Low speed crash MVA cases can be won.

 

Drivers and passengers can be injured in low speed crashes. Even when there is little or no vehicle damage. This is true, even though insurance company defense attorneys frequently hire biomechanics experts to try to defeat the plaintiff’s claim. These defense witnesses’ testimony often rely on “junk science” to mislead jurors. One approach involves attempts to compare a sneeze or sitting down in a chair to a traumatic injury caused by a vehicle crash. Defense crash reconstructionist experts will often try the same tactic, hoping to convince a jury to non-suit a meritorious claim. Careful trial preparation can invalidate these sorts of defense experts’ opinions. Common sense tells us that a defense biomechanist cannot properly diagnosis our client’s injuries. On the other hand, our client’s treating doctors are clearly in the best position to tell the jury about the plaintiff’s injuries. Low speed crash MVA cases can be won.

 

AV Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell

AV Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell video for Paul F. Oliveri, Esq. is now live! Check it out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvekvbYQ1IU then visit us at www.oliveriandschwartz.com

Crime victims seek civil justice attorneys

We are proud members of several civil justice and plaintiffs’ bar groups, including The National Crime Victims Bar Association. With the national widespread attention to the recent Penn State sexual abuse cases, we have been receiving a higher than usual volume of phone calls from New York State crime victims who are seeking information about their civil legal remedies. Our firm is willing and able to represent victims of crime in the civil justice system.

The child sexual abuse cases arising out of Penn State are shocking. A silver lining, so to speak, is that many crime victims are finding the confidence to speak out. Setting aside their past reluctance and shame and fear, many victims are now motivated to seek out the rights, protections and services they need and deserve.

The National Crime Victims Bar Association, in particular, works to help crime victims, to reform institutional practices, to change laws and to educate the public about the dynamics of child sex abuse and common reactions seen in survivors. Institutional leaders are urged to foster institutional cultures that openly condemn abuse, require reporting and promote accountability of perpetrators. The group, for example, is working to pass legislation that would create a window in which victims can still sue perpetrators even if the Statute of Limitations has expired; in other words, to seek civil justice no matter how long ago they were abused.

We, and our colleagues, are committed to work zealously and tirelessly to ensure that injured victims find justice and that the nation understands the path to preventing sex abuse and unspeakable crimes.

Emergency Vehicle Crashes

New York negligence laws and statutes that govern motor vehicles differentiate between regular cars, etc. that are being operated by common folk and commercial businesses, and emergency vehicles such as police cars and fire trucks. The so-called usual lawsuit rules do not apply when representing a client injured in a crash involving fire pumper and rescue apparatus, ambulances and other emergency vehicles. It is essential that your lawyer knows how to handle these special claims, so that all available avenues are pursued to hold responsible all who are at fault in accord with New York law.

It is obvious that emergency vehicles are uniquely constructed and operated. We are guessing, for example, that your driving experience does not entail the use of flashing lights or sirens and special audible devices. Emergency vehicles typically have exterior reflective materials (fluorescent, phosphorescent or retroreflective), and that factor alone can change a driver’s perception. Similar safety issues arise with the actual color of a fire vehicle. Common crash scenarios include police chases, innocent bystanders, parked emergency vehicles, highway hazards and injuries to EMTs. When significant injuries are involved, it is good practice to consider the involvement of an expert accident reconstruction analysis.

Aviation, Air, Flight Injury and Death Cases

Our firm does not handle injury and death cases arising out of jetplane crashes (matters involving aviation, air and flight crash tragedies). However, we are able to put you in the capable hands of premier attorneys who do handle such matters throughout the country. Aviation Law is a highly specialized field of tort law, involving federal and state laws. Practitioners must be well versed with all aspects of aviation investigation and reconstruction to handle such suits; as well as being familiar with treaties such as DOHSA, GARA and the Warsaw and Hague Convention. It is important that air tragedy victims and families have quality legal representation to achieve fair recourse and recovery.

 

 

Have you thanked a trial attorney today?

