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 Tagged with New York Wrongful Death

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Crane ReportFollowing the fatal collapse of a crane in  lower Manhattan last February, Mayor de Blasio and NYC building commissioner Rick Chandler created the Crane Safety Technical Working Group. The mission of this independent group of experts was to assess actual New York crane safety regulations and provide a set of  recommendations to improve existing regulations and limit further crane accidents in New York City. A few days ago the group released a report that includes  23 recommendations to improve crane safety in New York City.

The group noted that despite having some of the most comprehensive crane safety regulations in the world, the NYC  Department of Buildings hasn’t comprehensively revised and updated these regulations since 2008. In between technology and best practices have evolved tremendously. A new effort to update regulations was launched by the DOB  last year but nothing has been released yet. Therefore the Crane Safety Technical Working Group proposes that the Department of Buildings integrates the Crane Safety Technical Working Group recommendations with their ongoing efforts to update the existing crane regulations.

In its recommendations, the group suggests:

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Harlem River HousingA 3-year old boy died after he fell from a window in a  public housing development in Harlem, New York City.  Latyre Sene fell  from the 13th floor of a building located in the Harlem River II Houses on Frederick Douglass Blvd. near W. 151st St (picture).  The window guard was found next to him. Police are investigating why the window guard fell and didn’t protect the toddler.

Building owners have the responsibility to install and maintain window guards in any apartment where a family is living with children. Because Latyre Sene’s family was illegally subletting the apartment,  it wasn’t clear if  NYCHA who owns the building was aware that a child lived in this apartment.

On Monday, a maintenance employee was seen leaving the apartment with a drill and 3 guards in his hands. Following the tragic accident, several other residents of the building also asked for a revision of their window guards.

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6th ave between 53rd and 54th streetA man died in a car accident in New York and another one was injured in the same accident. The two men in their thirties  were riding in the same car this morning around 4:30 am in Midtown Manhattan when the accident happened.  They were heading north on Sixth Ave between 53rd and 54th street when the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a fire hydrant. The impact was so strong that the driver died. The passenger survived the accident. He suffered serious injury but was listed in stable condition. A witness told CBS New York that the car was speeding just before the accident.

Read more in the NY Daily News

Picture: courtesy of Google Map

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Last year in New York 14 bicyclists were killed and 4,400 were injured in bicycle accidents. The accidents are often caused by other vehicle drivers who are making the road unsafe for bikers. Cars or other vehicles parked in the bike lane or double parked put bicyclists at a higher risk of accidents.

As part of the Vision Zero Program, the NYPD  chose this week, which is also bike to work week  to launch the“Bicycle Safe Passage” initiative.

During the whole week NYPD officers of all precincts of the 5 boroughs of New York City are cracking down on motorists who are endangering bicyclists. Cars parked in designated bike lanes and forcing bike riders to ride in traffic to get around the parked cars as well as drivers crossing bike lanes illegally or driving on the bike lanes are the main target of NYPD officers.

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New York Wrongful Death Lawyer Howard HershenhornThe widow of David Wichs who was killed by a crane that collapsed on a New York Street (see previous post) is intending to sue the City for $600M. Rebecca Wichs who is represented by our partner, New York crane accident attorney Howard Hershenhorn, filed a notice of claim last week with the New York City Comptroller. Her husband David Wichs was walking on Worth Street, in downtown Manhattan, when a crane fell in the street and killed him. Rebecca Wichs is seeking $550 for wrongful death, $25 million for conscious pain and suffering and $25 million for loss of services.

Rebecca Wichs claims that The City was negligent in the manner in which they supervised the construction site.  It is also claimed The City failed to proprely consider the weather conditions in their decision making process. Knowing about the heavy snow and winds that were forecast for that day, The City should have ordered the lowering and securing of the crane the day before the collapse.

Read more in the New York Law Journal and on CBS News

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Construction_worker_harnessFalls are the leading cause of death in construction accidents in New York and in the U.S. Some of them are caused by inadequate safety measures while others occur even though all OSHA safety measures were followed by the construction workers.

