Central New York Injury Lawyer Blog

Tonawanda NY DuPont Plant Explosion Victims May Have NY Explosion Injury Case Against Suppliers Of Tank Or Others

November 9, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

I read a news report today about a chemical tank exploding at the DuPont plant in Tonawanda, New York. The Tonawanda plant produces countertops and sinks and laminate film used in solar panels.

The explosion killed one worker and injured another. Police say the blast may have been caused by fumes or residue from chemicals the tank once held that were ignited by welding activities nearby.

Sounds to me like DuPont did not properly empty or isolate the tank. Unfortunately for the injured worker and the deceased worker’s family, the case against DuPont will be barred by workers’ compensation law. That means that they will get only workers’ compensation benefits, which are minimal when compared to what they could get if a full-fledged lawsuit were allowed. Workers’ compensation generally pays medical bills and about 60% of the lost wages. No pain and suffering compensation is allowed.

Central NY and Syracuse Accident Lawyer In Spain.

November 8, 2010 | by Michael Bersani

“Waiter, bring me a latte and a churro please.”

Your Central and Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer is writing this blog post from a quaint little café in Barcelona, Spain. I have come here to visit my daughter. It’s a lovely city. I’ll be here for two weeks. It’s good to get away from the office for a while.

If I am handling your New York personal injury case, don’t worry! I have not dropped the ball in your case! Modern technology allows me to handle it from here. The technology lawyers have at their disposition these days is dazzling. These days I can read all my files from my laptop from anywhere in the world! I just click a few icons and I am into my law office server in Auburn, NY, where my electronic files are stored. I can read every piece of mail, pleadings and deposition transcripts, on all my New York personal injury cases. My adept staff scans my mail into my files daily, so I can read all my new mail, new pleadings, etc. I can then email draft responses to my staff, review the drafts and approve them, all while sipping a Latte in this quaint little cafe in Barcelona.

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.