Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Personal Injury

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Two construction workers as well as several pedestrians and car passengers suffered personal injury in a crane accident in New York yesterday morning. The crane was hauling an air conditioning unit of the size of a shipping container to the top floor of a 30-story building at 261 Madison Avenue, N.Y.C. when a rigging strap broke. The unit first crashed into the side of the building before landing on Madison Avenue between 38th and 39th streets. 10 people were injured by the falling debris. The crane operating company, Skylift, had a similar accident in 2010 during which no one was injured and received two serious OSHA violations.

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Tracy_Morgan_5_Shankbone_2009_NYCTracy Morgan and other people who were injured after a Walmart truck crashed into their limo van have reached  a confidential settlement with the retailer.  The children of comedian James ‘Jimmy Mack’ McNair who was killed in the accident, settled a separate lawsuit for $10 million last January.  Our partner, New York personal injury lawyer Howard Hershenhorn, who is regularly quoted by the New York City Press,  told the Daily News that the deal was likely “multiples of that — many, many multiples of that.” He noted that Morgan, Fuqua and Millea have serious injuries they’ll likely deal with the rest of their lives, and that Morgan — who hasn’t worked since the accident — has a strong claim that his injuries have impacted his substantial earning power.  Read more here
Picture: wikipedia

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An elderly woman suffered personal injury after she lost control of her car and crashed into a doctor’s office in Long Island, NY. The auto accident was caught on tape by a camera that was previously installed by the doctor who got fed up after two other drivers previously slammed into the doctor’s office and fled the scene.  The tape shows the car barreling across the roadway barely missing another car and hitting the fence at full speed before ending up in the medical building owned by the doctor. The elderly woman was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The police are still investigating  the cause of the car accident.

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New York car accidentThe New York Daily News analyzed NYPD crash data from July 2012 to March 2015 to see if the Zero Vision Plan launched by Bill de Blasio was making the streets of New York City safer. According to the newspaper analysis that compared the road statistics after the Vision Zero Roll out from September to December 2014 with the same period of 2012, the results are mixed.  Some roads had very large decline in the numbers of vehicles accidents resulting in severe personal injuries or fatalities such as Broadway between 125th street to 95th Street in Manhattan but other roads saw an increase in accidents resulting in injuries or fatalities. For example during the months following a reduction of the speed limit on E. Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, car accidents on this road resulted in 50 fatalities or severe personal injuries while for the same period of 2012 this number was 33.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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Failure to diagnose neurosarcoidosis can be medical malpractice that can drastically impair the quality of life of a person. In its “Case of the Month” , the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAPA) discusses the case of a 68 year old woman who’s condition severely worsened after she was misdiagnosed. In 2011 the patient complained to her neurologist that she had difficulties walking. The neurologist’s diagnosis was normal pressure hydrocephalus and had a ventriculoperitoneal shunt placed to drain the increased Cerebrospinal fluid. The condition of the patient seemed to improve at the beginning but after two years the symptoms worsened and she developed double vision and couldn’t walk without a cane. The neurologist thought the problem was coming from the shunt and tried different adjustments that were unsuccessful.  The patient was using a walker and suffered from ataxia, weakness and increased urinary incontinence when she decided to consult with a neuromuscular clinic. The patient was diagnosed with a rare condition called neurosarcoidosis. The patient received cortocosteroids and her condition started to improve after 5 days.

Read the complete case in the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAPA)

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brNew York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz who is representing Dana Lerner and Richard Stock in a wrongful death lawsuit against Koffi Komlani, the taxi driver who killed their son Cooper in a traffic accident, said to the New York Post that both parties were proprely served after the lawyers representing the cabbie tried to  use a technicality to dodge the lawsuit.

Copper was crossing the road with his dad at 97th Street and West End Avenue in the Upper West Side in January 2014 when he was fatally struck by the taxi driver who was making a left-hand turn. A witness took a video of Richard Stock trying to pick up his son just after he was run over by the taxi. This video will be included in the lawsuit. “[Richard Stock] is screaming at the top of his lungs. There could never be anything worse for a father,” said Ben Rubinowitz.

Because of insurance caps, Cooper parents do no expect to receive more than $50,000 but they want to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit to hold the cab driver accountable for his recklessness.

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The Borough Pedestrian Safety Action Plans are one of 63 Vision Zero initiatives designed to eliminate deaths and personal injuries from traffic accidents in New York City. This set of five plans have been developed by the New York Department of Transportation and the NYPD. Each safety action plan addresses specific borough related challenges to pedestrian safety. The action plans are based on the input of the borough inhabitants gathered during multiple community workshops and also from numerous data and comments collected on the interactive Zero Vision map.

Bronx Pedestrian Safety Action Plan

Bronx Pedestrian Safety MapThe Bronx pedestrian fatality rate is higher than the NYC average. Most traffic fatalities and personal injuries happen  in the high-density neighborhoods in the north- and south-westerly portions of the Bronx. Arterial streets such as The Grand Concourse, 3rd Avenue, and Fordham Road are the most dangerous.  A lot of pedestrians are killed when crossing the street mid- block because of the lack of an adequate number of crossroads. The Bronx has a lot of overnight pedestrian fatalities. Seniors represent 36% of the Bronx pedestrian fatalities and young adults 18%. Dangerous driving such as speeding, failing to yield, turning on red distracted driving and DUI are the cause of 85% of the pedestrian fatalities in the Bronx and hit and run occurs in 30 % of cases.

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New York Wrongful Death Lawyer Howard HershenhornOur partner New York Personal Injury Lawyer Howard Hershenhorn commented on the recent pictures that 28 year old Dominique Sharpton posted on Instagram and told the New York Daily News that “Her gallivanting around in high heels and climbing a mountain in Bali drastically diminish the value of her case because it clearly shows that her injuries are not severe, and as a result, she will not be paid or awarded any substantial amount of money by any rational jury”. The daughter of Reverend Sharpton who sued the city for $5 million after injuring her ankle in Soho recently posted pictures of herself climbing mountains in Indonesia. She has also been pictured in high heels at a hippie party and climbing the dicey terrain of Red Rock Canyon in Nevada.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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airbag1aOne in seven vehicles on American roads may have defective airbags that can potentially severely injured or even killed passengers as they violently deployed and send shrapnel flying into the car passenger’s compartment. Yesterday after more than 10 years of denial, Takata admitted that his products were defective and agreed to double the number of vehicles recalled in the Unites States to nearly 34 millions.

When a crash happens, pellets of a propellant based on ammonia nitrate are ignited and generate the nitrogen gas that inflates the airbag in a fraction of a second.  Takata said manufacturing problems, together with exposure to moisture in cars in humid regions, can cause the propellant to degrade. This can make the propellant burn too strongly when the airbag is deployed, rupturing the inflater and sending metal fragments into the car’s interior and injuring the driver or passengers.

Read more in the New York Times

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Greta GreeneA 2 year old girl who suffered severe personal injury yesterday after being hit by falling debris, died Today at the hospital. Greta Greene (facebook picture on the left) was sitting outside with her grand mother when they were both struck by terra-cotta bricks from a window ledge that fell from the 8th floor of  the Esplanade Manhattan nursing home at 305 West End Ave in Manhattan.

The toddler lost consciousness and nurses from the nursing home tried to resuscitate her. Her grandmother, 60 year old Susan Frierson, suffered severe leg injuries. They were both transported to the hospital where Greta passed away Today.

A protective scaffolding was erected last night on orders on the Department Of Buildings. The DOB is investigating what caused the ledge to fall. It also issued a violation to the Esplanade Manhattan nursing home for failure to maintain a property in a safe and compliant manner.