Trial attorneys have helped to make America a safer place to work, to drive, to receive medical care and the list goes on and on. Trial attorneys often represent individual consumers who have been harmed by careless or uncaring governments, corporations and big businesses. We strive to strengthen our Civil Justice systems, in the face of constant challenges by special interest groups such as the insurance lobby, pharmaceutical companies, state medical societies, etc. We stand up in court for our clients. We speak to judges and juries, seeking civil justice for the injured and maimed. We also face those challenges head on by actively participating in our country’s legislative process through lobbying efforts, continuing education, media relations and ongoing public communications. Despite the special interests’ self-serving efforts to weaken the civil justice system and avoid accountability, trial attorney organizations defend the rights of innocent victims and also mount affirmative legislative action to strengthen consumers’ rights public policy. These goals present an uphill battle, but the mission is right and just. Just our two cents. So, we ask, “Have you thanked a trial attorney today?” Humbly, we suggest that you should.

Think Safety – Cooking Fire Safety Tips

Here are some safety tips from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), especially valuable during the upcoming holiday season. This time of year brings added home fire safety risk, and we want to share these tips so you and your family can enjoy a safe holiday.

Cooking fires are the number one cause of home fires and home fire injuries. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, cooking was actually the cause of almost half (46 percent) of residential building fires in 2009, all which could have been avoided. Taking this a step further, unattended cooking equipment is the leading factor in the start of cooking fires.

Here are the safety tips:

Be alert – If you are sleepy or have consumed alcohol don’t use the stove or stovetop.

Stay in the kitchen while you are frying, grilling, or broiling food. If you leave the kitchen for even a short period of time, turn off the stove.

If you are simmering, baking, roasting or boiling food, check it regularly, remain in the home while food is cooking, and use a timer to remind you that you are cooking.

Keep anything that can catch fire — oven mitts, wooden utensils, food packaging, towels or curtains — away from your stovetop.

Do not wear loose fitting clothing while cooking.

The NFPA discourages the use of outdoor gas-fueled turkey fryers that immerse the turkey in hot oil.

If you have a cooking fire:

Just get out – When you leave, close the door behind you to help contain the fire.

Call 9-1-1 or the local emergency number after you leave.

If you try to fight the fire, be sure others are getting out and you have a clear way out.

Keep a lid nearby when you are cooking to smother small grease fires. Smother the fire by sliding the lid over the pan and turn off the stovetop. Leave the pan covered until it is completely cooled.

Happy Thanksgiving Day

Wishing you and your loved ones a peaceful, safe Happy Thanksgiving Day.

No such thing as a drunk-driving ACCIDENT.

Our firm has handled many New York motor vehicle crash injury and death cases. We firmly believe there is no such thing as a drunk-driving “accident.” Chance, fortune and luck are some of the words used to define “accident.” One definition of the word mentions that it is a happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss. We take issue with the unintentional part, when someone mentions an impaired driving “accident.” Why? Because impaired driving is never unintentional. Rather, it is a bad personal choice. When people impaired by alcohol, drugs or medications get behind a motor vehicle’s wheel, they make a choice to put their own lives, as well as the lives of everyone else, in danger. Alcohol and drug related traffic crashes are a major problem in our country. Impaired driving fatality statistics suggest that they account for two of every five traffic fatalities.  The drivers in those incidents (not accidents) recklessly disregard the safety of innocent victims and their families. In representing those victims and families, we are trying to win Civil Justice. We are passionate about this, and that is no accident.

Firefighters win hearing-loss case against siren maker.

My brother in law is a firefighter. My son’s college house caught fire yesterday (he’s fine). So those things were on my mind, as I came across this interesting case:  Firefighters in Illinois won a hearing-loss case against a siren maker, claiming that the particular siren maker company’s sirens damaged their hearing.  The specific claim was that the rear sirens were unnecessarily, dangerously loud.  The firefighters riding in the back of fire trucks were receiving the most concentrated levels of sound intensity, and the argument was that those sirens ought to have, could have and should have focused the sound forward, not backward.  Whew.  Plaintiffs’ experts showed that a safer siren could easily have reduced the amount of sound traveling to the back of the truck.  That would have prevented the firefighters’ established hearing loss.  Because they need to communicate with each other during an emergency, the solution was not as simple as better ear protection.  Speaking about the defendant siren maker company’s disregard for the firefighters’ safety, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys stated, “They have a nondelegable duty to make their product safe and can’t put the onus on someone else.”  This writer does not know the status of appeals, but thinks that the lawsuit claim itself is quite interesting.