Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Syracuse Porch Collapse Injuring Tenants Not An Uncommon Event, Syracuse Injury Attorney Says

April 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Imagine you are just kicking back on your porch enjoying this great spring weather in Syracuse, New York, hanging with some buddies, maybe having a beer when —- BANG — you wake up in pain, lying on the ground below.

This is what happened Saturday at an apartment on the corner of Lynwood Avenue and James Street in Syracuse. The porch just collapsed with no warning, dropping the three people sitting on it to the ground below.

Central New York porch, balcony or deck collapse lawsuits are not as uncommon as you may think. The Auburn New York personal injury law office of Michaels Bersani Kalabanka has handled several such cases.

Syracuse Motorcycle Accident Lawyer: Another Motorcycle Fatality in Central New York This Weekend

April 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

In my last post, I neglected to note another Central New York motorcycle accident his weekend. A Madison County motorcyclist was killed in the evening of April 3 at about 6:30 when he crashed on Gorge Road, part of Route 13, in Cazenovia,. He failed to handle a curve, crossed the road, struck some guiderails and was ejected. He died later at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse. He was riding with other bikers. Again, this Central New York motorcycle fatality happened in broad daylight in beautiful spring weather. Don’t assume the good weather makes driving safer. It can make it more dangerous if you let down your guard.

Central New York Motorcycle and Car Accidents in This Perfect Central New York Spring Weather.

April 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Wow. What a bad weekend for motor vehicle collisions this beautiful Easter weekend in Central New York State.

First, in the morning of April 3, a Yates County New York car driver died, and his passenger, an Oswego county New York man, was seriously injured, when their vehicle drifted off the Thruway and flipped onto its side near Elbridge, New York. It appears the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Then, later that same day, in the evening, at about 6 p.m., a Central New York motorcyclist accident took place when a motorcycle hit a traffic island on State Route 3 near Oneida Street in Fulton. The biker was thrown from his bike and suffered back, chest and head injuries.

Central New York Medication Error Lawyer: “Blame The Victim” Defense Backfires on Walgreens in Prescription Mistake Case.

April 4, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

When Floridian Beth Hippely was diagnosed with breast cancer, and needed a blood thinner to fight it, she walked into Walgreens with her prescription. A teenage, unlicensed pharmacy technician, who Walgreens had recently hired, happened to be filling prescriptions that day. She accidently gave Hippely a dosage 10 times stronger than what she had been prescribed.

The mistaken drug overdose killed Hippley, but she did not “go gently into that good night”. The medication error caused her first to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage (a “brain bleed”), which in turn caused her to become imprisoned in her own body in a condition known as “locked-in” state. She lived as a head-on-a-pillow, conscious but unable to communicate with the outside world except by using eye movements (one blink for “yes”, two for “no”). Because of her weakened condition, she was unable to undergo chemotherapy to fight her cancer, and died of it, after a long, painful struggle.

Hippley’s family (husband and three children) won a $33.3 million verdict in their prescription error wrongful death lawsuit. Walgreens appealed the jury verdict, but last month a Florida court of appeals upheld it.

Syracuse New York Injury Lawyer Says U.S. Civil Justice System Best in World

April 1, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Ok, I have written on this topic very recently, but I can’t help it if the topic just stays in the news. I am talking about the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse lawsuit crisis, which I just blogged about a few days ago.

But an article in the New York Times today sheds some new light on the crisis. It explains why the Church’s sexual abuse claim crisis is happening so much later in Europe than in the United States. As you will recall, the crisis peaked in the U.S. about a decade ago. Why are the European abused boys, now men, who were molested or raped back in the 60’s and 70’s, only now coming forward? The New York Times attributes the delay in part to the fact that victims in Europe cannot expect significant compensation in Court, as can victims in the U.S. The Times quotes a German lawyer representing 15 sexually abused boys who says the highest civil judgment any child victim of severe sexual abuse has ever received in Germany was less than $70,000.

$70,000 to compensate a man who as a boy suffered “sever sexual abuse” at the hands of a priest! And that’s top dollar over there! And for a crime that totally changes a boy’s life, for the worse, forever. No wonder those abused kids/men have kept their mouths shut for so long over there. Why put yourself through the emotional trauma of disclosing publicly what you shamefully endured privately for so long —- for a maximum of $70,000? Hardly seems worth it to me.

School Liability for Bullying: Central New York Injury Lawyer Explains.

April 1, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

In New York State, schools are legally responsible for preventing their students, at least while they are at school, from harming each other. This includes preventing school injuries caused by horseplay and avoidable accidents, but also intentional harm students might inflict on each other through assaults, harassment or bullying. School teachers and administrators cannot stand idly by while some students assault, harass, threaten, taunt or bully others. The school has a legal duty to take reasonable measures to make its school safe for its students. When it comes to bullying, if a school does not have rules in place to deal with such behavior, or if it fails to follow these rules, the student-victim can bring a lawsuit against the school for money damages under a legal theory of “negligent supervision”.

School bullying was in the news a lot this week. The saddest story, and the one to catch all the national news, was about an Irish immigrant girl at a school in Massachusetts who was so relentlessly bullied that it drove her to commit suicide. The girl had been the recipient of a barrage of assaults, threats, and taunting for months. The local district attorney has charged 9 fellow students with crimes that led to the suicide, including stalking, criminal harassment and violation of civil rights.

