Safe on the subway?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/subway_board_er_beware_DfGUW7Ughqwx745BHhtuJN

http://subinlaw.com/

The Transit Authority’s total neglect in safely maintaining the subway system in this article about the loose running boards. (Running boards are the wooden beams on the edge of the platform that stop the trains from hitting the platform). The running platform also serves as the last step before riders enter the train. This step into the train is a very dangerous time for the; pedestrian. From a human factors standpoint the pedestrian is confronted with changing lighting conditions, other pedestrians boarding and disembarking and stepping over the gap between the train and platform.
A running board that gives way or a gap that is too wide can cause the pedestrian’s leg to become wedged in the gap. We have represented accident victims that sustained fractures, degloving (the skin and muscle are pulled off of the bone) and amputations due to legs becoming caught in the gap.
Running board and gap maintenance should be the Transit Authorities top priority due to the extreme danger to its riders. Instead, they do no maintenance and even after a scathing report by their own employees about the danger they wait over six months to begin to investigate.
One of the huge social benefits of personal injury law is that injured accident victims can be compensated for their injuries due to the Transit Authorities negligence and if the financial pain is sufficient the TA will change their practice to do routine maintenance therefore avoiding the injuries in the first place and making the subway safer for all of us.
It has been my experience that the TA would rather not pay to safely maintain their system, allow the riders to get injured and defend the personal injury claims that are ultimately made, because it’s cheaper to fight the personal injury claims then to maintain the system.
That’s why our system of compensating personal injury victims is so vital because as this article proves the TA will accept danger to the riders if it is cheaper than making the system safe.

Surfing while you drive

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Putting the Internet in front of drivers is the classic example of companies choosing profit over safety. It is beyond any reasonable question that encouraging and enabling drivers to text or do web searching while they are driving will lead to more automobile accidents personal injuries and wrongful deaths. So what is "driving" this trend to treat the drivers seat like an office chair? Profits! The car companies will sell more cars at higher margins, the tech companies will sell more chips and screens and Google will sell more of everything. It will be interesting to see how product liability law evolves around this new phenomenon. generally a person injured by a defective product may sue the manufacturer or seller of the product for injuries sustained due to the defective product. The product may be defective due to a failure of the manufacturer to issue a warning on the product to avoid certain latent risks. I am sure the car companies will provide appropriate warnings. A second theory against a product's manufacturer is if the product is defectively designed. This is going to be a fertile area for cases in which people are seriously injured or killed due to driver inattention using dashboard computers. I believe it is extremely forseeable that drivers will be distracted and thus much more likely to injure and kill other drivers and pedestrians. One major issue is whether the federal government sets standards that permits in dash Internet, which would substantially reduce the consumers ability to bring product liability cases against the manufacturers due to the federal preemption of state law. The bottom line is that many lives are going to be ruined and lost so drivers have access to the Internet as they are driving. This seems like a bad trade off to me. Subinlaw
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/technology/07distracted.html

Liability for falling objects in New York personal injury cases

http://www.subinlaw.com


This case involving a falling moose head raises some interesting issues in personal injury law. To collect for her injuries the accident victim will have to prove the restaurant was negligent. The insurance company will invariably defend based upon a lack of notice. There is no negligence unless the personal injury attorney can prove Notice. In order to prove Notice the personal injury attorney will have to show the restaurant operators knew the object was potentially dangerous (called actual notice) or through reasonable inspection should have known the object might fall (called constructive notice). The premises owners (if they are a separate entity) will not be liable because they couldn’t control how objects were hung in the restaurant.
If the restaurant operators are not willing to admit they knew the object was a danger for falling before it fell then the only way to prove actual notice is to get testimony that someone warned the operators of the restaurant.
Proving constructive notice would be possible if the personal injury attorney could show the object had fallen before or was hanging precariously for a sufficient period of time before it fell so the operators should have noticed it and fixed it.
There are two ways to avoid proving notice. First, that the operators created the dangerous condition (for example used a simple picture frame hook which was not designed to hold the weight of the object). Or lastly, a legal concept called res ipsa loquitor. This concept allows for an inference of negligence even if the personal injury lawyer cannot prove exactly how the act happened. The requirements for res ipsa loquitor is that the action doesn’t generally happen in the absence of negligence. The classic example is a barrel falling out of a window. The defendant had exclusive control over the object. Plaintiff cannot be a factor in causing the event.
From the facts presented in the article it appears the plaintiff would be entitled to utilize res ipsa loquitor.

Serious injuries needs serious lawyering

The lawyer in the wrongway driver on the Taconic Parkway (Diane Schuler)wrongful death action is going to be faced with a difficult road in obtaining adequate compensation for the victims of this accident. The obvious source of funds will come from any insurance coverage on the van (owned by Diane Schuler's brother) and any coverage Diance Schuler had. If that coverage is low then an alternative source would be underinsurance coverage on the Bastardi's vehicle.
If, as I anticipate, the combination of these coverages is insufficient to compensate the accident victims then there is a potential for a claim against the State of New York for insufficient roadway design. These cases are extremely difficult. Firstly, they must be brought in the Court of Claims (the only Court that has jurisdiction over the State of New York) which have only judges no juries.
In this particular case the most difficult aspect for the plaintiffs to prove is causation. Even if the entrance to and the signs on the Taconic were defectively designed would any of that made a difference to Diane Schuler who was drunk and high at the time. Given that there will be no testimony from Diane Schuler I believe it will be almost impossible for the plaintiffs to do anything but speculate as to the causation. Without any direct proof the Court will dismiss the case. I will follow and update as news becomes available.
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