Articles Posted in Brooklyn

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On August 8, 2008, a Brooklyn woman was a passenger in a vehicle that was involved in a traffic accident. The accident occurred in the intersection of Middle Neck Road and Northern Boulevard. This intersection is located in Nassau County in New York State. At the time of the accident, the woman was a passenger in a 2007 Lexus that was being driven by her male companion. The vehicle was struck in the rear end by another vehicle. The woman contends that she sustained a serious injury as defined by the Insurance Laws of New York State in the course of the traffic accident. She subsequently filed a personal injury lawsuit to recover monetary damages as a result of the injuries that she sustained in the accident. The woman contends that her right knee was injured in the accident and that she was required to have arthroscopic surgery on the knee. She also stated that she received a sprain of her neck and lower back. She contends that these injuries prevented her from conducting her usual activities for at least 90 of the 180 days immediately following the accident. She also contends that the knee injury qualifies as a serious injury under the law because she now has limited flexion of the knee that is not within the normal range.

In order for a person to recover monetary damages as the result of an accident under New York Law, they must be able to demonstrate that they obtained an injury of sufficient severity that they were unable to perform their normal day to day activities for at least 90 days of the 180 days that immediately followed the accident. They can also demonstrate that the injury is a permanent disability as defined by them having a limited use of an appendage of the body. Other qualifying injuries fall under spinal injury or brain injury, either one of which may qualify a person to have received a serious injury as defined by the Insurance Laws of the state.

However, these injuries must be quantitative. That means that a medical professional doctor, or chiropractor, must swear under oath to the condition that the woman sustained. She must present these sworn statements to the court. The woman must also show that the doctor performed quantitative non-subjective tests of the body part that she maintains was injured. These tests must demonstrate an actual decrease of use that can be measured as compared to the normal measurements of an uninjured person.

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This involves a case where the court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the plaintiff’s complaint for failure to prove that the latter suffered serious injury threshold requirement of Insurance Law Sec. 5102 (d).

Plaintiff from The Bronx alleged that a car accident occurred on September 15, 2002 at approximately 5:15 p.m. at the intersection of Carman Avenue and Choir Lane in the Town of Hempstead, New York. Plaintiff claimed that as a result thereof, she suffered serious injuries. At her oral examination before trial, the Plaintiff testified that she had a preexisting spinal injury to her lower back from another car accident in 1988. After being treated for the injuries from that accident, the Plaintiff continued treating with a chiropractor for occasional discomfort to her back, “as needed,” rather than having a set schedule of appointments. Following the subject accident, it was suggested by multiple doctors that the Plaintiff undergo surgery and/or physical therapy, but she declined and chose to continue seeing the chiropractor instead. The Plaintiff also declined pain medication immediately following the accident, preferring over the counter medication. But plaintiff admitted she had her first doctor visit for medical expert opinion after 18 months from the accident. Following the accident, Plaintiff testified to having trouble bending over, walking long distances, participating in her children’s activities, dancing, hiking and brushing her teeth. Plaintiff claimed that she had some occasional discomfort in her back prior to the subject accident, and that the accident exacerbated that pain into a chronic condition.

The Court in Brooklyn held that Plaintiff’s claims that her injuries satisfy the 90/180 category of Insurance Law § 5102 (d) are unsupported and contradicted by her own testimony wherein she states that she only missed a week and a half of work and was confined to her home or bed for one week. Additionally, the Plaintiff does not provide any evidence that she was “medically” impaired from doing any daily activities as a result of this accident for 90 days within the first 180 days following the subject accident.

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A man was involved in a car accident in 2002 and he sustained injury in his shoulders, neck and back. According to an MRI report his spinal injury involved bulging discs that impinged his spinal canal. He received treatment and therapy for his injury and he also received compensation for the spinal injury he sustained when he missed work for the days of his confinement until he recovered from his injury.

In 2008, the man figured in another motor vehicle accident in The Bronx. He filed a suit for damages from a personal injury he sustained when he injured his back, shoulders and neck. He claims that he is in constant pain; he has lost strength in his arms; he has lost the full range of motion in his back and neck; and cannot perform his regular daily tasks and perform his regular work.

The man sued the defendants who were owners of the motor vehicle that figured in the accident as well as their insurer. He claims that he sustained serious injury for which he demands compensation under the Insurance Law.

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Dewayne Bunch, a Whitley County High School teacher and State Representative, is reportedly improving after sustaining a head injury when trying to break two boys apart during a school cafeteria altercation. According to the public relations and marketing director for Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, the 49-year-old’s recovery is going nicely.

The teacher, sustaining serious injuries, was immediately transported to Baptist Regional Medical Center. The then had to be transferred to the University of Kentucky Medical Center. Two weeks later, he was again relocated to the intensive care unit at Shepherd Center, a hospital specializing in the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries where he improved so much that he was able to be moved to the hospital’s rehabilitation unit.

