Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Central New York and Syracuse Car Accident Lawyer: Watch Out For Those Deer!

November 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Motorists, welcome to deer season in Upstate New York. Watch out! The white-tailed deer this year are more populous than in recent years. And they still haven’t learned how to look both ways before crossing the road! They are a moving target you want to miss.

Hey, last time I checked the law books, you can’t sue a deer. So if you run into one, and your car, or you, or both, are damaged, you are out of luck. Sure, you may have collision insurance, and no-fault insurance will pay the medical bills and lost wages (for a while!), but if you are seriously injured in a car-on-deer collision, you really have no good options legally.

Unless you are a passenger. Then you can bring a New York car accident claim against your driver for failure to drive in a careful enough manner so as to avoid the deer collision. Don’t worry; you won’t be dipping into your friend’s pocket. His or her car insurance will compensate you, if you can, with the help of a good New York car accident lawyer, prove the driver was at least partially at fault for failing to drive more slowly, look more carefully, or brake more quickly.

Auburn NY Personal Injury Claim Faker Is Caught!

November 2, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Honest New York personal injury lawyers like myself abhor dishonest personal injury claimants. They give our honest clients, and us, a bad name. Many people already assume, wrongly, that personal injury claimants exaggerate or completely fake their injuries. One true story about a fraudulent personal injury claim gives the whole profession a black eye.

I have represented hundreds of Central New York and Syracuse personal injury claimants over the years, and I can count on one hand those who were faking (and with my long experience representing personal injury victims, I can tell!). When I discover the deceit, I quickly sever the relationship. Even if I did not discover the deceit, the personal injury claim process would eventually, in almost all cases, reveal it. An insurance carrier’s thorough investigation, or the harsh light of a deposition, usually brings the lie into focus.

In my experience, most personal injury fakers are also stupid. And dishonesty mixed with stupidity can easily backfire. Here’s a good example:

Under New York Personal Injury Law, Can You Sue a Police Officer Who Crashes His Police Car Into You While Pursuing a Criminal?

November 1, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

A police officer who risks his life trying to catch the bad guy, and is injured while doing so, ranks high up there among this Syracuse New York injury lawyer’s pantheon of heroes. And that’s what happened yesterday in Syracuse. The Syracuse Post Standard reports that a Syracuse police officer, in hot pursuit of a burglary suspect, was seriously injured when he crashed his police car into the back of another car, and then into a tree on East Fayette Street in Syracuse.

The fact that the police officer may have injured innocent bystanders (the occupants of the car he rear-ended) is, though, problematic. You might be wondering how the law deals with that. Do those injured by cops pursuing criminals have a right to sue the police officer, and his police department, for their injuries?

The answer is “yes”, but they have to show more than that the police officer was negligent. They have to show he was driving with “reckless disregard” for the public’s safety. This is a pretty tough standard, and for good reason; we want our brave police officers to pursue criminals, even at high speeds when necessary, without having to worry about getting sued for accidents they inadvertently cause in trying to protect us from criminals and other dangers.

Syracuse NY Slip-And-Fall Lawyer Describes a “Good” Slip-And-Fall Case

October 31, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

As a Central New York and Syracuse slip-and-fall lawyer, I review a lot of restaurant and store slip-and-fall cases. But I only agree to handle about 1 out of every 5 of them. Why? Let’s take a typical restaurant slip-and-fall-in-a-soda-spill case. In most such cases, you can’t prove that the restaurant was responsible for the spill that the client slipped in. Usually, the client has no way of knowing how long the spill had been there. A careless customer may have spilled it only a few minutes before the client slipped in it. Generally, unless we can prove that someone reported the spill to the restaurant (and they failed to clean it up) or that the spill had been there for a considerable period of time so that the restaurant should have noticed it by conducting reasonable periodic inspections, the slip-and-fall victim has no case. That’s basic New York slip-and-fall law!

I came across a recent case that demonstrates what a good slip-and-fall case looks like. A federal jury in Hawaii awarded a slip-and-fall victim $5.67 million dollars to compensate her for a serious spinal cord injuries she sustained at a McDonald’s restaurant.

Why was the McDonalds’ restaurant found responsible for her slip-and-fall injury? Plaintiff was able to prove that, at the time of the accident, the restaurant crew had failed to clean the floor for a significant period of time. As a result, a greasy film had formed at the spot where the woman eventually slipped and fell.

Central NY Bicycle Accident Lawyer’s Fall Foliage Safety Tips

October 24, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

This past week I put in about 100 miles on my bicycle. And it wasn’t enough! Why? Because I just could not get enough of all these marvelous Central New York fall colors.

Take a look at these recent fall photos on the Syracuse Post Standard webpage. Wow!

