Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Personal Injury Lawyer Trial Tips By The Greatest New York (and other) Trial Lawyers

November 10, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

One great thing about being a personal injury trial lawyer, whether in New York or elsewhere, is that you can keep improving, keep getting better, keep honing your skills, forever.

Recently I have been listening to lectures by some of the best New York trial lawyers, as well as great trial lawyers from other States, about how they try personal injury cases. The most recent one I listened to is Jim Perdue’s “The Art of Story Telling”. Jim is a well-respected Texas trial lawyer. I had read some of his stuff years ago, so this was kind of a refresher course. Jim’s basic premise is that a jury trial is all about story-telling, and the side that tells the best, most credible story, wins. Here are some notes I talked into my smart phone as I listened:

(1) Tell the jury the safety rule the defendant violated, then tell them why the rule is important, then show how defendant broke the rule, then show them the harm defendant’s breaking the rule did to plaintiff.

What’s The Scariest Thing About Halloween? Central NY Injury Lawyer Explains.

October 29, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

Hey mom and dad: Halloween’s here. Boo! Not really scary, huh? Figured. Hey, I’m a parent, too, and also a Central and Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer. (Scared yet?).

From my experience representing injured people, including injured kids, let me tell you what does not scare me about Halloween: tainted candy, candle fires and child abductions. If you read the newspaper headlines the day after Halloween, you are unlikely to see reports about any of that. That’s because that stuff hardly ever happens.

But I can almost guaranty you will read a headline like this: “Trick-or-Treater struck by car”.

Lawyers Who Handle Buffalo NY Sidewalk Trip-And-Fall Cases, Take Note!

October 28, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

This blog post is directed to my fellow New York personal injury lawyers who might have trip and fall cases from Buffalo, New York, but also it is worth reading if you have been injured by a defective sidewalk in the City of Buffalo, NY.

As my regular readers know, every year I cull through all the new cases involving “municipal liability” in New York State. I read all the reported decisions regarding lawsuits brought against cities, towns, counties, school districts, the State of New York and other governmental entities in New York. I then summarized the important new cases and travel around the State lecturing other New York personal injury lawyers about the new developments.

This year I noticed a new case from the Appellate Division, Fourth Department dealing with sidewalk defect cases in Buffalo, New York. Before I explain the case, you first have to understand that, in most cities in New York, trip-and-fall-on-sidewalk cases are very difficult because you have to sue the city and you also usually have to show that the city had “prior written notice” of the defect that made you trip and fall. And as a practical matter, there is almost never prior written notice of such defects because nobody goes around writing the City about sidewalk defects. At most, they might make a telephone call, but that is not enough to trigger liability for future falls; it must be prior written notice.

Central NY Personal Injury Lawyer Becomes A Teetotaler

October 25, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

I have blogged about the Tea Party before, and here I go again. While many of the positions of the Tea Party are not my cup of tea, I strongly align with the Party on one particular issue: The right to a civil jury trial. It’s in our Bill of Rights, and it’s one of the most important rights we have.

I know what you’re thinking: Of course you’re for it because, as a New York personal injury lawyer, it’s your bread and butter. Yes, I am biased. But I’m also right!

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the Tea Party founding father, Judson Philips. In his most recent blog on the subject, he points out that the hallmark of American democracy is our “classless society”. Everyone is treated equal under the law. We are unique on this planet in that our court doors open wide enough to allow even the poorest citizen to sue the richest corporation for injuries and other wrongs they inflict on us.

“Greedy Corporations Make Me Sick”, Says Syracuse NY Personal Injury Lawyer

October 23, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

Sometimes when I read the newspaper and see what greedy corporations are capable of, well, it makes me sick. This blog post is about a greedy corporation that literally made people sick.

The recent Meningitis outbreak you’ve been reading about is caused by contaminated spinal steroid injections. Many of my clients have had this type of steroid injection for back pain. A batch of steroid contaminated with a type of black mold called Exserohilum is causing the Meningitis. The manufacturer, “New England Compounding Center” in Framingham, Massachusetts caused the contamination by allowing dirty, sloppy conditions to prevail in the steroid production process

Cutting safety corners, in this case simple rules of hygiene, is always unacceptable, but when the product you are selling is getting injected into your customers’ spines?! Come on!!

