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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Two pending product liability lawsuits including one wrongful death lawsuit, 6100 consumer complaints and a recent recall letter from the NHTSA following an Engineering Analysis of the Office of Defects Investigation have convinced Graco Children’s Product to conduct a recall of the seat harness buckles on most of its children car seats models manufactured since 2009. The defective harness buckles are becoming more difficult to open over time or become stuck in the latched position especially if it gets clogged up with food or dirt. Stuck or sticking buckles may prevent or impede the removal of the child from the car seat in a case of an emergency. According to the NHTSA Graco has been named defendant in two product liability lawsuit related to defective harness buckles. The first one is a consumer class action complaint alleging that the buckles is unreasonably difficult to unlatch or simply doesn’t unlatch. The second lawsuit is related to the death of a young child who died in car fire. Plaintiff alleged that parts in Graco car seat design made it extremely difficult to remove a child that was secured in the seat during an emergency. The recalls 3.7 millions units. Parents who own a defective car seat model and have previously registered it with Graco will automatically receive a Consumer Notification Letter with instructions on how to order a buckle repair kit. Parents who didn’t register their products can order the blucke repair kit online.

Click here for complete list of defective models and contact details.

Read the product recall request letter from the NHTSA

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Sallay%20and%20Hershenhorn.pngNew York Construction Accident Attorneys Chris Sallay and Howard Hershenhorn from Gair Gair Conason Steigman Mackauf Bloom and Rubinowitz will be the Co Chairs of the Litigating Construction Site Accidents Seminar presented by the New York State Bar Association.

Our managing partner, Ben Rubinowitz will be the local chair for the Long Island Session and our Partner Anthony Gair will be a panel member for the NYC Session. Chris Sallay will also be a panel member at the Long Island Session.

New York Personal Injury Lawyers (plaintiffs and defense), liability insurance carriers in house counsel, workers ‘compensation lawyers, municipal lawyers as well as lawyers representing construction companies, general contractors and sub-contractors are invited to attend this program.

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r_steigman_small.jpg By Richard M. Steigman;

Launched in 1965, Medicaid provides joint federal and state funding of medical care for individuals who cannot afford to pay their own medical costs. Although the Federal Government pays the majority of the costs incurred for patient care, under Federal Law, the states are tasked with administering the program.

One of the states’ obligations under Medicaid law is to seek reimbursement for payments for medical expenses from responsible third parties to the extent of such legal liability (42 U.S.C. § 1396[a][25][B]). To fulfill that mandate, New York enacted Social Services Law § 104-b, which gives the State Medicaid official the right to enforce a lien “for such amount as may be fixed by the public welfare officer not exceeding, however, the total amount of such assistance and care furnished by [Medicaid] on or after the date when such injuries occurred.”

This statute, like the ones enacted in other states, was interpreted as to allow Medicaid to assert a lien on a recovery up to the amount, regardless of the amount of the recovery which is properly allocable to Medicaid (see, e.g., Baker v. Sterling, 39 N.Y.2d 397, 384 N.Y.S.2d 128 [1976]). Put another way, under the interpretation used by Medicaid and backed by the Courts, if Medicaid had expended $200,000 for a plaintiff who suffers horrific personal injuries (and whose pain and suffering and loss of earnings claims would fairly be worth millions of dollars), but ultimately must settle a case for $250,000 due either to inadequate insurance, then Medicaid, in it is discretion, could assert a lien against the recovery up to the total amount of its expenditures. This is true irrespective of the fact that, had a finder of fact allocated the settlement among the different elements of damages, the amount properly allocable to Medicaid would, in fact, amount to a small fraction of its claimed lien.
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A Bronx nursing home aid physically abused an elderly woman by pushing her out of a room into the hallway. The woman banged her head against the door and sustained lacerations requiring stitches. Video surveillance captured the whole scene that led to the arrest of the abusive nurse’s aid.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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Investigation in a case of nursing home abuse at Genesee County Nursing Home, NY, led to the arrest of 25 year old Sarah Waclawski a certified nurse’s aid, for causing personal injury to a resident of the nursing home. The nurse’s aid was taking care of a 100 year old elderly patient with dementia and didn’t follow safety protocol when moving the patient from her bed to her wheelchair. She decided to move the patient from the wheelchair to the bed and back from the bed to the chair. The patient fell on the floor, hitting her head on the wheelchair and sustained lacerations and pain due to the negligence of the nurse’s aid.
In a comment in the Press Release, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said “My Office Will Prosecute Cases Of Nursing Home Abuse And Make It Clear That This Will Not Be Tolerated”

