Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Central New York Injury Lawyer Explains Effect of Failure to Wear Seatbelt on Lawsuit.

November 15, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

We got a very large settlement ($7.5 Million) last year for a young man involved in an automobile accident in Cayuga County, near Auburn. The young man had gone out to a bar in Skaneateles with some friends. On their way home, the driver, who was somewhat intoxicated, lost control of the car on snow and ice and crashed into a tree. Our client, who was in the backseat and not wearing his seatbelt, suffered permanent paralysis.

Some of our friends were surprised we got so much since our client was not wearing his seatbelt. They said, “Isn’t a passenger required in New York to wear a seatbelt? If he wasn’t doing what the law required, why was he entitled to so much for his injuries?”

Whether a passenger is in the front seat or the back seat of a car, the defendant of the lawsuit has a right to argue, as a defense to the case, that the passenger could have “mitigated his or her damages” (legalese for “could have avoided getting injured so badly”) if he or she had been wearing a seatbelt.

What makes Michaels Bersani Kalabanka Different from Other Personal Injury Law Firms?

November 15, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

Ok, I won’t beat around the bush: This blog entry is a shameless plug for my law firm, Michaels Bersani Kalabanka, P.C, a Syracuse area personal injury and medical malpractice law firm. But it’s also the truth (so help me God!).

Good personal injury law firms are not hard to find (and unfortunately, bad ones aren’t either). We believe that we are among the best injury law firms not only in central New York, but in all of upstate New York. But don’t take our word for it — judges and other lawyers have also ranked us among the best. Every lawyer in our firm has been named a “Super Lawyer” by Super Lawyers Magazine, and our firm has achieved the highest possible ranking in the Martindale-Hubbell Directory. To achieve those rankings, many lawyers and judges had to give us top grades for our legal skills and ethical standards. To learn more about what these ratings mean, go to the Martindale-Hubbell and Super Lawyers websites.

Still, there are other highly rated law firms, so what makes us different? We believe the answer resides in our team approach to cases. All four lawyers in our firm (Lee, Jan, Dave and myself) work as a team on each and every case in our office. We meet every two weeks for a full morning to discuss, strategize, brain-storm and trouble-shoot our cases collectively. Four heads are better than one! Most law firms don’t take the time to do this. The ideas that come out of our meetings are amazing! Those ideas help advance cases in the best way possible. This is why our motto, which you can see at the top of our website, is “the better game plan”. Just like a team huddles before deciding how to handle a key play, the lawyers at Michaels Bersani Kalabanka strategize as a team before deciding how to tackle tough or important issues in a case. And that’s our “better game plan”!

Silicosis Victim Wins 7.6 Million Dollar Verdict In Injury Lawsuit

November 12, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

In a recent post, I wrote about a multi-million dollar settlement Michaels Bersani Kalabanka recently achieved for a Syracuse area victim of occupational lung disease. I attached to that post a video-clip about one of the most common types of occupational lung disease, silicosis, an incurable, potentially deadly, and progressive disease. Silicosis is caused by the inhalation of silica, which is found naturally in sand and many rocks, and which, when blasted or sanded, becomes airborne. Silicosis and other work-related lung diseases are all too common in Syracuse, Auburn, Buffalo and other aging industrial cities.

Today the Clarion Ledger (a Mississippi Newspaper) reports that a victim of silicosis was awarded 7.6 million dollars in the first silicosis case to go to a jury in Mississippi. The injured worker developed silicosis from 25 years of sandblasting without proper protection from the dangerous dust that engulfed him on a daily basis.

So what did the defendant, Mississippi Valley Silica Co., do wrong? Apparently just about everything. The jury heard substantial proof that the company knew that the abrasive-blasting of sand without proper protection was likely to cause silicosis. They knew, or should have known, that proper protection would not have been complicated or costly. Yet they did nothing or next to nothing about it.

Another Central New York Wrongful Death Law Horror Story

November 11, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

Let me tell you about another heartbreaking wrongful death settlement. Heartbreaking for two reasons, as I will explain below.

A middle-aged married woman was walking to work in Geneva, Ontario County, New York. To get to work she had to cross Routes 5/20, also known as Hamilton Street. She crossed in a crosswalk, which meant she had the right of way, and vehicles traveling down Routes 5/20 had to yield to her. But the driver of an 18-wheeler, who was traveling along Routes 5/20, mowed her down. She did not survive.

Her heartbroken widower sought out a Geneva wrongful death claim against the negligent tractor-trailer driver and his commercial carrier/employer.

New York’s Wrongful Death Law Is Wrongful

November 7, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

Ok, imagine this: A speeding car strikes and instantly kills your 3-year-old child as you watch helplessly from a nearby lawn in Seneca County. Turns out the speeding driver was drunk. Your 3-year-old had wandered up to the road as you were distracted by your 2-year-old who was throwing a tantrum. Sure, in hindsight you should have kept a better eye on him, but there is no way a sober driver driving at the speed limit would not have been able to brake in time and avoid running over your son.

Your world is turned upside down, your heart is literally broken, you are devastated. When the shock and horror subside, and the grief that will engulf you forever takes hold, you go to a Central New York wrongful death lawyer. You want justice. You want compensation. You want to make the driver pay. What does he tell you?

