NY Accident Lawyers Blog

A Queens mom is suing the city for failing to protect her daughter from a shocking sexual assault by seven boys in a public-school locker room last year.

Good for the mom for taking action.  Can’t help but wonder what took her so long to file charges against these hooligans.  I just hope she’s found  a good New York personal injury lawyer?

When the incident took place, teachers were nowhere to be found when the 12-year-old girl was knocked to the ground and dragged off by the predatory gang at Pathways College Preparatory in Hollis.

Seven boys – ages 12 and 13 – were charged in Family Court with forcible touching and sexual abuse after the May 7, 2009, attack.

The suit filed Friday in Queens Supreme Court says the victim was finishing up gym class and was heading to the girls’ locker room when she set upon, the lawsuit claims.

They dragged her into the boys’ locker room and molested her.

The suit accuses the 6-12 school of negligence for failing to properly supervise students on school grounds.

A New York City cop is caught on video knocking a protester off his bike in Times Square.  And, even with this incriminating evidence in hand, a jury returned a not-guilty verdict yesterday.  My two questions are:  1) How does this happen in what is supposed to be a fair civil justice system?; 2) And, who the hell was the poor victim’s lawyer?

The mixed verdict against rookie cop, Patrick Pogan,  24, came after two and a half days of deliberations.

Pogan faced six counts for allegedly body-slamming cyclist Christopher Long during a Critical Mass protest ride in July 2008.

The Manhattan jury acquitted him of four counts and convicted him of two: filing a false criminal complaint against Long and swearing by his signature that it was true.

He could face up to four years in prison.

As with doctors and other professional services providers, it’s pretty clear here that not all accident lawyers are created equal.   Negligence victims should be given tips on how to hire an experienced, competent New York personal injury lawyer.

Running red lights. Turning without signaling. Gabbing on the phone while driving, are some of the flagrant violations found along Greenpoint’s notorious McGuinness Blvd. – where a pedestrian was killed last week – according to a new survey.

I realize that accidents are just that, accidents.  But there is little doubt in my mind that city officials should be doing more to alert residents to the hazards for crossing the street in certain notoriously dangerous streets, avenues and intersections.

“McGuinness Boulevard is deadly,” said Jessie Singer of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group that was already studying the fast-moving strip when 28-year-old Web designer Neil Chamberlain was hit last week.

“Until measures are taken, said pedestrian advocate and New York personal injury lawyer Richard Gurfein, accidents like the one that killed this young man will just keep happening.”

According to the study, reported in today’s Daily News, problems are so bad on the boulevard that researchers witnessed drivers violate traffic laws every 17 seconds at Nassau Ave. – where a cyclist was killed in December.

Meanwhile, every two minutes at the same spot, the study found drivers failed to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk – a violation that citywide killed 29 people and caused 4,698 accidents in 2008, according to state statistics.

Grief-wracked relatives of road repairmen killed or injured on the job called Monday for tougher penalties for drivers who enter work zones.

I suggest the family of the Staten Island worker who was killed recently in an accident pursue a personal injury lawsuit against whoever should have been keeping an eye on the safety of workers on that job site.

Proposed state legislation for the first time would make it crime to intrude into a marked work zone even if workers’ aren’t injured.  It is hard to understand why it always takes a tragedy before common sense practices are put in place by the government.

According to The New York Daily News, the legislation also would create new classes of felony manslaughter and assault when road workers are killed or seriously injured.

“I would give anything to have Nicky back …,” Anna Antico, widow of a city worker killed by a driver on Staten Island in 2005, said Monday.

“While we know that’s not possible … it is my hope this loss, and other like this, will lead to the passing of legislation to change safety laws to protect our roadway workers.”

A hit-and-run driver mowed down Nicky Antico in the Castelton Corners section Nov. 22, 2005. He died four days later.

More than 40,000 people are injured annually in work-zone crashes; more than 700 died in 2008, many of them members of road repair crews.

Lady hardhat Bianca Wisniewski wouldn’t back down from a fight – and neither will her two daughters.

The teenage girls, devastated when their mother died five months ago in a fire, are determined to finish her last battle: a $20 million sexual harassment suit against her former bosses.

I remember this brave woman.  She sued her employer for sexual harassment after they ignored her complaints about an elevator engineer who couldn’t keep his hands, or his comments, to himself.  She broke ranks with the union and hired her own new york accident lawyer to handle her case.

According to the New York Daily News today one of her daughters is quoted as saying, “My mom had the courage to stand up for herself and say you can’t treat people this way.”

Last year, Bianca Wisniewski sued JPMorgan Chase, Plaza Construction and Total Safety Consulting over an alleged unchecked campaign of harassment.

The problems began after she became safety coordinator for the company’s 270 Park Ave. construction site in 2007, her lawsuit said.