There is plenty of blame blame to go around, though, and certainly the school deserves a lot of it. The school knew about the bullying. A psychologist says she consulted with school administrators months before the 15-year-old hanged herself. But they did nothing to stop the bullying. Watch for a lawsuit from the dead girl’s parents — I’ll bet it’s in the works, as well it should be.

Central New York Lawyer: Are Amusement Park Rides Safe?

March 30, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Today’s Syracuse Post Standard reports on a seven-million dollar investment by the owners of the Darien Lake Resort to expand the amusement park this spring, adding new water-based rides and other attractions, and splitting Darien Lake into two much larger amusement parks. The Florida-based corporate owner of Darien Lake christened the new expanded water park “Splash Town” and the amusement ride area “Darien Lake Theme Park”. The article reports that Central New York is one of Darien Lake’s top markets.

But are amusement parks like Darien Lake safe? I read in the paper this week that an Indianapolis boy is fighting for his life after an amusement ride accident on a “tea cup” ride at an amusement park. The state authorities later determined that the ride had not been inspected in more than a year. At the same park, a 6-year old boy was seriously injured on an amusement ride only a week before.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission keeps statistics on amusement ride accidents. Between 1987 and 2003, a period of 16 years, only 12 people were killed on amusement park rides. That’s not bad, but in 2002 alone, over 3,000 injuries were reported from “mobile” amusement rides (the kind that are assembled at fairs) in the United States.

Can You Sue Your Spouse’s Lover for Stealing Your Spouse? Not in New York, Syracuse New York Tort Lawyer Explains

March 29, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Ok, I plead guilty to not being a “tort reformer”. I generally do NOT support eliminating or even reducing the rights of the seriously injured to recover compensation, including for pain and suffering, from “tortfeasors”, that is, those who injured them through wrongdoing, negligence or carelessness. That being said, I think the State of North Carolina needs a little tort reform.

The local newspapers have been reporting on a curious case of a Wells College dean (Aurora, New York) who was sued by the spurned wife of the man she now resides with. The heartbroken cast-off convinced a North Carolina jury to award her $9 million for her loss (must have been quite a man!). It probably didn’t help that the alleged husband-thief missed the trial (she says she was not notified in time). Now the temptress is asking the judge to toss out the verdict.

Could this happen in New York? No. But it could have happened before 1935, which is the year New York, like almost every other state in the Union, abandoned the archaic “alienation of affection” tort, which allowed a deserted spouse to sue his or her adulterous spouse’s lover to recover damages.

Syracuse New York Lawyer on Sex Abuse Lawsuits

March 27, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

Sexual abuse lawsuits are in the news a lot these days. It is now common knowledge that some priests, under the Catholic Church’s employ, were busy (between masses?) molesting and even raping boys. The Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has even reached the doorstep of the Pope! The Pope, they say, knew (before he became Pope) that these priests had sexually abused young boys, yet was complicit in a cover-up. The Church allowed the pedophile priests to continue to work with the boys even after it knew of their track record for abuse. The Church moved the abusers from one parish to another where they then abused other boys.

The victims have brought sexual abuse lawsuits not only against the individual priests that abused them, but their employer, the Church. Any compensation from these lawsuits will not come from the priests, who generally have no assets. It will come from the “deep pocket”, the Church. And rightly so, since the Church failed so miserably to protect these boys from these sexual predators.

What do the Boy Scouts of America have in common with the Catholic Church? Quite a bit, according to a sexual abuse lawsuit being tried right now in Oregon. We’re not talking about a suit against a local Boy Scout Troop, but the big buys, the actual Boy Scouts of AMERICA. The difference between this lawsuit and others that have been filed across the nation is its breadth and scope. The lawsuit accuses Boy Scouts of America of a cover-up. It alleges that the Boy Scouts of America allowed troop leaders to continue to work with scouts after they knew they had abused scouts, even sometimes after they had been convicted of sexual abuse. According to the victims’ lawyers, the Boy Scouts of America moved the abusers from one troop to another where they then abused other boys. Sound familiar? (hint – Catholic Church).

Syracuse New York Defective Product Lawyer on “Infanto” Baby Sling Recall.

March 24, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

What is the worst kind of defective product? A good candidate is a baby-killer. And that is what the Infanto Baby Slings “SlingRider” and “Wendy Bellissimo” (sold by several large retailiers such as Target, Babies R Us and Burlington Coat) turned out to be.

Today the federal agency responsible for consumer safety, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), recalled more than 1 million Infanto baby slings after they apparently caused at least three infant deaths BY SUFFOCATION. The slings are especially dangerous for infants under 4 months old. Babies can suffocate in them in two ways: First, the baby’s nose and mouth can get pressed against the sling’s soft fabric, thereby blocking its ability to breathe (or cry out in distress). Second, if the baby is placed in the curved position (c-like), the baby’s head can flop forward, chin-to-chest, reducing the ability of the infant to breathe (or cry out in distress). Small infants’ necks are not strong enough to pick their head up out of this position.

This story is personally distressful to me because of my own blissful experience with baby slings. Baby slings became popular about a dozen years ago, when my boys were still infants. They are great because they allow on-the-go parents (like me and my wife) to bond closely with their babies as they go about their business. I remember a trip we took to New Orleans where I had my one-year old cuddled up against my chest as we strolled all over the French Quarter. He was so peaceful in that sling, with his little head peeking out over the lip of it, checking out the Bourbon Street scene!