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

There are 21 federal statutes that the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enforce to protect employees who report violations of workplace safety, airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health care reform, nuclear, pipeline, public transportation agency, railroad, maritime, and securities laws. The whistleblower provision laws inhibit an employers ability to retaliate against any employees that bring up concerns with the workplace or give protected information to the employer or the government. Based upon the findings of an audit of OSHAs whistleblower program performed by the Government Accountability Office in 2009 and 2010, as well as an OSHA internal review, significant changes were made to the Whistleblowe

Although motorcoach transportation is one of the most cost-effective, accessible and safe forms of public transportation, there has been a number of recent tragic crashes around the United States that involved motorcoaches and buses. In an effort to strengthen motorcoach safety, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) of the Department of Transportation will be holding National Motorcoach Safety Summit this September in Washington, DC. The hope is to develop a plan to increase motorcoach safety awareness, enforcement, and education; establish innovative and collaborative policies and countermeasures; to exchange information and ideas on the best possible approaches to reduce the number of motorcoach c

Target Corporation of Minneapolis, Minnesota recalled 206,000 wooden step stools with storage the wooden step stools can break apart or collapse under the weight of the user, posing a fall hazard. This recall announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) follows 26 reports of the stools breaking or collapsing. Fourteen incidents involved children, seven involved adults, and five incidents where the users age was unknown. Two adults fractured their wrists, and of those victims, one also fractured her hip and pelvis. Additionally, six children and one adult suffered scrapes and bruising. The wooden step stool has two steps and comes in various colors, including natural, natural and red, white and honey. The Circo step stool has a lid on the bottom step th

The decision of First Department, in King v. St. Barnabas Hospital., 2011 WL 2567782 (June 30, 2011), a medical malpractice case,interestingly found that the evidence from which a jury could find that the proximate cause of the death of a heart attack victim came not from expert testimony on behalf of the plaintiff but from [t]he very fact that advanced life support protocols exist for patients in an asystolic (no electrical activity in the heart) state . According to the court, the existence of advanced life support protocols for patients in an asystolic state in and of themselves means that adherence to the protocols afford a chance of reviving the patient, notwithstanding the grave nature of the condition. It necessarily follows that failure to follow the protocols reduces the chances for reviving the patient. The cour

Effective immediately, it is a primary traffic offense for drivers to use handheld electronic devices for activities such as texting while a vehicle is in motion, thereby giving law enforcement the power to stop drivers solely for engaging in this activity. Before this law, it was illegal for drivers to use handheld electronic devices while their vehicle was in motion, but it was a secondary traffic offense -- meaning a driver had to be stopped for another violation in order to receive a ticket. The monetary penalty for a violation of this law continues to be a fine of up to $150. Changes in state regulations will increase the penalty for using a cellular phone without a hands-free device or a handheld device while driving from two to three poin

In Edwards v. Erie Coach Lines Company, 131, NYLJ 1202499068316 (Decided June 30, 2011), New York States highest court was called upon to answer a choice-of-law question regarding a motor vehicleaccident wherein a charter bus carrying members of an Ontario women's hockey team plowed into the rear-end of a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the highway near Geneseo, New York on January 19, 2005. Four bus passengers and the trailer's driver died; several bus passengers were seriously hurt. The charter bus's driver, his employer, and the company that leased the bus are Ontario domiciliaries, as are (or were) all the injured and deceased passengers. The tractor-trailer driver was a Pennsylvania domiciliary, as are his employer and the

Last Friday, June 3, Maine Governor Paul LePage signed a new law that prohibits texting behind the wheel. Under the new law, which takes effect in September 2011, violators will face a minimum fine of $100. The new law is designed to strengthen a 2009 Maine law that more generally prohibited distracted driving but was felt not insufficient to deal with the huge safety risk of texting while driving. In Nevada, a bill that bans any non-hands-free use of a cell phone while driving passed through the State Senate and Assembly on June 4th and is now awaiting the governors approval. Under the new law, the use of a cell phone while driving will be considered a primary offense, with offenses carrying progressively increasing fines. Anyone convicted of a third offense will have their dr

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood last week announced the 2011 Click It or Ticket mobilization with a reminder to motorists about the severe risks of driving unbelted, day or night. In a surprising statistic, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) research shows that fewer people buckle their seat belts at night, making evening hours especially dangerous. In 2009, 62 percent of nighttime vehicle occupants who were killed in crashes were unbelted. In contrast, 44 percent of daytime occupants who were killed were unrestrained. NHTSA Administrator David Strickland cautioned that holiday periods, like the Memorial Day weekend, are unusually dangerous for unbelted motorists. Of the 306 people who died on U.S. roads during the 2009 Memorial Day period, 55 percent were unb

If I had a dollar for every time a defendant argued in a summary judgment motion that it was not negligent because the condition that caused my clients accident was open and obvious . With words that every defense counsel (and Judge) should never overlook, the Appellate Division, First Department opened a recent opinion with the sentence: In this personal injury action, we reiterate the well established principle that a finding of open and obvious as to a hazardous condition is never fatal to a plaintiffs negligence claim. It is relevant only to plaintiffs comparative fault. Saretsky v. 85 Kenmare Realty Corp., 2011 WL 1796367 (May 12, 2011). Even though this is not new law, you would be surprised how many times cases are dismissed solely because the condition is open and obvious. What is often overlooked is that although there is no duty to warn where a dangerous condition is open and o

Throughout New York City and other places drivers are becoming accustomed to seeing radar-equipped speed boards that tell them how fast they're going, and flash when their speed exceeds the speed limit. This past week Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that some of the speed boards will now also show the words SLOW DOWN and the image of a healthy pedestrian turns into a skeleton on electronic signs when drivers exceed the city speed limit. As long as a driver obeys the citys 30 mph speed limit, no skeleton will appear. The signs have been placed along stretches of Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx and Richmond Avenue in S