Steelworkers for example are allowed to to work up to a height of 25 feet without the use of a safety harness. OSHA rules also permit construction workers climbing a scaffold to unhook their attachment and hook it again to a higher tie-off point as they ascend.

Some contractors in New York believe OSHA rules are not strict enough and require all their workers to use a harness when they work 6 feet and higher above the ground. Some NY construction companies also require that workers climbing scaffolds use two harnesses so they are constantly hooked onto something and protected. Gilbane Building is among the contractors in New York that require all workers to follow these two rules.

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To reduce pedestrian accidents at dangerous New York intersections, City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) wants to re-introduce an old crosswalk system named the Barnes Dance. The Barnes Dance is a system from the 60ies where all cars have the red light at the same time at an intersection so all pedestrians can cross safely without mixing with traffic. This type of crosswalk system was named after traffic engineer Henry Barnes. The bill which will be introduced tomorrow is asking the NYC DOT to look at the feasibility of a Barnes Dance system at the 25 most dangerous intersections of the city. Read more in the NY Daily News

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printing houseA construction worker died after a scaffolding plank fell on his head at a New York construction site. 32 year old Luis Mata, was dismantling scaffolding at the Printing House Luxury Condos on Hudson Street when one of the planks became loose and fell 10 stories on his head. The construction worker was wearing a hard hat but the impact was so strong that he suffered severe head and neck injuries. He later died from his injuries at the hospital. Luis Mata was a non union worker from Mexico. He was living with his uncle in Westchester County. He was supporting his mom in Mexico.

Unfortunately we are seeing an increasing number of construction site accidents on non union jobs, as a result of contractors not implementing proper safety measures.

Following the accident, the NYC Department of Building issued a partial stop work order on the building. DOB records for the building located at 421 Hudson Street show that at the time of the fatal accident, the building had 6 open ECB violations including two class 2 and two class 1 violations  as well as 8 DOB violations.

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A few days after a DOI investigation revealed that NYCHA knew about faulty elevators that killed a resident and injured another, the NYC Housing Authority announced that Ken Buny, the head of the elevator division was fired. Five NYCHA employees who failed to communicate that the elevators were malfunctioning were also reassigned. They are all facing disciplinary charges that could also result in firing. (Read more in the NY Daily News)

The investigation revealed that NYCHA knew about the faulty elevator before the fatal accident happened but because of a communications  breakdown nobody went to fix it.  On December 24 2015, the NYCHA’s Customer Contact Center (“CCC”) received a phone call from a resident at the  NYCHA’s Boston Road Plaza senior building in the Bronx to inform them about a very dangerous malfunctioning elevator. NYCHA didn’t take immediate action to put the elevator out of service. An hour and half  later, 84 year old Olegario Pabon was critically injured when the elevator drifted upward as he was trying to get in. He died 3 days later from his injuries.  The investigation also found that the NYCHA senior management learned about the accident four days later. Another man was seriously injured in a similar accident that happened in another NYCHA building less than a month before.

In both accidents, the DOI found that brake monitors that should have automatically shut down the elevators were not functioning. After this discovery the DOI checked the 1,080 NYCHA elevators equipped with brake monitors and found that 80 (more than 7%) of them were not functioning.

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carlos monkayoLast year Carlos Moncayo died in a construction accident in New York. Moncaya was working on a construction site located at 9-19 Ninth Ave in the meatpacking district in Manhattan where the old Pastis restaurant was turned into a Restoration Hardware Store. The 22 year old construction worker was buried in a pit after unstable soil gave way. The accident was fully preventable. An hour before it happened an inspector warned the two construction site supervisors, Alfonso Prestia and Wilmer Cuerva that the 13 foot deep pit wasn’t proprely re-enforced and that nobody should get in the trench. Both men ignored the warning. An hour later the inspector saw 4 men in the pit and rushed again to the two supervisors to urge them to halt work. Two hours later the supervisors finally decided to call the crew out of the pit but it was too late. The trench collapsed and Moncaya died. The two supervisors were charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. According to recent court papers, the two supervisors are now blaming each other for the fatal construction accident. Prestia says that he wanted to fire the foremen who created the unsafe conditions but that Cuevas always opposed it. Read more in the NY Daily News 

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