Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

When Man Tries To Kill Mom With SUV, Does Auto Insurance Cover it?

June 4, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

I read recently about the case of a man charged with attempting to murder his mom by ramming her with his SUV as she sat in her living room. He ran it right through the wall. Why? Apparently he had a financial dispute with her. In my humble opinion, that’s a pretty lame excuse for murdering your mother. And geez, the weapon he chose was pretty bizarre, too.

The guy obviously has a screw loose, or more likely a brain full of loose screws.

The mother, of Mamakating, in Sullivan County, NY, ended up in the hospital with severe injuries. The son/driver, of Bloomingburg, NY, was charged with several crimes, including second-degree attempted murder. (Shouldn’t there be a separate and more severe charge for attempted mom murder?)

New York Construction Accident Lawyer Appauled By Recent Construction Accidents

June 3, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

Construction is almost the most dangerous job in America, bested only by mining. And like mining, greed often plays a part in accidents. Companies take cost-saving shortcuts at the expense of safety to try to turn a bigger profit.

Case on point.Last Sunday a 12-ton air handling unit snapped loose from a crane and plummeted 30 stories to the street below in Manhattan. Ten people were injured. Obviously they were using a cable of insufficient strength for the job.

As a recent NYT article points out, this is only the most recent dangerous mishap this year in the New York construction industry. In fact, this year is poised to match 2008 – the year two cranes toppled in New York City claiming 19 lives – as the most deadly construction year in New York history.

Central NY Injury Lawyer Gives Free Legal Advice!

June 1, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

Who says nothing in life is “free”? Here’s some free legal advice from your Central New York injury lawyer:

Do not — I repeat, do NOT – drop the F-bomb on a cop while he is arresting you for homicidal drunk driving after you have just killed a teenager.

That’s exactly what a Syracuse homicidal drunk driver did at Destiny USA. The crash happened at Hiawatha Boulevard and Solar Streets, at the entrance to Destiny USA. He had just gone through a red light and struck the side of a car carrying two teenagers. The teenage driver was killed and the passenger wounded. When the cops arrived on the scene, he explained the accident – in a drunken stupor – like this: “they pulled out in front of me, (f-bomb) them”. He also told the officer to “go (f-bomb) yourself” when asked to submit to a blood test for alcohol content. He is facing up to 25 years of prison if convicted, but I say they should tag on an extra ten for hubris. The guy has had three drunken driving charges in the past five years.

Treadmills Maim and Kill . . . But They Are Worth It. Central NY Lawyer Explains.

May 11, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

Last week, Sheryl Sandburg’s (Facebook’s second-in-command) suffered a big loss. Her husband, David Goldberg, died after cracking open his head in a fall off a treadmill. Dave Goldberg was a Silicon Valley giant in his own right, too (digital-music entrepreneur, Yahoo executive). You can read about him here.

But I am not blogging about Mr. Goldberg or his famous wife. Instead, I am blogging about the cause of his death: A treadmill.

Treadmills are the most popular piece of exercise equipment today. Go to any Y or health club and you will see row upon row of them. More than 50 million Americans use them. I am one of them.

Lane Splitting On A Motorcycle Is Dangerous And Illegal In New York.

April 30, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

It’s motor cycle season again. While I don’t have the statistics for last year yet, I know that a total of 4,381 motorcyclists died in U.S. crashes in 2013. That’s about 30 times the number of people who died in car crashes, even though many more cars than bikes travel our roads.

Many of those deaths are not the bikers’ fault; four-wheel drivers just don’t see motorcycles. They then cut them off or come blasting out from stop signs into their right of way.

But of course many bikers cause their own death or serious injury, too. One way to do it is called “lane-splitting”. That’s where you ride through the space between cars in parallel traffic lanes. If a cop catches you, it’ll cost you 2-points on your license. If a car “catches” you, it could cost you your life.

Fraternity Hazing Injuries, Death And Lawsuits In New York: A Worried Father And Lawyer Explains.

April 29, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

Fraternity hazing stories are legendary for their outrageous silliness and, unfortunately, their sometimes tragic outcomes. Pledges are sometimes required to consume large quantities of alcohol, do embarrassing and humiliating things in public, face harsh deprivations, weather inclemency, or paddle beatings.