“Do I Really Have To Wear A Helmet When I Bike, Dad?” Maybe not, says Central NY Bike Accident Lawyer

October 19, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

As a Central Syracuse NY bike accident lawyer, I have seen first hand some nasty head injuries from fallen bicyclists. So I was not very understanding last April when my 13 year-old son informed me that it was so totally uncool to wear a helmet on a bike that he would rather not ride at all than put one on. Didn’t I know that only nerds wear helmets? And didn’t I know that if his buddies in our city (Geneva, NY) ever caught him riding with a helmet on he would be a laughing stock? Was I trying to ruin his life or something?!

I said, “nice rant, now put your helmet on..” And he said, “no helmet, no way”.

I figured he would eventually cave. But he didn’t. For a full month he did not ride his bike at all. When I finally realized that he meant what he said, that he would not “get caught dead with a helmet on”, I capitulated. I let him ride his bike without a helmet.

Epidural Steroid Injections — Lots Of Risk For Little Benefit

October 12, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

When I recently read about the wave of fungal Meningitis afflicting steroid spinal injection recipients, I thought, “I hope our clients are safe”! The rash of Meningitis from steroid injections has so far killed 14 and made another 156 ill. But others who have recently received the injections are holding their breath — they too could get sick and die.

Many of our back and neck-injury clients have taken, or are taking, steroid epidural injections hoping for some relief from unremitting back or neck pain.

Unfortunately, most get only temporary, minor relief. And for this very insignificant relief they subject themselves to very significant risks, including nerve damage, strokes and paralysis, and now Meningitis.

Syracuse NY Malpractrice Lawyer On Surgical Sponges Being Left Inside Patients

September 25, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

Yet another article about medical malpractice appeared in my favorite newspaper yesterday. The New York Times reports, in an article titled, “When Surgeons Leave Objects Behind” that surgeons in the U.S. leave an estimated 4,000 “surgical items” inside their patients every year, the vast majority of which are surgical sponges used to soak up blood during the surgery. Clamps, scalpels, and even scissors are sometimes left inside, but two-thirds of the “forgotten” items are surgical sponges. Too often one or more of them end up on the wrong side of the stitches once the patient is sewn up. These can cause all kinds of complications and infections later on.

Leaving sponges inside the patient seems pretty lame. How can they make such a major screw up so often?

First, the sponges are pretty small (see the photo above), and lots of them go into a patient during surgery. In abdominal operations, for example, doctors often stuff dozens of them inside a patient to absorb blood. And many surgical teams (usually nurses) keep only a manual count of the sponges that go into a patient, and then recount the ones taken out to make sure the numbers match. But in a busy, long operation, people sometimes forget how many went in, or else miscount.

New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer On New Medical Error Reporting System

September 24, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

I get calls and emails almost every week from medical malpractice victims, yes, truly malpracticed patients, yet I turn most of them down. Why? It kills me to explain this to them, but the truth is that often the harm they suffered is not worth the cost of bringing a medical malpractice lawsuit in New York.

Yes, medical malpractice lawsuits, at least in New York, are extremely expensive because getting a doctor to testify against another doctor (and you need that to win) is so costly.

Even though we turn away four out of five medical malpractice cases, because the harm is not large enough, the malpractice suits we do bring help make medicine safer by providing error-prone doctors and others with a wake-up call, a “sting”, when their sloppy practice causes major harm. But I often worry about the many, many mistakes that, through good fortune, cause only minor harm, and thus provide no “sting”. Doctors, nurses, hospitals and other medical providers can easily “blow off” these errors. There should be some “sting” in the smaller injury cases, too.

Meet The Michaels Bersani Kalabanka Racing Team

September 23, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

There are of course many Central New York bicycle accident lawyers. Some good, some not so good. But do any of them, besides us, have a bicycle team named after them? I think not!

Meet the Michaels Bersani Kalabanka Racing team. Yes, the eponymous (look it up!) team in this photo proudly displays its “MSR” (Michaels Bersani Kalabanka Racing) team jerseys. Michaels Bersani Kalabanka is the lead sponsor for this team. The other sponsors are Syracuse Bicycle, Asmaster, Aspen Athletic Club, Dr. Jude Burke and Gold & Treasures. The race shirts also honor the daughter of one of our members who is a breast cancer survivor.

The MSR team is now 35 to 40 members strong. And its members hail from all over Central New York, including Baldwinsville, Skaneateles, Syracuse, Sylvan Beach, Cato, Geneva and Syracuse