As a Central New York and Syracuse area bicycle accident lawyer, I appreciate safe bicycling practices. I am watching for wet leaves on the road, which can cause me to slip, skid and fall over. I am also wary of “leafers” – motorists who are out on our scenic country roads looking at the foliage. If they are looking at leaves, they won’t be looking at me! As I have blogged about before, motorists often simply fail to see bicyclists. This is obviously even a greater danger when there is such an abundance of spectacular colors to distract them.

Central New York Injury Lawyer’s Halloween Safety Quiz

October 21, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Here’s a little Halloween quiz from your Central New York personal injury lawyer: What are the three most common childhood Halloween injuries? If your answer included the word “candy”, you were wrong (hey, you aren’t alone — I would have thought so, too).

Actually, the most common types of injures seen in emergency rooms across this spooky land on October 31, according to the American Association of Pediatrics, are: (1) Eye injuries from sharp objects, (2) burn injuries from flammable costumes and (3) traumatic injuries from collisions with vehicles.

Are you spooked yet? Now that we know the scary injuries, let’s talk about how to avoid them.

Syracuse NY Accident Lawyer Gets Excellent Client Reviews

October 20, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

I blogged the other day about how good it feels as a lawyer to get a “thumbs up“. In that blog post, I was talking about a nice email I got from a Rochester New York personal injury lawyer who heard me lecture to a room full of other New York accident lawyers about New York personal injury law issues.

It is nice to get validated by a judge, a jury, and other lawyers, but what I love most is when clients praise me. They are what’s most important to me.

What am I talking about? There is a website, “AVVO“, which is growing more and more popular, and which gives clients a place to write reviews of their lawyer. I am proud to say that I have a “perfect” (10 out of 10) AVVO rating. But I am even more proud of what my former clients have written about me on my AVVO site. Here are some selected quotes:

Geneva and Canandaigua NY Car Accident Lawyer Discusses Recent Car Accidents

October 19, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Holy Kamoli! Lots of car accidents reported in Sunday’s Geneva Finger Lakes Times. Here are three: A car blew past a stop sign in Hopewell causing a motorcycle to run into its side, ejecting the biker. In another Hopewell car accident, a woman pulled out from a stop sign without looking carefully, causing a car coming through the intersection to collide into her. And in a Canandaigua car crash, four vehicles (four!) were involved in a chain-rear-end collision on Routes 5 & 20.

Actually, these kinds of car accidents are all too typical. As a Geneva and Canandaigua New York car accident lawyer, I can tell you that 70 to 80 percent of my New York auto accident case load consists of either drivers failing to yield the right of way at stop signs, or drivers rear-ending the car in front.

The only somewhat unusual accident of these three is the four-vehicle chain rear-end crash. This is somewhat unusual during the summer and fall months with the good weather we have been having. Usually this kind of multi-vehicle rear-end collision happens in icy or foggy conditions where motorists are just driving too fast for those conditions. In fact, I am handling one right now, a Yates County collision involving four cars rear-ending one another in wintery conditions.

Can Emergency Responders Who Speed and Blow Through Stop Signs Be Held Liable In A New York Personal Injury Lawsuit?

October 18, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

I came across an article in the Geneva Finger Lakes Times yesterday about a volunteer fireman responding to vehicle fire who was ticketed for “driving at an unreasonable speed” after failing to stop at a stop sign, going off the road, hitting a light pole and then a parked car in downtown Penn Yan, Yates County.

So here’s the blog question of the day: Did this volunteer fireman, who was responding to an emergency (a vehicle fire), have a legal right to speed and go through the stop sign without stopping?

The answer is a qualified “yes”. Pursuant to New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1104, the driver of an authorized emergency vehicle (e.g., police cars, ambulances, firefighters), when involved in an emergency operation, may not be held liable for New York car accidents when disobeying certain traffic rules, including speed limits and stopping at stop signs “except where he/she acted with reckless disregard for the safety of others”.

Central New York Personal Injury Lawyer Loves Getting “Thumbs Up”.

October 16, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

It’s nice to get a thumbs up. This is true when I bring my New York personal injury cases to the jury, and it is true in life generally. And I got a nice one yesterday. After I gave my annual update lecture on the topic of Municipal liability (how to hold a City, Town, Village, County, etc. liable in New York for personal injuries or wrongful death) to a room full of Rochester lawyers yesterday, I found this email awaiting me when I back home to Geneva:

Hello Michael. I . . . was in attendance today at the Academy’s 2010 update. Despite it being such a long day, it was worthwhile. And you were definitely a highlight of the day’s presenters. I thoroughly enjoyed your insights, and especially, your enthusiasm for your topic. You ‘read into’ the judicial mindset (I love to do that too) to get the largest sense possible of where the court is going …that makes law more like a philosophy course, or at least, a true barometer of the way we humans organize ourselves! As always, it is fascinating. Found your website to tell you so–too bad you are not in Rochester full time! Our loss….thanks again.

Needless to say, that email made my day. And I obviously hope juries and judges find my New York personal injury case presentations equally compelling! Although I have had great results, so far no emails from them!