Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Health Care Insurance Liens Against New York Personal Injury Settlements

March 18, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

What do health care insurance policies, such as Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, and others, have to do with New York personal injury settlements? Maybe nothing. Maybe. Let me explain.

If you are an insomniac in need of sleep, you might decide to pull out your health care insurance policy and read it. I guaranty that it will put you to sleep, and probably even before you get to the part, buried deep within it, that says the insured (that’s you) agrees that should you get injured through the fault of someone else, and get a settlement or a judgment against that other person, you will have to reimburse the insurer (that’s them) for all the medical costs they paid for treatment of your injury.

In other words, say a dog bites you, you sue the owner, and then settle with the dog owner’s homeowner’s insurance for $100,000. But Blue Cross Blue Shield has paid $10,000 in medical bills related to the dog bit. BCBS will claim a “lien” or a “right of subrogation” against the settlement to the tune of its $10,000.

The Governor Is About To Commit Medical Malpractice On Our Justice System!

March 17, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Let’s say a doctor carelessly performs eye surgery on you. As a result of his negligence, your vision is impaired for life. You are only 30, so you have a long life of impaired vision in front of you. You hire a New York medical malpractice lawyer and take him to Court. What should fair compensation be to you for the doctor’s malpractice? Well, if the impairment isn’t so bad, if glasses can mostly correct it, maybe $250,000?

Now let’s say the same doctor carelessly performs the same operation on you, but this time blinds you for life. Darkness surrounds you for the next 50 years. You’ll never see your kids or wife again. You’ll only hear them. What’s fair compensation for your anguish, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of all the things a seeing person can do for the next 50 years of your life?

According to Governor Cuomo’s proposed fiscal budget, $250,000. Same as if your vision had merely been impaired. That’s called a medical malpractice “non-enconomic award cap” (a/k/a a “med mal cap”). It’s also called a travesty of justice.

Syracuse NY Bus Accident Lawyer Notes Surge In NY Bus Accidents

March 16, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Hey, have you noticed a surge in New York bus accidents recently? Within the last few months I have blogged about several Central and Syracuse New York bus accidents. You can read those blogs here, here, and here . Then, just last week, a bus veered off Interstate 95 in the Bronx as it was returning to Chinatown (NY) from an overnight outing at a Connecticut casino. Witnesses, including survivors, dispute the driver’s claim that that a truck clipped the bus before it ran off the road.

The bus was carrying Asian immigrants back to Chinatown (NY) from a casino outing in Connecticut. Fifteen of them never made it home — they ended up dead instead. And they were just out to have some fun gambling. I’ll bet they had no idea they were gambling with their lives just by climbing aboard the bus. But they were: Turns out the bus driver had a history of driving offenses so significant that his license had been suspended. But there’s more; he had also served time for manslaughter and grand larceny.

Now you tell me, what kind of a bus company would hire a driver with felony convictions and a driving record the size of a phone book? Answer: A cheap, fly-by-night, profit-hungry one. You see, they can hire ex-cons with lousy driving records and suspended licenses on the cheap, which drives up their profit margin. Only problem is their customers end up getting killed. As long as they pay first, no problem, right?

Central New York Injury Lawyer Prepares For Trial

March 13, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

In case you haven’t noticed — and gee, I sure hope you have — I have not been blogging much lately. Why not? Take a guess: Am I Sick? Sick of blogging? On vacation? On vacation from blogging?

Nope. None of the above. I have been preparing for a Jefferson County, New York personal injury trial, which is coming up very soon. It is hard to find time for blogging about New York personal injury law all while gearing up for a New York personal injury trial. In fact, it is hard to find time for almost anything when you are preparing for a week-long jury trial. The key to putting on a good trial, to presenting your client’s case well, can be summed up in three words: preparation, preparation, preparation. And that takes time, lots of it.

Two of my partners are also busy preparing for trial. While most personal injury cases these days settle out of court, some, of course, don’t. The insurance company does not always want to pay a reasonable settlement. To put it more bluntly, they try to screw you! When that happens, the only way to force them to pay what’s fair is to go to a jury. We just happen to have several cases right now where the insurance company won’t listen to reason. Hey, when it rains it pours.

Central NY Bicycle Accident Lawyer: “Preserve The Evidence”!

March 6, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

I just read about a bicycle accident case from Texas that teaches New York riders a BIG lesson. The lesson? Preserve the evidence! Read on.

The biker recently filed a products liability suit against Trek Bicycle Corporation, the bicycle manufacturer, claiming his 2002 Trek roadbike’s steering fork cracked, causing his handle bars to collapse, which in turn caused him to hit the pavement and suffer a severe brain injury. The poor guy has been in a coma ever since. (His family filed suit on his behalf). You can read about it here.

That’s all I know about the case, but I can already tell you what Trek’s defense will be. Either: (1) the biker misused or altered the bike, thus causing the crack in the steering fork at some time before the accident, or (2) the biker lost control of the bike, fell, and the crash itself caused the steering fork to crack and the handle bar to collapse.

Central and Syracuse NY Personal Injury Lawyer Gets The Boot!

March 5, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

This Central and Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer got the boot! Yes, a client fired me! Why was I fired? Before I explain why, let me explain a little bit about the nature of what I do.

At any given time, I am handling about 100 cases. Many of those cases, however, are in the “pre-suit” stage. This means we are following the client’s medical progress, but are not yet ready to make a personal injury settlement demand. Why not? Because until the client is finished treating, or has reached a maximum level of medical improvement, we don’t know how much the case is worth. If the client is going to have a permanent injury, the case is worth more, and if it is a serious permanent injury, it is worth more still. Conversely, if she is going to reach a 100% recovery, the case is worth less. But the doctor can’t give us a “permanency” evaluation until the client is done treating or has reached maximum medical improvement, which can sometimes take more than a year and a half.

