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How about this for a New Year’s resolution: “I’ll practice common sense safety rules to protect myself and my family from harm this year”. Pretty good one. And probably a lot easier to keep than the standard resolution of “I’ll go to the gym religiously and lose 20 pounds”.

You can take a first step toward fulfillment of this safety resolution by starting the New Year out right. Follow these safety tips from this Central New York Injury Lawyer:

If you are HOSTING A PARTY on New Year’s Eve, protect your guests (and yourself from liability) by doing the following:

I recently posted a blog entitled “Why Upstate New York Verdicts Are Much Smaller than Downstate” . I explained that New York City juries tended to be more generous than upstate juries because big-city dwellers generally tend to be “socially” oriented while rural people are more “self-sufficiency” oriented.

One thing I did not mention in that post is that, even within upstate, the size of a personal injury or medical malpractice verdict tends to vary between counties. Let’s just take, for example, the counties where Michaels Bersani Kalabanka tries most its cases. I have attempted to list them here in order from biggest-verdict counties to smallest-verdict counties:

Erie County, Monroe County, Onondaga County, Ontario County, Oswego County, Cayuga County, Seneca County, Wayne County, Yates County.

Central New York is anything but white so far this holiday season. In fact, it’s down-right green and balmy here in the Syracuse, Auburn and Geneva, New York regions! Many of us upstate New Yorkers are hoping for some snow right about now- at least to take us through the holiday season. (Careful what you wish for — it might stay through March!)

While we upstaters are “dreaming of a white Christmas”, the United States Fire Administration (USFA) is dreaming of a . . . SAFE Christmas.

And justifiably so: Every holiday season needless house fires kill about 400 people and injure about 1,650 in the U.S.

I feel a little uncomfortable telling people what to do if they are involved in an accident. Why? It seems odd to tell them that, just as they are stepping out of a wrecked car, or picking themselves up from the ground where they slipped and fell, they should start thinking about preserving their rights, and evidence, so that they can later make a personal injury claim. On the other hand, I can’t tell you the number of times my clients here in central New York were seriously injured and just didn’t think to do what they needed to do to secure the evidence and their rights for a personal injury claim. Sometimes I can fix it, but sometimes it’s too late. Then they live in constant regret because they really end up needing the money the personal injury claim could have provided them for their lost wages, medical bills, and other losses.

So, like it or not, here’s my “what-to-do-when-you-are-injured” list. Some of these are no-brainers, but I figured I would list them all anyway:

TAKING CARE OF YOUR INJURY FIRST:

The New York Times recently reported that a Manhattan jury returned a $27.5 million verdict to a 45 year-old woman who had to have her leg amputated after a bus ran over her. While such a verdict for an amputated leg is considered high in New York City, such a personal injury damages verdict would be unthinkable in upstate New York cities such as Syracuse, Auburn, Geneva, Rochester or especially in the rural areas in between. Verdicts downstate are, by and large, much larger than upstate.

Why are verdicts in the New York City area so large compared to upstate verdicts? Good question. As far as I know, there are no studies regarding why juries downstate are so generous compared to their stingy upstate counterparts. But here’s my (unscientific) take on it:

Big city dwellers tend to be more accustomed to, and comfortable with, social safety nets. They have rent subsidies and controls. They live collectively. They expect the “system” to even the inequities of life out a little bit. Big city dwellers tend to see a personal injury verdict as a way to right a wrong, a way to balance the scales, a way to help the helpless, etc. In sum, they are SOCIALLY oriented.

Hurray! This week New York Governor Patterson signed a new law, which had wound its way through the New York legislature for months, which helps victims of personal injury in New York and New York personal injury lawyers, including Auburn and Syracuse personal injury lawyers like me! The law amends New York’s CPLR 4545 (called “the Collateral Source Rule”) to get rid of a huge problem for injured plaintiffs whose health insurance (e.g., Blue Cross, Excellus, Guardian) pays for their medical treatment. The statute is complex and has many parts, but the part New York injury attorneys are applauding provides, in laymen’s terms, that your health insurer can’t dip into your personal injury settlement for reimbursement of their payment of your medical bills. This not only leaves you, the injured plaintiff, with more money at the end of the day, it also makes it a hell of a lot easier for your personal injury lawyer to settle your case.

Why? Well, let’s say you slip and fall on ice at a store parking lot and are injured, but it is really, really tough to prove that the store is legally liable. There was an ice storm going on, and most juries would say the store is not liable for that because the store really couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Nevertheless, your lawyer might be able to get a $20,000 settlement offer from the store’s insurance company because they are afraid that, just maybe, you might win at trial (especially if you have a convincing lawyer!), in which case a jury would probably give you $100,000. So the store’s insurance company essentially wants to hedge its bet.

BUT (and here’s where the health insurers used to screw the whole deal up), your health insurer has paid out $20,000 in medical treatment for your slip-and-fall injury, AND THEY WANT IT BACK! In fact, if you read the fine print in your health insurance policy, it specifically says you agree to pay them back first from any money you get in a settlement or from a verdict! That leaves you with nothing if you settle, so why would you? Your lawyer is then forced to negotiate with the health insurance carrier to try to get them to reduce their “lien” (that’s what we call it in the law business), but even then this leaves you with almost nothing.This “lien” or “subrogation right” of the health insurer just gets in the way of fairly resolving your case.