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

A bit of a chill swept through the plaintiffs bar in 1994 when the Court of Appeals, New Yorks highest court, held that persons injured in motor vehicle accidents couldnot recover damages for injuries causedbymunicipal motor vehicles responding to an emergency responsible for the damages unless it could be proven that the driver a showing of reckless disregard for the safety of others, a much higher standard than the usual negligence. The court's interpretation in Saarinen v. Kerr, 84 N.Y.2d 494 ofsection 1104 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law ("VTL") caused attorneys to give great pause to taking on such cases. The courts dismissed many lawsuits that were brought where the conduct complained of seemed egregious. But some relief came last month in

According to the New York City Police Department, police shot and killed eight subjects last year compared to 93 in 1971, the year to which reliable data on firearms discharges may be tracked. An additional16 were wounded last year - another record low. The number wounded in 1971 was 221. The record lows were recorded despite significant increases in the both the department's headcount and capacity of its firearms compared to the 1970s. There were approximately 4,000 fewer officers (31,000 total) on the force in 1971 compared to 35,000 last year. Prior to 1993, New York City police officers were armed with six-shot revolvers compared to today's 16-shot semiautomatic pistols. The preliminary 2010 figures show that officers logged a record low number of civilians shot and injured, 16

Slip and fall cases can be notoriously difficult cases in which to prevail, especially when the location of accident is on a public area, such as a sidewalk or a parking lot. A key requirement is often the existence of prior written notice to the municipal property owner. But recently the Court of Appeals in San Marco v. Village/Town Of Mount Kisco, 2010 WL 5104993, 2010 N.Y. Slip Op. 09197 (December 16, 2010), held that since the black ice hazard at issue may have been created by the municipality's negligent snow removal efforts, and, if so, the municipality may have known of the hazard, the defendants motion for summary judgment was properly denied.

The plaintiff alleged that she

In the Court ofAppeals decision inJohnson v. City of New York, 2010 WL 4720753 (November 23, 2010), five police officers got into a shootout with a robbery substance at 126th Street and Lenox Avenue in Manhattan. Plaintiff Tammy Johnson was playing with her 18-month-old daughter and socializing with neighbors on 126th Street near her residence when she heard gunshots, and she and her daughter took cover by lying on the ground behind an SUV. An errant bullet struck Johnsons elbow, and she commenced a negligence action against the City on behalf of herself and her daughter. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Divisions dismissal of the suit. Johnson opposed the City's motion and cross moved for summary judgment on liability, claiming that the officers violated Police Procedure No. 203.12, entitled Deadly Physical Force, which sets forth the guidelines for the use of firearms. The relevant gui

New York Citys fire trucks collided with other vehicles and with one another nearly 700 times last year. In an attempt to increase safety for firefighters and civilians by reducing the number of accidents caused while responding to non-fire and non-life threatening emergencies the New York City Fire Department is implementing a 3-month Modified Response pilot program in Queens effective October 4, 2010. The new protocol increases the instances where the either none or at most one first-due units will respond at a reduced speed and obey all traffic regulations. All-out emergency responses will still apply for fires and medical calls. It is hoped that the new protocol will reduce the number of fire apparatus responses using lights and sirens to non-fire and non-life threatening emergencies citywide by more than 300,000 annually - a 30 percent reduction since FDNY apparatus respond

A New York City public school teacher has a student in her special education class that she believes poses a danger to the safety of her classroom. The student had been verbally and physically aggressive for several months. The students increasing behavioral problems included bringing a knife to school, which resulted in a week's suspension. The student frequently punched, kicked and threw various items at his classmates. He also threatened to kill the teacher, another teacher, and his fellow classmates on numerous occasions. Concerned about the student's behavior and the classroom safety risks it presented,the teacher and her supervisor submitted to the Board's Committee on Special Education a written recommendation to remove the student from plaintiff's classroom and place him in a learning environment better equipped to his highly problematic conduct. The school's supervisor of special education and the principal had both told her that things were being worked

Gotlin v. City of New York, --- N.Y.S.2d ----, 2009 WL 3681839 (Supreme Court, Kings County (October 27, 2009),arises out of the wrongful death of Hailey Gonzalez, an infant, in August 2007 while under the supervision of the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS). The plaintiff, Gary D. Gotlin, Richmond County Public Administrator, alleged that Hailey Gonzalez was killed by Edwin Garcia, the companion of her mother, and that ACS, which was charged under a Brooklyn Family Court order with supervising the child's home, had a mountain of evidence confirming that Hailey's mother repeatedly placed herself and her children in extremely dangerous domestic violence situations. It was also alleged that the individual defendants,case-workers or supervisors employed by ACS, and played a substantial role in the events that led to Hailey's death and were grossly negligent.

Eduardo Henriquez is the father of an infant who he removed from the car of Carmen Huertas when he learned that she was about to drive drunk with the infant in the vehicle. He did not remove any of the other 7 children in the car. Ms. Huertas then allegedly drove off quickly, bragged to the children pleading for her to slow down that she would go even faster once they got on the highway, and then lost control of her car on the Henry Hudson Parkway, swerved off near the West 96th Street exit, flipped over and rolled several times before slamming into a tree. The car flipped several times before coming to rest on the shoulder of the road. Three children were ejected from the car. 11-year old Leandra Rosado died within minutes of the crash. One other girl, Yiselle Rosario, was hospitalized. Yiselle spent nine hours in surgery but survived with two broken legs and a back injury. Carmen

Holding a municipality liable in negligence for personal injuries sustained as a result of a third-party is often a difficult task because the plaintiff must show a special relationship between the plaintiff and the police department - a multi-prong test that is difficult to satisfy. The plaintiff circumvented these problems by bringing a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action alleging violation of her Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the victim of domestic abuse alleged sufficient facts from which a jury could find that it had implicitly but affirmatively sanctioned abuse of a wife by her husband in violation of her rights to due process, and that the municipal and certain individual defendants, if found liable, would not be entitled to qualified immunity. In Okin v. Village of Co