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 wrongful death NYC

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harness safety equipment on scaffoldOn April 28th, Workers Memorial Day commemorated those who have suffered and died on the job. The NY construction industry accounts for a large share of the deaths and injuries suffered by workers. While fatal construction accidents have declined by 23% in New York City over the last 5 years they increased by 39% in New York State. The main reason behind this discrepancy is the difference in regulations. While stronger regulations and an increase of enforcement and control could help reduce the construction safety crisis in New York State, businesses are heavily lobbying against them.

In New York City things are not perfect either ( 3 construction workers died over a one week period last month) but long term statistics indicate that new and old policies are helping in making construction sites safer for workers. In 2019 the funding for the New York City Department of Buildings increased to 189 million compared to 107 million in 2015. The Department was able to hire 700 more employees and increase the number of work-site inspections.  The recent implementation of Local Law 196 that requires all construction workers to have a minimum amount of safety training before being able to work on a construction site in New York City will also be helpful in preventing dangerous injury and deaths.

Scaffold Safety Law

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NYC construction workers and their families commemorated the 16 hard hats who died and the many others who were injured  in construction accidents in New York City last year in a mass held at St Patrick’s Cathedral last Thursday. The hardhat procession into the cathedral was followed by a memorial service in the cathedral. In an emotional celebration, families and friends commemorated the 16 workers who died on construction sites between April 28 2018 and April 28 2019. Among the workers who died 13 were non unionized construction workers, 2 of them unionized workers and one was a security guard. 16 empty chairs with a hard hat and a rose were installed in the front of the church with the name of each deceased worker.

The construction industry has more deaths than any other industry in New York City and in the US as well. As the construction market is booming in the city  so do construction accidents injuries and fatalities. According to city data, compared to 5 years ago,  deaths of construction workers are up 33 % and injuries 221% in New York City. This month only, 3 construction workers lost their lives over a period of one week.

Non unionized workers are the most at risk of dying on New York Construction sites

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bike lane proposalAfter Mathew von Ohlen was killed by a hit and run driver while biking on Grand Street, his family and the Brooklyn Community Board 1 called for a protected bike lane.  A total of four people have been fatally struck by cars on Grand Street since 2010.

A new design including two protected bike lanes and a bus lane was proposed by the DOT  as an L Train shutdown mitigation measure. In reality, the DOT hastily installed a bike lane that wasn’t fully implemented and that stayed in limbo after it was decided that the L train would not be fully shut-down. The actual bike lane is only protected by plastic delineators. Cars and delivery trucks are constantly passing the delineators and parking on the bike lane forcing cyclists to make dangerous maneuvers to ride around them. Residents and businesses have both been asking their community board to improve the actual situation which according to them is chaotic.

Bike lane plans kept and extended

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A young construction worker fatally fell from a building in New York City last Wednesday. 23 year old Erik Mendoza was replacing bricks underneath a water tower located on the rooftop of  1 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights when he fell off the building. A Mexican immigrant, Mendoza had arrived in the US 5 years ago.  He had just started his job as a construction worker for the building a week before the accident.

No permit required doesn’t mean no worker protection

The work Mendoza was doing wasn’t didn’t require a permit, however it is the responsibility of the employer to make sure that employees effectuate their work in safe conditions. As he was working under the water tower with a colleague, he slipped and fell 13 stories, landing in front of the entrance of the luxury co-op pre-war building.

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accident sceneTwo more pedestrians died in traffic accidents in NYC at the end of last week. One was hit by a bus and the other one by two cars. A total of 51 pedestrians and cyclists died in traffic accidents since the beginning of the year, an increase of 30% compared to the same period of 2018.

Struck by a reckless driver

On Friday night a pedestrian was killed in Queens. The man whose identity wasn’t revealed, was crossing Sunrise Highway in the crosswalk when he was hit by 62 year old Renford Tait.  The pedestrian fell to the ground and was struck by another car. Both drivers stayed at the scene of the accident. The first driver who failed to yield to the pedestrian while making a turn from Brookville Boulevard onto Sunrise Highway was also unlicensed. He was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care. The other driver wasn’t charged. The intersection is notoriously dangerous and known for speeding. Last year 126 crashes resulting in 58 people getting injured occurred at the intersection. Read more in Streetblog

