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.
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NYPD1Disciplinary records of NYPD officers who committed police brutality, abuse or misconduct have been kept secret from the public until last month. Last June, Governor Cuomo signed a bill to repeal section 50-A of the New York Civil Rights Law that was protecting police officers and firefighters who committed misconduct by keeping their record hidden from the public (see previous blog).

After that law was repealed, Pro Publica obtained all the records from every active-duty officer who had at least one substantiated allegation against them between September 1985 and January 2020. With these records, Pro Publica created a fully searchable database. The database can be searched by officer name, badge number or by precinct. The database can be searched here.

A total of 3,996 officers who logged a total of 12,056 complaints are listed in the database

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person-holding-hand-sanitizer-396233175 dangerous hand sanitizers that are being sold at major retailers such as CVS, Wallmart and others have been recalled by the FDA. The dangerous products contained methanol, also known as wood alcohol. When absorbed by the skin or swallowed, methanol can lead to severe injury such as blindness neurological damage or even death. The FDA has received several reports of consumers including children who suffered personal injury or died  after being exposed to these dangerous products.

Please check your hand sanitizer  and make sure it is not part of the list released by the FDA.

Some of the products recalled were sold under the following brands: Good Gel, Lavar 70, Saniderm, CleanCare, All-Clean and Eskbiochem. All these brands are manufactured by the same Mexican company Eskbiochem SA de CV.

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location of the falling debris accidentA man suffered a skull fracture after a facade collapsed on him as he was walking on a New York City sidewalk.  39 year-old Oumar Ba, a father of two, was walking  on the sidewalk on St. Johns Place in Crown Heights yesterday afternoon around 3:00 pm. when a chunk of bricks and debris fell on him.  His friend Abdouramane Thiam whom he was visiting, as well as other local vendors who witnessed the accident ran to rescue the man as he was lying unconscious on the ground. They called 911 and applied pressure on the back of his head to contain the bleeding until the EMS arrived.  Oumar Ba was rushed to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a skull fracture and injuries to his ribs and shoulder. He is now in stable condition.

Violation for for failure to maintain exterior building wall open since 2004!

The building is an old movie theater that has been reconverted into commercial use. Several complaints dating from as far as 2004 have been logged with the DOB about the illegal  occupancy of the second floor. The building received a total of 37 DOB violations including 28 still open and dating as far as 1991.  The building also has OATH/ECB violations for failure to maintain the exterior building walls open since 2004! The violation mentions “brick work cracked and mortar joints missing with missing bricks at second floor front of building also defective brick work with missing mortar joint”.

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excavation work in NYC streetsNew York construction site owners and contractors are responsible for their employees safety. While before the coronavirus crisis this meant that they had to take adequate safety measures to protect construction workers from accident injuries and deaths, now contractors are also responsible for applying the new covid-19 protocole. In New York where aggressive measures have been deployed by the Governor to reduce the spread of the disease, construction site owners and contractors have to follow a strict protocol to keep everybody safe.

The NYC Department of Buildings now has dedicated inspectors who are visiting  construction sites to make sure they are compliant

Since July 8th, any NYC construction site that doesn’t respect the Covid-19 protocol can be penalized with violations fines and stop work orders if necessary. During the first five days, inspectors issued 88 citations and 41 stop work orders to construction sites all over the city. During the previous months the inspectors had been reaching out to violators and provided them with guidance and material related to the application of the covid-19 protocol for construction sites in New York City.

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29 people including 4 cyclists and 9 pedestrians died in crashes in New York City last June. While truck and bus accidents remain lower than usual, reckless car driving and speeding continue to be a cause of many injuries and deaths.

After dipping to a record low of 5 deaths during the Covid-19 lock-down, traffic fatalities peaked to 29 in June. Since Vision Zero started in 2014, this is a record high number of fatalities that was only reached once previously in June 2016. Injuries were on the rise too in June compared to the previous months of May and April but not as dramatically as the fatalities.  The total number of accidents increased as well. One of the main reasons why the total number of accidents dipped so dramatically is because since last March the NYPD doesn’t dispatch officers anymore at the scene of minor accidents. As a result the big drop observed since March is not only related to the Covid-19 crisis but also to the the fact there are no more NYPD reports for minor accidents.

