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.
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brOur managing partner, New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz will be a panel member at the Medical Malpractice Litigation 2016 NYC Live & Webcast seminar organized by the NYSBA on April 15.   Ben will be speaking on effective methods of deposing the defendant doctor in a medical malpractice case.

This seminar is an excellent opportunity for young and experienced lawyers to keep up to date with recent issues in medical malpractice and to learn trial strategies and techniques from top litigators and distinguished judges. The Agenda includes:

  • Developments in the Substantive Law
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1229 45th streetA 21 year old worker died in a construction accident in Brooklyn NYC. Yesterday afternoon Alex Santizo from Queens was working on the construction site of a two-family townhouse on 45th street near 12th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn. He was on the second floor of the house when the roof collapsed. Santizo was hit by debris then he tumbled into an airshaft and landed two stories below in the basement.  The young man died from his injuries at the hospital. Records from the New York City DOB indicate that the building located at 1229 45th street had a total of 11 complaints that all had been resolved before the accident happened. The construction site was also the subject of 13 violations with 7 of them still open.  Read more in the NY Daily News 

Picture source: Google map

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Medical malpractice is on the rise in hospices. Once a place handled by nuns and caring volunteers, hospice care has become a multi-million dollar business handled by not so caring CEO’s who are often putting profits ahead of patient needs.

Recently the FBI busted Brad Harris the 30 year old owner and CEO of a Texas Hospice for instructing nurses to overdose patients.  The Daily Beast  writes that during the course of the investigation Harris texted one of the nurses “You need to make this patient go bye-bye”. Harris who has no medical education also texted another nurse to increase by four times the patient’s medication. In another conversation Harris said “if only this F*** would die”.

Because hospices are paid by the government through Medicaid and Medicare  they receive a cap amount of $27,820.75  per patient. Therefore a patient who stays alive too long is not profitable for a hospice. The incentive is to have more patients with shorter stays. The FBI said Harris spoke about “finding patients who would die within 24hrs”.

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digital billboard mix for slideshow 4As billboards are getting more and more sophisticated, the risk of car accidents caused by drivers distracted by these billboards is increasing.  Jerry Wachtel,  a traffic safety consultant just released a compendium of 22 recent studies related to potential consequences for driver distraction from Commercial Electronic Variable Message Signs (CEVMS) along the roadside. The author released a previous study in 2009 warning about the dangers of such billboards. More recent studies are showing that as billboard became more sophisticated, drivers also became more distracted increasing the risk of accidents. Below is a summary of the  most relevant findings:

  • While experienced drivers are more cautious than young drivers in keeping their eyes away from distractions that are inside the car (i.e. phone dialing or map searching) they are not as cautious when it comes to external distractions such as electronic billboards.  Both younger and older drivers have a tendency to often glance for more than 2 seconds at external distractions such as electronic billboards instead of focusing on the road in front of them. When a driver takes his or her eyes off the road for two seconds or more the risk of an accident is high.
  • Drivers pay less attention to relevant road signs but focus more on electronic billboards when both types of signs are on the same road
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NYC fire12 people were injured in a fire in New York City Tuesday night. 4 of the victims were transported to the hospital. One of them suffered serious injuries. The other victims were treated on location for smoke inhalation and other minor injuries.

According to the NY Daily News, the fire started on a building rooftop around 10:00 pm on Dekalb Ave between Knickerbocker Ave and Wilson Ave and spread to four other rooftops. Families who lived in the building were able to escape the building  with the help of two early responding police officers. The firefighters who arrived shortly after searched every floor for potential victims.  A resident told the NY Daily News that his smoke alarm never went off and that the screams from other building residents alerted him to get out.

According to the FDNY commissioner, Daniel Nigro, an extension built behind one of the buildings partially collapsed and triggered the fire to quickly spread to the other buildings. By midnight one of the building’s front facades had collapsed. Several apartments were damaged during the fire leaving 90 people homeless.