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Location of the hit and run truck accidentA pedestrian was fatally struck by a truck in New York City on Wednesday morning and the driver fled the scene of the accident. The accident occurred a little bit before 5:00 am at the dangerous intersection of Flatbush Ave and Nostrand Ave in Brooklyn.
67 year old Linda Douglas was in the crosswalk on Flatbush Ave when a flatbed tractor trailer that was traveling northbound on Flatbush hit her. The truck driver never stooped leaving the victim dying in the street. Lina was a nursing assistant in Harlem and she was commuting to work when the accident occurred. She was living with her husband John Douglas in East Brooklyn.  Originally from Aruba, the couple had moved to the US in 1970. Linda was a few weeks away from retirement. Her husband was devastated. “Linda was the most beautiful, giving, loving person I’ve ever met in this world,” Douglas said to the Gothamist.
During the day, the police released the footage of a surveillance camera showing the truck hoping that someone could provide information. They finally located the driver on Wednesday night. His identity wasn’t released. The police said they questioned the man and released him a few hours later without charging him after he told the police he didn’t know that he hit the victim. John Douglas whom the police called around midnight to announce that they found the driver, couldn’t believe that the driver was able to walk away that easily after he had killed his wife.
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location of the fatal car accidentA 63 woman died in a car accident in New York City. Patricia Lancaster, a Brooklyn real estate agent was driving home from work.
As she was crossing East 56th Street and Avenue J, a speeding 19 year-old driver drove through the red light and t-boned her car. The woman was rushed to the hospital but she didn’t survive.
The teenage driver stayed at the scene of the accident and so far hasn’t been charged.
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A 19 year old driver died and two teen passengers were injured in a car accident in New York City. The accident occurred Tuesday afternoon around 4:30 pm.  19 year old Claudio Poggy was speeding in a Mercedes. Two of his friends aged 16 and 19 year-old were on board. According to witnesses, he was drag racing. As he was speeding north on Kings Highway, Brooklyn, the driver lost control of his vehicle and hit a tree at the intersection with avenue D. The impact was so brutal that the driver died at the scene of the accident. The 16 year old passenger suffered critical injury and the 19 year old one minor injuries. Investigators found that the speedometer was stuck on 130 mph on the unregistered Mercedes.

Male teen driver with teen passengers is a deadly combination

The risk of car accidents is higher among 16 to 19 year-old drivers than among any other age group. Car accidents are indeed the leading cause of death for American teens. According to statistics 6 teenagers die and hundreds of them are injured every day in car accidents in the US. The risk of dying in car accidents is two times higher for male drivers than for female drivers. When another teen is on board with a teen driver, the risk of a fatal crash doubles and increases further when more teen passengers are in the car.

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NYC Construction AccidentThe DOB recently released the presentations made at  last year’s Build Safe/Live Safe Conference. Among them,  “Construction Safety, Year in Review, Recent and Upcoming Changes” by Timothy Hogan and Patrick Wehle reviews and documents with pictures every fatal and near miss construction accident that occurred in New York City in 2017. Among the 12 fatalities, 1 worker died from electrocution and 11 died in falls that could have been prevented by following safety guidelines. In all 11 accidents, workers either weren’t wearing a harness or were wearing it but it wasn’t tied off proprely or not at all.

Near Misses resulting in serious injuries

The presentation also highlights 6 near misses that resulted in serious injuries for workers. These accidents were completely avoidable, related to the decision of the contractor and required extensive rescue operations. In one of the accidents a crane that was illegally modified dropped a 15,000 pound shearing hammer on a construction worker’s leg. Two accidents were related to a floor collapsing on workers because of overload. A shoring failure caused 6 workers to be caught in a collapse of 12+ yards of concrete. A small crane overturned after a stressed out operator failed to deploy the outriggers. 6 workers doing demo almost died in a roof collapse.

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Second-Avenue-and-BordenA cyclist was fatally struck by a car in NYC on Thursday. The victim, identified as 53 year old Robert Spencer, is the sixth person to die in a bicycle accident in New York City since the beginning of the year. Spencer was riding his bicycle on Borden Avenue on Thursday morning a little bit before 8:00 am when he was struck by a car traveling on Second Street in Queens. The driver, a 51 year old man stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged.The victim was rushed to the hospital but he couldn’t be saved.

The area where the accident occurred used to be industrial but recent developments are quickly transforming the neighborhood into a more residential area. While there is a protected bike lane on Second Street, Borden offers no protection for cyclists.  According to residents, speeding double parking and failing to yield to pedestrians is common on Borden. The shareholders of the Murano, a residential building located a block away from the accident have already written a letter to the city and to their Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer to ask for a two-way protected bike-lane on Borden as well as other traffic calming measures. Their effort was supported by Van Bramer who wrote directly to the DOT on March 4th to support the residents’request for a bike lane and other traffic calming measures. The residents of the Murano also tried to lobby their local community board for protected bike lanes along Borden Avenue, but the community board refused to consider their request. (read more in Street blog)

Bike lane delays are not about the money but about the community

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