Auto Accident NYC Injuries Deaths June 2020
New York traffic accident fatalities were on the rise for all categories of road users. 11 motorists, 5 passengers, 4 cyclists and 9 pedestrians died last June compared to respectively 7, 0, 2 and 2 during the previous month and 6, 3, 3, 8 in June 2019. Many of these fatalities are related to speed and reckless driving. While the city has slowly started to get back to normal, the traffic is not as heavy as it used to be before the coronavirus crisis and many motorists are driving over the speed limit.

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Building that collapsed in ManhattanAnother building partially collapsed in Manhattan yesterday, The building that hosts a mix of residences and commercial spaces is located at 211 East 34th Street. It was completely empty and was undergoing construction work. Around 11:30 am yesterday morning a first part of the wall collapsed followed an hour later by another collapse.

Nobody was injured but the street was closed by the police and the residents of an adjacent  building were evacuated for safety.

The collapsed occurred in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan a few blocks away from another deadly construction accident that occurred a few hours later and during which a piece of parapet detached from the roof and landed on a hanging scaffolding, killing one construction worker and injuring 3 others.

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accident sceneFatal car accidents related to speed are on the rise in New York City and many of them are caused by young inexperienced drivers behind the wheel.

While New Yorkers witnessed or heard the noise of drag racing all over the city during the coronavirus lock-down that started at the end of March, the city is now about to enter phase 4 of reopening but many drivers seem not to have realized that they are not alone on the road anymore.

Two days ago a 21 year old driver was speeding on the southbound lanes of the Henry Hudson Parkway when he lost control of his Honda, slammed into the median, overturned and landed on the northbound side, hitting another driver in a Toyota

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location-of-the-fatal-scaffolding-accidentA construction worker died and 3 others were injured in a scaffolding accident in Manhattan. The accident occurred yesterday afternoon around 4:20pm at a 12 story condo building located at 136 East 36th Street near Lexington Ave in Murray Hill.

According to witnesses, two hard hats on a suspended scaffold were repairing the facade at the 11th floor level when a piece of the parapet fell into the suspended scaffolding. In a chain reaction, the rig then fell onto the street shed, destroying it.

According to the Daily News a 50 year old worker died in the accident. 2 other workers suffered serious injury and are in critical condition. Another one suffered minor injury.

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NITA-STUDIONITA is thrilled to present two of its leading instructors, nationally renowned trial lawyers Doris Cheng fromWalkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger  and our managing partner Ben Rubinowitz, in Killer Cross, a demonstration-based webcast on cross-examination. Learn – and watch – as Doris and Ben demonstrate various ways of discrediting a witness, discrediting an adversary, and setting up a powerful, compelling, and winning argument on summation. Not only will they show you how to cross-examine a lay witness, but Doris and Ben will offer portable techniques to cross-examine any expert, regardless of their field. This free, one-hour webcast will leave you with tools to secure admissions by demanding responsive answers to achieve the success you need in court.

This free live webinar will take place on July 23rd at 10:00 AM PDT/ 1:00 PM EDT. It is free but you still need to register here to attend.

If you can’t make the live presentation, this webcast will be available to view on demand, beginning the next day.

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New York CyclistsAfter a high number of deadly pedestrian and bicycle accidents in New York City, especially in Brooklyn, last year, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzales decided it was time to do something about it. The DA just announced that he has created a new unit that will be dedicated to investigate any fatal motor vehicle accident occurring in Brooklyn. Now anytime a motor vehicle accident involves a fatality not only the NYPD investigation squad will  investigate the accident (if they show up ) but also a prosecutor from the DA’s office will rush to the scene of the accident. The prosecutor will run his or her own investigation speaking to witnesses, collecting evidence, documenting and drafting warrants to collect evidence.This measure will hopefully bring more justice to the victims of reckless drivers who are too often being let go by the police with no charges.

Botched police investigations and poor follow up on deadly traffic accidents are common in New York City

In most accidents, including those in which people are killed, drivers are usually getting a free pass except if they were driving under the influence or if they committed an extremely reckless act.  With the new DA unit it will not be the case anymore in Brooklyn, not only drivers will be held accountable with detailed investigations but the unit will also work with lawmakers to pass new laws against reckless driving.