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NursingMedical malpractice is often preventable. According to statistics from the Journal of the American Medical Association, 80% of adverse events in the health care system are the result of human errors. Medical malpractice is not only committed by doctors but also by nurses and other health care professionals. In a recent article in Minority Nurse, Nicole Thomas, a legal nurse consultant shares some very interesting statistics about medical malpractice. She also gives the following tips to nurses to avoid being sued for medical malpractice:

  1. Nurses should make sure they always proprely document their work. When a nurse writes a clear and precise description of what happens to a patient when he is under her care it  not only helps her and the staff make sure the patient is proprely being taken care but it also protects the nurse in case of a potential lawsuit. A nurse who defends herself  by saying “I did it but I forgot to document it”  will have trouble convincing the jury in a medical malpractice trial.
  2. Not only nurses should document everything but they should make sure their notes are easy to read. Even though a nurse may have been doing the right thing, unreadable notes open the door for a patient to question the nurse’s actions in considering filing a medical malpractice lawsuit.
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A man was injured in a car accident in NYC this morning  after he lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a private house.  23 year old Shirley Lucas and her 2 year old daughter were inside their house located on Bruckner Boulevard near Thierot Avenue in Soundview, Bronx when the accident happened. The car first crashed through a metallic gate located at the entrance of the property and then hit the brick wall of the house.  According to the NY Daily News The mother and the daughter weren’t injured but had to stay out of the house while Con Edison and the DOB were analyzing the damages.

Another man crashed in a Bronx building on Saturday night. He died in the accident. According to witnesses the 37 year old man was speeding east on Allerton Ave in the Bronx when he lost control of his vehicle. He first hit two parked cars and then a light pole before crashing into a dry cleaner store located at the corner of Barnes Ave.  The driver was transported to the hospital but he didn’t survive. Read more in the NY Daily News

Below is a Google Map Street view of the location of the Saturday night accident.

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Several people were injured and one person died in two fire accidents in New York City this week-end.

Early Saturday around 12;14 am two civilians and two firefighters were injured in a three-alarm blaze in Washington Heights. According to the NY Daily News , the fire started in an apartment on the sixth floor of a building located on Broadway and W. 151st Street. The fire and the smoke spread quickly through the building and 138 firefighters were needed to stop it.

On Sunday morning around 4:00 am,  another fire started in a house in Jackson Heights, Queens killing an 88 year old man who was living there.  65 firefighters were called to the rescue. It took them 45 minutes to stop the blaze that ravaged the house located on 87th Street and 35th Avenue in Queens, NYC. The victim was found dead by the firefighters with severe burns on his body.

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a 47 year old woman was injured in New York City after the window of her livery cab exploded and showered her with shards of glass. The woman was a passenger in a livery cab that was driving on East Fordham Road near Sedgwick Avenue in University Heights in the Bronx.  The accident happened around 9:00 pm.  The police are still investigating the caue of the accident. They thought someone may have shot at the limo but no bullet was found. The victim was transported to the hospital. She had cuts in her neck caused by the shattered glass.

Two children were also injured this week-end in the Rockaways, Queens after a gunman on a rooftop randomly fired at the window of the cars they were in. The gunman is still at large.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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February showed an increase in pedestrian accidents, bicycle accidents and motorcycle accidents in NYC while bus accidents and truck accidents were lower than the previous years during the same month. Was the usually warm weather a contributing factor or is Vision Zero  not really working?

After two years of decrease, the monthly number of pedestrians injured in NYC crashes in February is back to the level where it was 3 years ago. Last month 980 pedestrians were injured in traffic accidents in the city compared to 735 in February 2015, 820 in February 2014 and 983 in February 2013.  11 pedestrians died in motor vehicle accidents in NYC last month. The same number of people died the previous month and in February 2015. After Zero Vision was launched in 2014, the number of pedestrians killed in the month of February initially decreased from 13 to 8 between February 2013 and February 2014 and went back up above 10 for the last two years.

Even though the trend is still showing a decline of pedestrians injuries since the beginning of 2013, the 3-month moving average is back around 1,000 while for the same period last year it was around 900. A similar observation can be made for the 3-month moving average of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents. While the moving average was below or at the level of the trend line in February 2015 and 2014 it is now back above the level of the trend line in February 2016.