So in many cases, there is almost nothing we can do, except collect medical records, until a year or more has gone by. Here’s how we handle this with our clients: When we first meet with them, we explain this could take quite a while, depending on how their treatment goes. We explain that the doctors, not the lawyers, determine when their case is “ripe” for settlement. We even have a provision in our retainer agreement that tells the client we do not know how long the case will take and that it depends on their doctors.

Central New York Lawyers Get Two Black Eyes

February 27, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Syracuse area lawyers received two black eyes this weekend. The Syracuse Post Standard reports that a Syracuse bankruptcy lawyer, Christopher Chadick, was convicted of defrauding many of his clients. He was found guilty of one of the oldest switch-and-bate tricks in the book — taking a customer’s money up front and then failing to deliver the product. In his case, he took retainer fees to file bankruptcy petitions and then didn’t do the work and didn’t return the money, either.

In a separate case, a Baldwinsville lawyer, David Pelland, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for conspiring to commit mail fraud. The facts are someone complicated, so I won’t go into them here. What struck me about this case, though, was that this is Pellard’s second felony conviction — he was convicted in 1994 for concealment of bankruptcy assets. I guess some folks never learn.

As a fellow lawyer, I take these stories to heart. Lawyers — especially personal injury lawyers like myself — already suffer from a negative public image rivaled only by used car salesmen and politicians. (A letter directed to the editor of a local newspaper from an insurance industry professional not long ago referred to us as “bottom feeders”.) More bad publicity for lawyers is not needed.

Central New York Personal Injury Lawyer Takes a “Fan’s” Call

February 26, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

I’ve got a “fan”! She called yesterday and told me she had subscribed to my Central New York personal injury lawyer blog a few months ago and enjoys reading my posts. She thinks I write nicely, clearly, and my posts help her understand New York personal injury law. She even forwards some of my blog posts to her friends and family. Nice compliment!

But that’s not why she called. She wanted advice. Before subscribing to my blog, she had hired a Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer to represent her for injuries she had suffered in an accident. She had some questions about how this lawyer was handling her case. She wanted to hire me to give her a second opinion. I told her I would not charge her. We then talked for about 10 minutes. I eased her mind about how her lawyer is handling her case. Her lawyer is doing a fine job, and his only shortcoming was perhaps a failure to explain clearly certain aspects of the case to her. She was grateful to me. I made a new friend!

Unfortunately, some New York personal injury lawyers would have seized on this opportunity to “bad-mouth” the client’s lawyer so they could take over the case. That’s not right, and not fair. Her Syracuse personal injury lawyer is a darn good one. And he is doing a darn good job, I am sure. I am not so conceited to think that Michaels Bersani Kalabanka is the only excellent Central or Syracuse New York personal injury law firm. (But, if you ask anyone who knows, you will hear we are among the best!)

Is Waiting To Turn Left With Your Steering Wheel Turned Left Negligent? Central and Syracuse Car Accident Attorney Explains.

February 22, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Yesterday when I gave my tips about how to minimize injuries in a rear-end collision, I forgot to mention a few things. First, to recap,yesterday I recommended waiting to turn left with your front wheels straight rather than turned left. This can avoid a flip-over in the event of a hard-impact rear-end collision. But what I did not mention was that this also prevents a second danger — getting pushed into on-coming traffic, where you can get hit head-on by an on-coming car. That’s a double wammy — a rear-end followed by a head-on. Doesn’t get much worse.

Here’s something else I forgot to mention: A few years ago we handled a Central New York motor vehicle accident case where a client was stopped at a red light waiting to turn left with his left signal on. He got rear-ended hard, and, because he had turned his steering wheel left in anticipation of his turn, he got pushed into the oncoming lane, where his front-seat passenger (his wife) got killed by the impact.

Now if you were an insurance defense attorney representing the driver of the vehicle that rear-ended our client at a red light, what would you do? Would you concede that your client was fully responsible for the accident? Sure, you or I or any normal human being would do that, but not an insurance defense lawyer. They are not normal. They feel compelled to raise any argument, no matter how ridiculous or frivolous, in order to placate the hand that feeds them, that is, the insurance company.

How To Minimize Your Injuries In A Rear-End Auto Collision

February 21, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

You probably won’t hear the advice I am about to give you from anyone else. I came up with this safety tip myself from my years of experience as a Central and Syracuse New York car accident lawyer. I will give you two simple techniques you can use to minimize your injuries if you are rear-ended. Before I give you my tips, though, let me explain why I am giving them now.

You see, I am getting more and more rear-end auto accident cases caused by distracted drivers, usually someone texting or looking down at his or her phone. I just took one in the other day. These rear-end collisions come with explosive force because the distracted driver never applies the brakes. He or she is too busy looking down at his or her phone to even notice the stopped vehicle. Further, these collisions usually don’t happen at stop signs or traffic lights. They usually happen when the front vehicle is waiting to turn left into a driveway. That is an area of the roadway where the distracted driver never really expected the front vehicle to stop before he looked down at to check his calls or text his friend.

I hear you, “enough lawyer talk already, give us the tips!” OK, here is the first of my two tips: Don’t wait with your steering wheel turned. Instead, keep your front wheels straight, and only turn them as you actually make your turn. Why? Because if you wait with your wheels turned, and you are rear-ended with force, your car can flip, and you will end up upside down. Not fun at all, believe me, I have been there! Two of my recent rear-ended clients got flipped. Their wheels were turned as they waited. If you keep your wheels straight as you wait, you will instead be catapulted forward, a much better deal.