She felt the blowback immediately, her daughters said.

“She couldn’t believe how this one person was behaving, and when she complained, nothing was done,” said Nicole.

Wisniewski’s federal lawsuit said elevator operator Steven Greco pawed her, propositioned her and then turned nasty when she rejected the unwanted advances.

Wisniewski said she was ignored after taking her complaints up the chain of command. One of her bosses said if Greco was disciplined, his powerful union would make waves.

The Chinatown building where a seven-alarm blaze started has a history of violations, including several for a broken boiler, records show.  And now one can only hope that the wrath of building tenants and their personal injury lawyers will come raining down on the criminals who are responsible for the safe maintenance and upkeep of this long-derelict building.

According to the New York Daily News, it took more four hours and 250 firefighters to battle the fire, which broke out just after 10 p.m. Sunday at 283 Grand St., a six-story building with 16 apartments. Three civilians and 30 firefighters suffered minor injuries, and more than 200 people were left homeless.

The flames quickly spread to several neighboring buildings and around the block to Eldridge St.

The owner of 283 Grand St. is listed as Fair Only Real Estate Corp., based in Flushing, Queens. The company was slapped with at least nine violations in the past two years, including several for a broken boiler and at least five for obstructed passageways.

Fair Only has a small office on Grand St., between Eldridge and Allen Sts., above a textile store.

One neighbor said most of the people that live here are immigrants with no resources at all. They literally only have the clothes on their backs.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

According to an aritcle in The New York Daily News today, the city will pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit by a then-10-year-old Brooklyn girl who was handcuffed by cops on a school bus because she wouldn’t sit down fast enough.

City lawyers did not deny the cops cuffed I’Mecca Pearson two years ago outside Eubie Blake Elementary School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Soon after, the NYPD launched a pilot program to equip school safety agents with Velcro restraints for unruly youngsters.

According to a noted New York personal injury lawyer familiar with the case,  the sequence of events after the Pearson incident, requiring Velcro instead of metal wrist handcuffs, is a positive development.

The grade-schooler was boarding the bus at dismissal when 79th Precinct Officers told her to move faster.

One cop kneed her in the back, pulled her arms behind and snapped on cuffs, according to a complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court. They warned the cuffs would stay on until she sat straight in her seat.

The settlement suggests the city – and ultimately taxpayers – may foot a hefty tab for a class-action suit by the New York Civil Liberties Union in February.

It accuses school safety agents of using excessive force to arrest young students for minor infractions.

A frightening new study of firefighters and EMTs workers who inhaled toxic dust at Ground Zero found that their lungs have unexpectedly failed to recover since the 2001 disaster.

There was a dramatic decline in lung function, mostly in the first six months after 9/11, and these declines persisted with little or no meaningful recovery over the next six-and-a-half year, according to the study that will appear Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Lung problems from smoke inhalation in firefighters is usually temporary, and the study authors expected the damage they observed right after 9/11 to slowly disappear.

The study evaluated 92% of the 13,954 firefighters and EMS workers who were at the site between September 11 and September 24, 2001, testing their lung capacity every 12 to 18 months.  It found that 13% of firefighters and 22% of EMS workers still had impaired lung function seven years down the road.

So a thorny legal question emerges:  who is responsible for the responders’ injuries and who will pay for their care should they need medical help, or  lose their jobs because  of their illness.

Perhaps this is a question to pose to a New York personal injury attorney.  If any see this post, please comment.

I have lived and worked in New York City for more than 35 years.  So it was no surprise when I read an article in Tne New York Daily News today about a new survey that found subway announcements about delayed or rerouted trains garbled, incorrect or nonexistent more than half the time – and even that’s a big improvement.

A Straphangers Campaign survey out Monday found that 55% of the time when train service is disrupted, no announcements are made or they contain inaccurate information or are unintelligible.

I have to believe that many accidents in the subway could be averted if the damn PA system would only work properly.  It’s ironic that on the same day we all read about the successful launch of the IPad, a highly complex and elegant instrument for surfing the web, that the New York City Transit Authority can’t even get their act together enough to fix it’s own dinosaur PA system.  It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so dangerous.

According to the survey, that miserable performance is better than the 65% failure rate during the last study four years ago.

There were no announcements at all made during 26% of delays observed by the riders group, 27% were incorrect and 2% were inaudible or garbled.

A Straphangers Campaign official called the woeful announcement ratings a safety issue for riders.

“In an age of anxiety, telling riders what is going on is critical,” said Cate Contino of the Straphangers Campaign.

The report’s authors surveyed 6,600 announcements on 22 lines between February and July 2009.

I guess like everything else in this town, things will only change when more people get hurt and personal injury lawyers are hired to stand up for their clients and use the courts to force thetransit authority to pay for their negligence when the faulty PA system is to blame for someone’s injury or death.