His wife expressed sincere thanks. She was quoted as saying, “I appreciate the outpouring of support and kindness we’ve received from the community. Please continue to keep [my husband] in your prayers as he continues his journey to recovery.”

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The Tennessee Consumer Protection is under assault, some say. Its advocates claim that this act protects the consumer from businesses and products that produce goods or services that can harm, even to the point of maiming and killing victims, through negligence or unscrupulous manufacturing and selling tactics.

A new bill has been introduced in Tennessee that would make it more difficult to litigate against companies on the grounds of injury and wrongful death caused by negligence or wrongful actions. The proponents of the bill claim it would make the state more business-friendly. The former senator from Tennessee, Fred Thompson, among others has shown opposition to the bill. They have seen instances of what can happen when a company acts without seeming regard for human life. Many of those who advocate against this bill also believe the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act will also be compromised to the point of uselessness should this bill pass. They tell Lawyers that victims would have no legal recourse to pursue the means to gain compensation for their injuries and losses.

Tort reformers are very interested in seeing this bill pass. According to them, “lawsuit abuse” and “jackpot justice” are very common in Tennessee. They fear businesses will not come and invest in Tennessee due to the stifling environment created by easy lawsuits which could very well ruin a small business. A group in Tennessee and others in The Bronx and Brooklyn offered a study that stated the bill would create more than 100,00 jobs and $16.2 billion in “additional economic output” in the state over the next ten year.

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A 9-year-old boy who was accidentally run over by his own father on a family day out was recently awarded compensation worth £8.1 million today. This is a record-setting amount for a court-approved award for a spinal injury, a source says.

The boy will need lifelong care after suffering severe spinal and brain injuries in March of 2002 when he was just two-and-a-half years old.

The boy’s father did not see him when he reversed the car at Mead Open Farm, near Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. The father drove over his son.

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A teenager’s spinal cordwas destroyed in 1978 after she received a lethal dose of radiation at a hospital she was receiving cancer treatment from. She was awarded $7.6 million by a jury.

Some believed at the time that it was the single, largest payment awarded in a malpractice suit in the U.S. After the trial, the 18-year-old said that the jury was full of “wonderful people and now I have a chance for my life.”

The girl’s lawyers said that most of the money was going to have to go toward medical payments.

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“We heard the plane coming,” the plaintiff recalled. “You know when the bomb bays doors open, the bombs start to whistle. And when you hear the whistling, you know something’s going to be a bustin’.”

It took 36 years, but that man was finally compensated for the injury he received during the accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down in 1944 when the man’s spinal cord was severed by shrapnel. An errant bomber dropped 36 fragmentation bombs on his family’s home and land, missing his target by 10 miles.

He clearly remembers what the incoming bombs sounded like. He also remembers running. He ran almost to the front porch of his uncle’s farmhouse. Those steps proved to be his last steps – ever, taken at 12 years of age.

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Modern medicine has experienced many advancements over the past 100 years. Many of these advancements have come from technology and pharmacological discoveries, while others have come to pass by scientific research and clinical trials. However, as one doctor has learned, many of these discoveries are a result of wartime experiences.

Contrary to many beliefs, both ancient and modern, there is nothing glorious about warfare. The grim truth of the matter is that there are at least two absolute facts about war: #1 In war young men and women die, and #2 There is nothing that anyone can do to change number one except stop the war. For some reason our species seems to have an overwhelming desire to destroy itself. There is however, some good that has come from our experiences in the battlefield. Many new methods to treat fatal spinal cord injuries have been learned by our battlefield experiences and have been transferred over to the civilian world.

One such example of learning such techniques occurred during WWII when many pilots were severely burned. Many of these pilots volunteered to be test subjects for a doctor by the name of Archibald McIndoe who pioneered the use of plastic and reconstructive surgery techniques that are still in use today. A study claims that another such example is that with beginning with the Iraq war and continuing into Afghanistan, the use of improvised explosives devices (IED) are in widespread use and have caused almost countless numbers of head and spinal injuries. Many of the techniques that battlefield doctors and nurses have learned in order to save the lives and limbs of these soldiers are making their way into the civilian medical community.

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An Ohio police officer underwent surgery for major spinal cord injury after a hit-and-run incident, in which he was run over by a truck.

The 32-year-old officer was hit while he and a deputy with the Summit County Sherriff’s Office were searching the road for drugs that were thrown from a vehicle during a pursuit. As the officer returned to his cruiser, which had the emergency lights on, a pickup truck cross the center line and hit the officer hard enough to flip him into the air.

The officer sustained a broken vertebra. It is too early to tell what the long-term effects of the injury will be.

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