger was ejected and died. The accident occurred around 6:30 am last Saturday morning. According to the police, 26 year old Jovanni Padilla was speeding down Saratoga Ave when he ran a red light at the intersection of Sutter Ave and crashed into a KIA SUV. His best friend, 23 year old Kainen Martin was asleep in the passenger seat. Ther impact was so intense that he was ejected from the car. The police found him lying in the street and he was rushed to the hospital where he later on died from his injuries. The driver, Jovanni Padilla did not have a license and was drunk at the time of the accident. He was also trying to escape on foot when the police arrived and caught him. Padilla was first charged with DWI and driving without a license and later on with mansluaghter, assault and vehicular manslaughter. The driver of the KIA SUV was hospitalized with minor injuries.
Jovanni and Kainen had been best friends since they were children. Padilla felt so guilty after he understood that his friend had died that he asked the cop “Just shoot me in the head”. He later on attended the candle light vigil held at the house of Kainen’s mother in Brooklyn. Both Jovanni and Kainen’s family knew each other and both were distraught by the fatal accident.
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog