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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Ann Pfau is the Statewide Coordinating Judge of the New York Medical Malpractice Program and former chief administrative judge of the New York State Judiciary. In a recent article in the New York law Journal she looks at two interesting statute of limitations decisions recently handed down by the Appellate Division, First Department, both involving medical malpractice actions, one directly and one indirectly.

In Perez v. Fitzgerald, 2014 NY Slip Op. 00744 (1st Dept. Feb. 6, 2014), the court held that the statute of limitations period for chiropractic malpractice was three years, not the two and one-half years applicable to medical malpractice.

In Cabrera v. Collazo, 2014 NY Slip Op. 00611 (App. Div. 1st Dept. Feb. 4, 2014), the court put the bar on notice that, whatever the medical malpractice statute of limitations may be, an attorney may be liable for legal malpractice if attorney neglect causes the client to miss the statute of limitations­-even if the attorney’s death occurs before the statute runs.

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New York Motor vehicle accident data that are made available to the public are not detailed and difficult to analyze. Recently at a Vision Zero Town Hall at John Jay College, the NYPD Chief of Transportation Thomas Chan told Streetblog that better information regarding traffic accidents will soon be available on the Vision Zero website.

Other subjects discussed during the meeting included:

– collaboration between the police and the DOT to educate the public about street safety

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The “Injury Facts” report is an annual review of the latest injury and fatality statistics and trends. It has been published for 90 years by the National Safety Council. Most recent data include 2010, 2011 am 2012 data depending on subjects.

There were 180,811 injury related deaths in the US in 2010 and most of them (120,859) were accidental. Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for people 1 to 42 years old and the fifth cause of death for all ages behind heart disease, cancer, chronic low respiratory disease and stroke.

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The 2010 data are the latest official data but according to projections from the National Safety Council , the number of unintentional injury related deaths in 2012 was 127,200 with 36,300 of them related to motor vehicle accidents. 63,000 of them happened at home, 26,000 in public places and 3,695 at work. The National Safety Council data shows an increase of deaths due to motor vehicle crashes, poisoning, falls, drowning and choking.

Motor vehicle accidents are one of the leading causes of injury related deaths, but recent trends show a significant increase in falls related to the aging population and a dramatic increase in poisoning related to unintentional prescription drug overdoses especially opioid prescription overdoses.

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Our partner, New York Construction Accident Attorney Chris Sallay was the chair of the Litigating Construction Site Accidents NYC 2014 seminar presented by the New York State Bar Association last Friday . In this video Chris Sallay provides tips and demonstrates how to present an opening statement in a New York Construction Accident case.
To learn more about New York Construction Accident Law click here)

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46y1a_5Mu4

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Prospect Park Residence, an assisted living home in Brooklyn, NYC, may have acted in an abusive manner when they contacted residents two weeks ago to let them know that they would have to vacate their residence in 90 days creating fears and anger among the residents and their families.

The nursing home told residents that unmanageable costs were forcing them to close the residence. However resident’s children argue that greed is the real motivation. The owners plan to sell the building to developers who will turn the building into deluxe apartments, with the enviable address of 1 Prospect Park West.

Read more in the New York Times

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10 employees of a New York nursing home neglected and mistreated a resident who was completely dependent on the nursing home staff for his care. The patient was a double amputee who also suffered from partial upper body paralysis. An investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman revealed a disturbing pattern of pervasive neglect at Blossom North Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rochester, NY. According to the footage from a hidden video camera, “nurses allegedly failed to dispense prescription medications, measure blood sugar and blood pressure levels or properly care for the resident’s catheter. Aides allegedly neglected the resident’s incontinence care and his prescribed range of motion exercises and several are alleged to have transferred him in a potentially unsafe manner. In some instances, the resident had no hands-on care during the aides’ entire shifts and was left to lay immobile in his bed for hours at a time. The nurses and aides then allegedly falsified documents in an effort to conceal their neglect”.

The employees have been charged with falsifying documents, willful violation of the public health law and for some of them endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person. They may be sentence to up to 4 years in jail.

Blossom North Nursing and Rehabilitation Center has a below average rating of 2 stars by Medicare. An inspection report from last fall shows that the nursing home had mistreatment deficiencies, quality care deficiencies, resident assessment deficiencies, resident rights deficiencies, pharmacy service deficiencies, environmental deficiencies and fire safety deficiencies. Previous complaints also show a history of abuse, neglect and mistreatment. Not surprisingly under staffing is also a major issue at this New York nursing home where a registered nurse spends in average 19 minutes a day per patient compared to a New York State average of 48 minutes.

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Several people suffered personal injury in a Brooklyn car accident during which a police officer who was chasing another car lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a van. According to the New York Daily News, the van was transporting other police officers. The collision was so violent that both vehicles burst into flames. People living nearby who ran to the rescue were able to pull the officers out of the vehicles.

Police chases in a busy urban area such as NYC are very dangerous. At the beginning of the months 7 people were injured a car accident related to a police chase (see previous blog)

Photo: New York Daily News

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A motorcyclist died and two pedestrians suffered serious personal injury in a motorcycle accident in the Bronx, NYC. The motorcyclist whose dirt bike was unregistered and uninsured lost control of his bike as he was trying to speed around a car while making a left turn. The man was thrown off the bike which kept moving running into an 85 year old woman and a 55 year old man standing at a corner of the intersection.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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In February 12 people died as a result of vehicle accidents among them 8 pedestrians, 1 cyclist, 1 passenger and 2 drivers. This is the lowest number of monthly traffic fatalities in more than a year. Last month a total of 21 people died in traffic accidents in NYC and a year ago in February 2013 there were 20 deaths.

It is too early to see a trend however it looks like the first Vision Zero initiatives may have helped to make NYC streets safer in February. We’ll see in the coming months if the trend continues.

poeple%20killed%20in%20accident%20febrauary%202014%20NYC.pngThe number of people who suffered personal injury in a traffic accident in NYC was also lower compared to the previous month and compared to the same month a year ago.

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A 77 year old pedestrian was crossing a residential street in Brooklyn when she was struck and suffered injury leading to her death by a 2014 Mercedes Benz attempting to parallel park. Marlene Baharlias, 77, was jaywalking when she stepped off an East 19th street curb mid-block between Avenue U and Avenue T in Sheepshead Bay around 2:20 p.m. yesterday and was mowed down, cops said. Read more in the Gothamist.

Erratum (3/20): according to an in depth article from Streetblog that came a day after the accident was announced in the local media, Marlene Baharlias was killed Tuesday in Sheepshead Bay by a driver who witnesses say backed onto a sidewalk – contrary to anonymous NYPD sources who told the Post the victim was jaywalking. We apologize to our readers.

A similar accident happened two days ago, also in Brooklyn, when a young child was attempting to cross the street with his mother and a car backed into them killing the 5 year old boy (see previous blog).