Personal Injury Attorneys - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and the Bronx

A South Carolina judge has ruled that countersuits by a South Carolina gun dealer against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and New York City over tactics used against out-of-state gun dealers, accusing Mr. Bloomberg and the city of, among other charges, conspiracy, fraud and defamation by speaking ill of them in the press, can go ahead. The ruling allows Mr. Bloomberg to be sued in his private capacity and thus be potentially personally liable for damages. The judge also ordered that Mayor Bloomberg sit for a deposition in New York. The countersuit was filed in response to city lawsuits against gun dealers in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia alleging that the dealers sold firearms to people whom they knew were likely to quickly resell them to criminals, resulting in the firearms ending up in criminals' hands in New York. Some of the dealers settled the suits and agreed to work with a co

Not long after Medtronic pulled a flawed Sprint Fidelis leads off the market because of an apparent tendency to break, there are concerns that similarleads sold by St. Jude Medical may in rare cases puncture holes in patients hearts. Both cases concern wires, known as leads, that monitor the heart and transmit an electrical jolt to restore normal heartbeats. A defibrillator lead is a thin wire that attaches an implantable defibrillator to the heart. When a defibrillator lead wire detaches, it can poke a hole through the heart wall. If this happens the heart can bleed into the pericardial sac around it, leading to a lethal condition called cardiac tamponade. While such malfunctions can happen with any defibrillator lead, evidence is emerging that such detachment and perforation is occurring more frequently than expected with the St. Jude Riata Defibrillator Leads. Tagged with: Dangerous Products Medical Malpractice Medical Devices

Downing an energy drink (ie. Red Bull, Full Throttle, Amp and Rush) may boost blood pressure and heart rate as well as energy, posing a particularly significant risk to patients with heart disease, high blood pressure, or in those who consume energy drinks often. This finding was based upon a small study of healthy adults who drank two cans a day of a popular energy drink presented by researchers at the American Heart Associations Scientific Sessions 2007 earlier this month. The increases did not reach dangerous levels in the healthy volunteers. Most energy drinks contain high levels of caffeine and taurine, an amino acid also found in protein-containing foods such as meats and fish. Both have had effects on heart function and blood pressure in some studies. In contrast, sports drinks in general contain various mixtures of water, sugars and salts alone, without chemicals aimed at increasing energy or alertness. Additional warnings about energy dri

Exposure to the chemical known as diacetyl, which adds the buttery flavor to popcorn, has been tied to hundreds of cases of workers whose lungs have been damaged or destroyed. When it is heated diacetyl becomes a vapor and when it is inhaled over a long period of time, it can cause various problematic symptoms. Exposure to this chemical can cause one to experience difficulty breathing and exhaling, andone's lungs can become and scarred. The severe form of the disease is called "bronchiolitis obliterans," also known as "popcorn workers' lung," which can be lethal. In fact, in July of 2005, a jury awarded a worker 2.7 million dollars as a result of his development of bronchiolitis obliterans, due to his long term exposure to diacetyl. There is currently a growing concern over the safety of butter flavored microwave popcorn not only on those working in the industry but also on the every day consumer who is munching on this delectable treat. In fact, a 53-year-ol

Health officials in New York City earlier this year linked three cases of hepatitis C to an anesthesiologist who administered intravenous pain medication. Although they are still investigating the exact cause, officials are notifying 4,500 patients who received treatment from the doctor from December 2003 to May 2007 that they should get tested for the disease, according to a report in The New York Times (11/17/07). The officials would not name the doctor. This report comes on the heels of last week's disclosure that the New York Department of Health (DOH) has known for three years that Dr. Harvey Finkelstein had reused syringes in violation of proper infection control procedures, but just recently sent letters to 628 of his patients that they were at risk for transmittal of hepatitis B and C and HIV and should be tested. Free testing is available from the Nassau County Health Department. Health offi

On September 27, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about the risk of potentially fatal overdoses with Fentora, a narcotic painkiller manufactured by Cephalon. The action came less than two weeks after the company sent a letter to doctors notifying them of three drug-related deaths. Cephalon has just recently agreed to settle the U.S. Justice Department investigation of its allegedly illegal off-label marketing of Fentora (fentanyl buccal) and Actiq outside the indications on their labels. Cephalon denied it marketed the drugs improperly and claims the problems are a result of improper prescribing. In settling, they have agreed to pay $425 million, plead guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the U.S. Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; and will enter into a corporate-integrity agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services. Doctors are free to prescribe FDA-approved medications as th

Earlier this week, 628 people were sent letters by the New York State Health Department urging them to get tested for hepatitis B and C and HIV, all blood borne diseases, because they had received epidural injections from Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, whoused re-used syringes, from January 1, 2000 to January 15, 2005. Even though the victims would have had no way of knowing that they had been exposed to the diseases until now, it may be too late for them to sue the doctor. This is because under New York law, the time period to bring suit (2 1/2 years) begins to run from the date of the malpractice, not the date the malpractice was or should have been discovered by the victim. The lack of a "discovery rule" in New York for medical or dental malpractice often results in a victim of malpractice not learning that he has a perfectly valid case until it is too late for him or her to seek damages in court. A common scenario where such an unfair result occurs is where a woman's ma

The government's use of investigators or informants posing as underage victims to ensnare sexual predators has been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Gagliardi, 064541-cr, ruling that 18 U.S.C. 2422(b) is not unconstitutionally vague and does not require that the victim be an actual minor. The United States Supreme Court is also considering a constitutional challenge to a federal statute by an individual who used an Internet chat room for an unsavory purpose; exchanging child pornography. United States v. Williams, No. 06-6944, argued October 30, 2007. In United States v. Gagliardi, the Second Circuit rejected an argument the court said 'would effectively remove the 'sting' from the government's sting operations,' and 'significantly impede' enforcement of a law against enticing minors to engage in illegal sexual activity. Section 2422(b) of Title 18 imposes criminal liability on anyone who

It has become commonplace for attorneys and others sending faxes and e-mails to include at the end of such communications standard language stating that the contents thereof are confidential and priviledged. Such standard language should provide no comfort, however, for senders and receivers of e-mails that use an employer's server. A decision by Hon. Charles E. Ramos of the Supreme Court, New York County, holds that a pro forma notice at the end of an e-mail message did not inure the attorney-client priviledge to the e-mail when an employer's e-mail server is used. The Court was particularly persuaded by the fact that the employer had promulgated a Human Resources Policy and Procedure Manual that included policies requiring that its electronic mail system (as well as the Internet and other technology systems)be used for business purposes only, that employees using the e-mail system had no personal privacy right in any material using the e-mail system, and that the

An interesting discussion contrasting the technology, data storage characteristics and the discovery process of e-mails with instant messages (IM) appears in an article by attorneys Michael B. de Leeuw and Eric A. Hirsch in the "E-Discovery" special section of the November 5, 2007 New York Law Journal. IM is quickly becoming the medium of choice for informal communication in the workplace, offering far greater efficiency, speed and immediacy than e-mail. The article points out that although IM typically are stored locally in individual hard drives rather than in servers, some users of IM have found themselves in trouble because they did not realize that sometimes a log tracking their messages may be in use. As seen in <u>Scott v, Beth Israel Medical Center Inc.</u>, discussed above, employees may want to be particularly wary when using company-sponsored instant messaging program, as opposed to IM programs from America Online, MSN, Yahoo and the like. The l