10 of our Top New York Personal Injury Lawyers have been named Super Lawyers and 3 of them have been named Rising Stars. These lawyers are:
In their latest Trial Advocacy Column in the New York Law Journal, Top New York Personal Injury Attorneys Ben Rubinowitz and Evan Torgan write: To be effective with cross-examination, the trial attorney must know what her objective is and how to get there. All crosses must start at the end—with what attorney intends to prove. Once the attorney knows what she intends to prove, she can use different techniques such as changing the tone of her voice, focusing the question for the witness, asking low risk open ended questions and making statements with a question at the end.
Read the complete article in the New York Law Journal
We are pleased to announce that our partners, NYC Personal Injury Lawyers Ben Rubinowitz and Peter Saghir have obtained a record setting settlement on behalf of four young boys who were sexually abused by a worker at a local catholic church in Brooklyn. The Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens and a local after school program will pay $27,500,000 which will be divided evenly with each boy receiving $6,875,000. This is the largest settlement in the country paid by the Catholic Church to an individual survivor of sexual abuse.
Between 2003 and 2009, Angelo Serrano, sexually abused the four young boys who were between the ages of 8 and 12. Serrano who was 58 years old at the time of his arrest in 2009 was a long time worker at St. Lucy’s St. Patrick’s, a Catholic church in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. Serrano served as a CCD teacher at the church and also as the Director of Religious Education. The abuse which took place over a number of years was perpetrated inside the church and in his apartment which was located in the old school house of the church.
It was revealed during depositions that the priests in the church knew or certainly should have known that Serrano was sexually abusing children. One priest testified that he witnessed Serrano inappropriately embrace and kiss and eight or nine year old boy on the mouth in the church office. Despite witnessing this behavior the priest did not report this conduct, document it or even ask the child his name.
A pedestrian died in a car accident in the Bronx, NYC, after being struck by a drunk driver. The accident occurred Friday morning around 9:30 am. 33 year old Shakira Price, a teacher at Schuylerville Preparatory High School in the Bronx was drunk behind the wheel when she first crashed into a Kia driven by a 72 year old driver on Pelham Parkway. She sped away from the accident scene and the Kia driver started to chase her. As she was trying to get away from him, she struck Raymon Bolan, a 57 year old pedestrian who was trying to cross Pelham Parkway at the intersection of Eastchester Road. The man was transported to the hospital with trauma all over his body. He didn’t survive the accident. Price was taken into custody and later charged with vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated, and driving while ability impaired. Read more in the New York Post
Another pedestrian was fatally hit by a car on the FDR Drive on Saturday morning around 5:00 am. The victim, 50 year old Heward Velez of Moonachie in New Jersey, was allegedly running away from an accident that occurred a few minutes earlier. Velez was driving his Honda Civic on the northbound side of the FDR when he hit a Jeep near the 96th Street exit. Both drivers pulled over and got out of their cars to exchange information. Then Velez tried to run across the FDR. He was fatally hit by a Cadillac SUV on one of the southbound lanes.
A construction worker from New York died after a wall collapsed at a Brooklyn construction site last Wednesday. 47 year old Luis Almonte of Innwood was part of a crew of 6 construction workers who were digging into the ground with an excavator at a one-story building located on 39th street. The workers were preparing the ground for the construction of a new manufacturing and healthcare center. As they were digging, a slurry wall suddenly collapsed and buried Almonte. The FDNY first responders searched for hours through the rubble assisted by a NYPD K9 Unit. A Con Edison truck designed to vacuum debris and soil was also used to assist the crews. The rain was making the search more difficult. The body of Luis Almonte was finally found on Thursday. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The DOB is still investigating the reason for the wall collapse. The construction site had active permits and no complaints or violations.
A pedestrian was injured after being ran over by a NYPD tow truck last Thursday around noon at the intersection of 42nd Street and 10th Ave. The elderly man was walking with a cane in the middle of the crosswalk on 42nd street when he was run over by a NYPD tow truck that was making a left turn from 10th Avenue onto 42nd Street. The pedestrian had the green light.
According to witnesses, the driver of the tow truck wasn’t paying attention to the road and didn’t yield to pedestrians. She made a very sharp turn while there were still people in the crosswalk and she didn’t even realize that she hit someone. A witness told the Gothamist “she was driving like crazy”.
After pedestrians screamed at her, the tow truck driver stopped near the scene of the accident but never left the truck to check on the unconscious man. She remained inside the truck while she was questioned by traffic supervisors.
The number of construction accident fatalities in New York City recorded by the DOB doubled during the first seven months of 2018 compared to the same period of 2017. The DOB data does not include fatalities from transit and roadway projects, as well as health emergencies, that are not in DOB’s jurisdiction and usually approximately account for an additional third of the DOB numbers. These numbers are usually recorded by OSHA but are not available so far.
8 construction workers died between January 1st 2018 and July 31st 2018. The year before, 4 of them died during the same period of time. Injuries also rose by 17% from 401 to 469 while the total number of construction accidents went up 18.4% from 386 to 457.
Among the 8 workers who died, 4 of them died while working on a Manhattan construction site , 2 of them while working on a Queens site, one of them on a Brooklyn site and one of them on a Bronx site. Sadly most of these deaths might have been prevented if safety rules had been proprely implemented and respected.
Overuse Injuries often occur when young athletes are pushed by their parents, their teachers or their coach to be highly specialized in one sport at an early age. As kids get back to school, many of them will be lead to focus on one specific chosen sport only. Supported by their parents and their teachers, they will try to develop into great athletes. However a recent study in Pediatrics shows that athletes below the age of 18 who are highly specialized in one sport only have a much higher risk to develop overuse injuries and to ultimately quit sports.
Social pressure to develop kids into superstar athletes has led parents to believe that early sport specialization and more practice is beneficial for their children. While focusing intensely on one sport in an early age may give a temporary advantage to a child, it may sadly result in an increased risk for injury that ultimately may cause the child to miss time from playing or to quit. Additionally the idea that elite athletes started to specialize at a young age is a misconception. Studies show that most of them participated in multi sports in their early teens and only specialized in one sport in late adolescence.
Approximately 100 patients from Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn had their private information stolen by an unscrupulous employee. 52 year old Orlando Jemmott, a long time hospital employee working in the emergency room is accused of selling the health data of 98 employees to an alleged buyer from Pennsylvania named Ron Pruitt. Orlando Jemmott was arrested by the FBI in February and Ron Pruitt was arrested last week.
Two years ago someone close to Jemmott learned that he was stealing patients info and selling them through whatsapp. She took Jemmott’s phone and gave it to the FBI with a picture of his whatsapp profile. After they got a warrant to investigate the phone, the FBI found hundreds of messages between Jemmott and Pruitt including names and phone numbers of patients.
Jemmot was fired by the hospital in April. For now he is free on a 80,000 bond and he is negociating a plea deal with prosecutors. Pruitt remains free on his own recognizance after his arrest last week.
Our managing partner Ben Rubinowitz will be speaking at the Meadowlands Seminar 2018 on November 14th 2018. Organized by the New Jersey Association for Justice, the seminar will focus on Case Framing.
In the first part of the program, Mark Mandell from Mandell Shwartz & Boisclair in Providence, RI will introduce the concept of Case Framing to participants. In the second part, Ben Rubinowitz will explain how to Create Echoes by developing, reinforcing and successfully presenting your theory of the case to the trier of facts.
The Seminar will take place at the Hilton Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. It is restricted to regular members of the NJAJ.
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog