Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Central New York Injury Lawyer On Nuclear Accident Liability

March 28, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

So what rights would we New Yorkers have to compensation in the event of a New York Nuclear Power Plant Catastrophe?

Let’s assume that Oswego’s Nuclear Power Plant suddenly broke down and started spewing out dangerous radioactivity, just like in Japan. Let’s assume your family ended up sick, or dead, and that you had to move out of your home — forever — and that its market value was reduced to zero dollars. Can you sue the Power Plant owner? If so, for how much?

Well, I’ve got some bad news for you. Even though under New York common law principles you would be able to sue the power company for every penny of compensation you were entitled to for all those catastrophic losses, a not-well-known federal law trumps New York law, and would probably force you to accept pennies for every dollar you would otherwise be entitled to.

Give’m Some Room — New York Traffic Cops Need Your Help.

March 27, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Local news sources report that a passing motorist struck and killed a trooper as he was writing another motorist a traffic ticket on the shoulder of Interstate 290 near the town of Tonawanda.

This is every traffic cop’s nightmare. And mine, too. As a Central and Syracuse New York car accident lawyer who has represented several police officers and deputy sheriffs struck by negligent motorists, I am particularly sensitive to the risks our law enforcement officers voluntarily assume every working day to protect the rest of us from law breaking motorists.

There they are, hunched over the driver’s window of a stopped car on the shoulder of the roadway, within inches of the roadway itself, exposed to the risk of distracted drivers running them over. I always worry about how close some of the vehicles are passing by. These police officers risk their lives every time they write a ticket! Fortunately, most, but not all, passing motorists have the common sense to slow down and move over to the left to give the guy some space.

Victor NY School Bus Accident; “What Is Going On With All These NY School Bus Accidents?” Asks NY Bus Accident Lawyer.

March 21, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

So here’s another upstate New York school bus accident. This one in Victor. About 9 a.m. this morning, a Victor Central School District bus was stopped on School Street to pick up some students, with its warning lights and stop sign activated, when another Victor school bus, instead of stopping and waiting, tries to go around it, strikes it, then strikes a car stopped and waiting just ahead, and jumps the curb.

Ten people, nine of them children, were taken to local hospitals.

So here was the question I asked of my blog readers earlier today: “What the heck was that second bus driver thinking?” I mean, driving past a stopped school bus is just about the biggest traffic offense out there (that’s why it’s a 5-pointer), but can you believe that a school bus driver would do that?

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.