This topic is of interest to me now that my own kid is off to college this year. And he wants to join a fraternity. Am I worried about hazing? You bet.

I don’t have too look far to find stories that make me lose sleep. Cornell University, right down the road from my office in Auburn, New York, has had its share of hazing tragedies. In 2011, for example, some pledges were blindfolded and bound at the wrists and ankles. They were then driven to a town house somewhere on campus where they were drilled with Fraternity’s history trivia questions. A wrong answer triggered forced shots of vodka. One of the pledges – who seems to have been a poor Fraternity historian — passed out, was loaded into the back seat of a car, and brought back to the Frat house where he was dumped on a couch to “sleep it off”. The next morning the cleaning crew found him dead, choked on his own vomit.

Smart Phones Capture Excessive Force By Law Enforcement And Lead to Large Settlements Or Judgments.

April 28, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

You’ve probably already seen this video:

First we see a Southern California man fleeing on horseback from a posse of deputy sheriffs in a dessert landscape. How quaint. That could never happen in New York. Then we see the deputies catch him and beat the s—- out of him. Now that feels more like New York!

Can Monkeys Bring Personal Injury Lawsuits in New York?

April 27, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

Meet my future client.

This week a New York judge granted two chimpanzees a hearing to challenge their confinement at Stony Brook University. Well, actually the judge granted the hearing to the chimps’ lawyers, who are said to be a bit more articulate than their clients.

The action was brought by “show cause order” on behalf of the chimps. This order, signed by the judge, requires the University to demonstrate why the chimpanzees should continue to be confined. The judge has not yet decided whether the chimps will get released.

Ouch! A $58,000.00 Speeding Ticket. Central NY Injury Lawyer Reports.

April 26, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

As a recipient of more than a few speeding tickets within the last few decades, I took an interest in this NY Times article about a $58,000.00 speeding ticket in Finland.

The offender was clocked at 64 miles per hour in a 50 mile per hour zone. Doing the math, that works out to $4,143.00 for every mile per hour above the limit.

Why so high? What determined the high price was not so much the offense as the offender. The speedster was a multimillionaire in one of the few countries in the world where fines for traffic infractions are calculated based in large part on your income. The mindset in this Scandinavian country is that the sting of the fine should be felt equally by rich and poor. The sting of a $100 fine is felt by the street sweeper but not by the banking tycoon. Thus, in ~~Finland~~ Fine-land the government calculates your fine based on half your daily net income multiplied by the number of days of income you should lose according to the gravity of the offense. This particular $58,000 ticket represented a half-a-day’s income of the wealthy offender.

Violence in Schools: Teachers assault kids, parents assault teachers, and lawsuits everwhere, oh my!

April 18, 2015 | by Michael Bersani

In nearby Tioga County, NY, a 10-year-old boy was recently hospitalized after his math teacher caused this injury (see photo) to the boy’s shoulder. The kid’s mom posted the photo on her Facebook page. Mom and child have served a “notice of claim”, which is the precursor to a lawsuit, on the School District. The notice of claim alleges that the boy was working on a math question, when teacher overheard him say, “c’mon.” The teacher then confronted the boy, dragged and lifted the boy by his right arm from his seat, and pushed him out of the classroom. He has apparently suffered a separation of his clavicle bone. Ouch!

Meanwhile, in another part of New York State — down in Long Island — the mother of a middle school student received a call from her 12-year-old daughter complaining that her teacher had “put her hands on me.” The outraged mother raced to school and somehow got past security (that should not have happened) and into the school. She then made a beeline to the teacher’s classroom, attacked her, put her in a headlock, and then threw her to the floor where the teacher lost consciousness. That’s her lying on the floor in the photo. (It’s all captured on surveillance tape). But that’s not all. While lying on the ground unconscious, the teacher was beaten by several students, including the mother’s 14-year-old niece. Talk about being an unpopular teacher!

So why am I blogging about these two unrelated events? Well, first, they are somewhat related in that they suggest there must be something in New York State’s drinking water making people crazy at school.