If your New York lawyer is both honest and brave, he will tell you the sad truth; your case is worth almost nothing. That’s right, almost nothing. Why? Because New York State’s wrongful death law does not allow compensation for the emotional grief of surviving family members. It allows compensation only for “economic” loss, that is, the loss of economic support the dead victim would have provided, had he not died, to his surviving family members (as well as some incidental expenses such as medical bills, funeral bills). And since your 3-year-old did not support anyone, there is no “value” to your claim.

Central New York Occupational Lung Disease Lawsuit Ends in Substantial Settlement

November 5, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

Michaels Bersani Kalabanka recently negotiated a large (several million-dollar) settlement for a Central New York worker who suffered an occupational lung disease. This is the second multi-million dollar settlement we have had with occupational lung disease cases. Most occupational lung diseases lead to difficulty breathing, and sometimes to death.

In this Syracuse area work injury case, the worker was a mason whose job included cutting through bricks and mortar with a powered high-speed demolition saw and grinding the mortar from between the bricks with a powered hand-grinder. Of course he knew this created a lot of dust (he would go home every day covered in the stuff), but what he did not know was that there were harmful particles in the brick dust that were slowing scarring and damaging his lungs. He ended up with a serious lung disease called “mixed dust Pneumoconiosis”.

I once heard it said that if you can’t breathe, nothing else matters. Any one of the millions of Americans who suffers from asthma can attest to that.

Auburn / Syracuse Dog Bite Lawyer Gives Safety Tips for Avoiding Dog Bites

November 4, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

We just learned of a a Seneca County dog bite case, and as usual, the victim was a child. At Michaels Bersani Kalabanka we take in several dog bite cases a year. While the injuries from dog bites are not usually life threatening, the scarring is often disfiguring and permanent. Especially with children, the bites tend to be in the face.

In this case, the child was only 3 years old, and was visiting an apartment with his parents. The dog looked friendly, so the parents let their guard down, and let their child get close. The dog lunged and bit the child in the face, causing a terrible gash in his nose, requiring 15 stitches. We are hoping for a good recovery. In a way he was lucky; the bite just missed the eye.

I am a runner and bicyclist, and have had my own run-ins with dogs. I have been bitten by dogs twice while running, and a dog caused me to fall off my bicycle once, too. Dog owners are supposed to keep their dogs on their property, but they don’t always do so, especially out in the countryside where I run and bike.

New York State’s New Anti-Texting-While-Driving Law Takes Effect

November 2, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

TEXTING

Yesterday, Sunday November 1, just as we were turning our clocks back an hour, New York State’s anti-texting law went into effect. The new law prohibits using mobile devices behind the wheel for reading, typing and sending text messages. The penalty for violating the mobile-device law is $150. You can text that number by punching only 3 keys! Is this a good law?

From my vantage point, definitely. I just took in a Geneva, New York car accident case in a month ago, where a man was badly injured by a young lady who crossed the centerline of a road and hit him head-on near the city of Geneva, Ontario County, while texting. To add insult to injury, the insurance on the texter’s car had expired days before the accident. She had not bothered to renew it. The only recovery available to our client will come from his own “supplemental un/underinsurance motorist coverage“.

Central New York Winters, the Elderly, and Slip and Falls in Syracuse and Surrounding Areas

October 26, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

The older they are, the harder they fall. Or so it seems. With winter coming, property owners, as well as seniors and those who care for them, have to be extra careful to avoid slip-and-falls on ice or snow in all of central New York, including Syracuse, Auburn, Ithaca, Geneva and especially the very snowy Oswega areas. Why are slip-and-falls so dangerous for the elderly?

Seniors fall more often, suffer more severe injuries when they do fall, and recover more slowly. Here are some statistics gleaned from The Center for Disease Control and Prevention website More than one third of those over 65 fall each year in the United States. Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of injury deaths. Falls are also the most common cause of nonfatal hospital admissions for trauma. About 16,000 people over age 65 die yearly from falls. And fall-related deaths for the elderly are rising as the population ages.

In addition to the greater severity of the fractures (often the hip) which seniors face from falls, and the slower recovery time, seniors are exposed to greater risks of complications such as infections and blood clotting, skin ulcers and sores.

Syracuse New York Lawyer Lectures Other Lawyers about New York State Municipal Liability Law

October 25, 2009 | by Michael Bersani

I just completed my fourth annual round-the-State lecture to other injury lawyers regarding Municipal Liability for the New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers. You can see the outline for my talk at the “publications” page on our Michaels Bersani Kalabanka website. “Municipal Liability” means holding a government entity, such as a county, town, village, city, school district or public authority, liable for injuries. I lectured to Albany personal injury lawyers, Syracuse personal injury lawyers, Rochester personal injury lawyers, and Buffalo personal injury lawyers.

This is a hard topic. Bringing a claim against a governmental entity in New York State is like walking down a labyrinth strewn with hidden mines that can explode under foot. You need to know where to turn in the maze, and which steps to avoid. There are bizarre, complex special procedures you have to navigate through, and some very powerful defenses you have to watch out for.

As for procedures, before you even sue a municipality, you generally have to serve something called a “notice of claim“, a legal document giving the municipality certain key information about the claim you intend to bring. This has to be served on the municipality in a very specific way within 90 days of the injury you want to sue for. Also, your statute of limitations is usually much shorter than when you just sue a private person. There are many other procedural differences too, including something called a “50-h examination”, which is a chance for the municipality’s lawyer to ask you questions under oath about your claim. To read a more complete detailed account of these procedural hurdles, read my Municipal Liability article “Suits Against Public Entities“, which was published in the New York State Bar Journal several years ago, but is now conveniently located on our firm website at the “publications” page.