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

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted last week to approve (4-1) a final rule interpreting factors to be considered when seeking a civil penalty amount for knowing violations of CPSC laws. The new factors required to be considered are: (1) the nature, circumstances, extent and gravity of the violation, including the nature of the product defect or the substance; (2) the appropriateness of the penalty in relation to the size of the business or of the person charged, including how to mitigate undue adverse economic impacts on small businesses; and (3) other factors as appropriate. These factors are in addition to the factors already required to be considered: the severity of the risk of injury; the occurrence or absence of injury; and the number of defective products or the amount of substance distributed. Under the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the Commis

In 2009, there were three infant deaths associated with sling-style infant carriers. Going back 20 years there have been 14 other deaths. Twelve of the seventeen deaths involved babies younger than 4 months of age. As a result, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) earlier this month warned parents and caregivers to be cautious when using infant slings for babies younger than four months of age. CPSC urges parents of preemies, twins, babies in fragile health and those with low weight to use extra care and consult their pediatricians about using slings because many of the babies who died in slings were either a low birth weight twin, were born prematurely, or had breathing issues such as a cold. More specific recommendations include that parents and caregivers make sure the infants face is not covered and is visible at all times to the slings wearer. If nursing the baby in a sling, change the babys position after feeding so the babys head is facin

The sports pages continue to be filled with articles about athletes who suffer concussions and other head injuries. A hot topic this week is the National Hockey Leagues consideration of imposing a rule effective this season - as opposed to next season) - to prohibit shots to players heads from behind or blindside (considering that such contact bears no relation to the skills of playing the game on an individual or team wide basis it seems almost incomprehensible that such hits are presently legal so long as there is no finding of intent to injure). Now, in what has been reported to be a first in the recent years since concussions in football players became a matter of public scrutiny, a former professional football player has filed a lawsuit for medical malpractice against a team doctor who he claims mistreated his concussion two years ago, resulting in permanent injury.

Property owners have a duty to maintain their property, including trees situated thereon, in a reasonably safe condition.

At first it was coffee. Now its chicken sandwiches and cancer. Perhaps the greatest propaganda tool for the insurance industry in its self-serving campaign against supposedly frivolous lawsuits is the so-called McDonalds Case where the plaintiff sued for spilling hot coffee on herself. Never mind the hundreds and hundreds of prior complaints against the coffee McDonalds deliberately super-heated in order to keep customers from realizing just how bad it tasted, or the third-degree burns to sensitive, private areas requiring grafting. Carnival operator Frank Sutton sued McDonalds after suffering burns to his lips when he bit into a chicken sandwich at a McDonald's at a truck stop in the far corner of southwest Virginia. Grease supposedly flew all over the inside of his mouth. He says the scars are still visible on his lower lip and that he has to take precautions to keep it out of the sun to avoid further damage. The U.S. District Court dismissed the l

On March 8, 2010, two individuals and two corporations were indicted on criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter and other charges related to the May 30, 2008 crane collapse in New York City that killed two people and seriously injured a third.The indictment describes the callous indifference to safety by the defendants who decided, in an effort to lessen the down-time of and lost rental income from a broken crane, to use a cheaper and quicker means of repair from a Chinese company whose qualifications had not been verified. The collapse of the crane was caused by the failure of a structural weld in the cranes turntable, a mechanism that enables the upper portions of the crane to swivel. The weld failure caused the cranes cab, boom, and other upper sections to break off and fall to the sidewalk and street from an elevation of approximately 200 feet.

Last month there were two fires in Long Island schools. Just days before there was a fire in Riverhead Charter School, South Bay Elementary School in West Babylon was destroyed by fire, forcing relocation of its classes to a nearby church. The school was built in the early 1950s. Fire sprinklers were not required at that time. Since then, updated building codes in New York and other states require sprinklers in school spaces of more than 20,000 square feet. But sprinklers are not required in schools built before the code was changed. In addition, the 20,000 square foot rule is commonly skirted by designing schools in sections that are smaller than 20,000 square feet within fire-resistant walls. So where does that leave our children? In 1916, the New York State PTA urged the installation of automatic sprinklers in school buildings in addition to existing fire escapes. The National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code, adopted by some states, requires fire sprink

There I was in the train station, reading the newspaper while waiting for my train, when I heard a man in a loud voice say Representative. I turned to see a man using a pay phone and empathized with his plight to get a live person on the other end of the line. But then the man stated and spelled his name for the representative, said he was going to give his social security number and then did so in its entirety, and finally blurted out his date of birth. Can anybody say identity theft? Yet none of it seemed to phase the man, who was just trying to obtain information about how certain stocks were doing in the market that day. In todays world, people are concerned about the misappropriation of information they provide electronically. So it was hard to believe that the man, who I later heard state that he was a lawyer, would voluntarily broadcast his personal information. The concern to protect the privacy of personal information from falling into th