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Financial abuse or financial exploitation of the elderly is unfortunately all too common in nursing homes or elderly facilities. According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, Bureau of Justice Statistics, financial abuse represents approximately 12% of reported elder abuse cases.

Stephanie Benodin, a former personal care assistant at The Tuttle Center, a life care retirement community that is part of The Amsterdam at Harborside in Port Washington, N.Y admitted that she took the checkbook of her victim an 88 year old resident of the nursing home and wrote a check of $10K in the name of her mother. She then deposited the check in her mother’s account but it was returned for insufficient funds.The 26-year-old Queens resident pleaded guilty to Attempted Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree in Nassau County District Court before Judge Susan T. Kluewer. Sentencing is set for April 9.

See Press Release

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Erich%20Shneiderman.jpgA nursing home abuse investigation led to the arrest of nine employees of the Medford Multicare Center for Living, Inc. in Medford, New York, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced yesterday. (picture). According to the press release, Kethlie Joseph, 61, was charged with Criminally Negligent Homicide for the death of a 72 year old female resident of the Medford Multicare Center.

Joseph was in charge of administering treatment to ventilator dependent residents. She was supposed to connect the 72 year old patient to a ventilator at night according to a doctor’s order. She admitted that she didn’t read the doctor order and never connected the patient to the ventilator. At night when the alarms went on because the patient had difficulty breathing she ignored them for two hours and also ignored messages on her pager when the patient stopped breathing.

Four other employees were also charged in connection with the death of the patient:

  • a nurse who stood in front of the monitors and didn’t respond to the alarm for two hours and then lied to investigators to cover up
  • a nurse who falsely claimed to investigators that the patient looked up at her and was alive when in fact she had been dead for hours
  • an aid who falsely claimed that alarms were not beeping
  • another aid who was assigned to sit at the resident’s bedside but who wasn’t there and who never responded to the alarms
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A fight between residents in a NYC nursing home lead to the death of one of them. Heraldo Gonzalds 56, a resident of the New Gloria’s Manor Home for Adults, in Belle Arbor, Queens, New York was beaten so severely by 54 year old Bienvenido Cruz, another resident, that he was transferred to a hospital and died of his injuries several days after the fight. (see New York Daily News)

New York Nursing home staff do not seem to be prepared to handle cases of residents being abused by other residents. A few months ago in a previous blog we wrote about another fight in a Queens nursing home that also ended with the death of one of the patients.

With a growing number of the older population suffering from Alzheimer, dementia or traumatic stress disorder, residents of nursing homes can be at risk of other residents violence. It is very difficult to know exactly the extend of this type of abuse because only fights resulting in severe injury or death are reported.

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Drowsy driving is the second leading cause of fatal vehicle accidents after drunk driving. 6,800 drivers die every year in the US after falling asleep at the wheel. An estimated 250,000 Americans drive drowsy everyday mostly because they have developed bad sleeping habits. Some drivers experience a phenomena called micro sleep during which a vehicle driver falls asleep for a few seconds without realizing it. This video demonstrates how sleep deprivation can put drivers at risk of a car accident.

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How to prevent construction accidents in New York? The NYC Department of Buildings seminar “2014 Build Safe” is an event during which engineers, architects and construction experts will outline recent New York industry trends and discuss a vision for the future of construction operations in the City.

The program also includes several construction safety courses for professional credit.

Click here to register or learn more about it

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