New York Personal Injury Laws

Types of Injuries

At the Maurer Law Firm, I’ve had clients who’ve come to me as a result of many different types of injuries. They may have been injured in a car accident. They may have fallen at work. They may have been a victim of medical malpractice. Whatever the cause, they all have something in common – their lives have been turned upside down. They don’t know what’s going to happen next. They don’t know if they’ll ever return to work, or if they’ll be able to make their mortgage payments. These are serious issues that are taken very seriously here at the Maurer Law Firm.

The litigation process can be complex and overwhelming. My experience and dedication to your case will help educate you on the process

Maurer Law Firm

I’m Ira Maurer, founder of the Maurer Law Firm. Welcome to our website. I’ve been practicing serious personal injury law in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and throughout New England for over 30 years now.

When I decided to open the Maurer Law Firm, there were a few principles that were important to me. I wanted every client of this firm to know that they would be treated like family because that’s how I would want to be treated.

I restrict the number of cases that I handle so that I can devote my attention to each and every client and their needs. I explain all the important things that they need to know because they need to be educated, because my clients can make the best, most confident decisions about their case if they understand everything that goes on.

Working as a lawyer isn’t just a profession for me. It’s not just a career. It’s my life.

Personal Injury Lawsuit Timeline

I’m Ira Maurer with a public service law tip. If you’re a personal injury victim, one of the questions you probably have is if I commence a lawsuit to recover my damages, how long is it going to take? There are numerous factors that will govern exactly how long a lawsuit will take. Where you bring the lawsuit is one important factor. You can bring it in New York State Supreme Court or you can bring it in the Federal District Court if you meet the criteria.

 Recovery Process Is Important

Second of all, where you are in your medical treatment is a very important part of the equation. If you recover quickly from an injury, it’s possible to settle a case before even starting a lawsuit. Insurance companies may be interested if they’re clearly responsible for your injury in settling out a case without having to spend a lot of money for a law firm to defend them.

So what happens if your injury takes a long time to be treated? Well I always recommend that you take your time. The last thing you ever want to do is settle a case prematurely before you know the full extent of your injuries. Are you going to be left with a disability? Are you going to have some problems with your earning capacity? Are you going to earn less money? Are you going to need further treatment that will cost money? All these things take time to answer. So the more serious the injury, an injury that may require surgery or multiple operations, these are things that all can impact on how long it takes for a lawsuit to come to conclusion. The best thing you can do is ask these questions when you go in to see a personal injury lawyer.

For more information, contact the Maurer Law Firm at maurerlaw.net.

Public Service Tips

I’m Ira Maurer, with a public service law tip. If you’ve been injured and commence a lawsuit to collect damages for your injuries, you have the burden of proving your case by a preponderance of the credible evidence. That means you have to convince a jury that, with each element of your case, it’s more likely true than not true. You have to tip the scale of justice in your favor, 51% to 49%; if the jury thinks it’s 50/50, then you haven’t met your burden of proof and you will lose the case. This burden is different from what you may have heard in a criminal case, where the prosecutor has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you’d like more information about pursuing a personal injury case, visit the Maurer Law Firm’s website at M-A-U-R-E-R-L-A-W.net

The Risks of Hip Replacements

Today on You Be The Judge. Are hip implants putting toxic debris in people’s bloodstream? Could a major corporation have hidden its expectation that 37% of its hip replacements would fail? An estimated 500,000 Americans have received metal-on-metal hip replacements for Arthritis, fractures, and other conditions that cause everyday pain. This type of hip implant is called metal-on-metal because both the ball and socket are metal composed of Cobalt, Chromium alloys.

Metal on Metal Hip Replacements

Now let’s stop right there. Imagine two pieces of metal grinding against each other in your body. According to the FDA, this grinding from a metal-on-metal hip implant can release small metallic debris into the body. This lingering debris can raise the body’s toxicity levels, and for one 66-years-old man, this implant raised his body’s levels of Cobalt and Chromium seven times normal.     Testimony was heard in the Los Angeles Superior Court, and this first lawsuit to go to trial involving Johnson & Johnson’s all metal hip replacements.

Johnson & Johnson Hip Replacements

The manufacturer is alleged to have known about defects including the risk of Cobalt and Chromium poisoning due to the metal debris before they even started selling the implants in 2004, but there’s more. A Johnson & Johnson study presented at trial showed that the company itself had estimated the 37% of the devices would fail within five years of implant surgery. 37%, that’s almost 4 in 10.     Stop for a moment and imagine that you yourself needed a hip implant.

First of all, you would be dealing with a great deal of physical pain on a daily basis. You would have a hard time doing ordinary tasks like going to answer a knock at the front door or sweeping the back steps. Your doctor recommends a hip replacement, and after talking it over with your friends and family, you decide to undergo this intensive surgery. Afterward you go through a period of recovery, but it is well worth it because you can now go on with your life living like you are used to, at least for a while.

You begin having problems, and you are told that your hip implant is failing, and you need to be operated on again to remove the hip replacement. Then one day, you find out that the manufacturer had estimated that 37% of their products would fail within five years. Legally, Johnson & Johnson can withhold this kind of information from you, but should they? Should corporations release this kind of information to candidates for major surgeries?

By: Edward Lake

Medical and Dental Malpractice Negligence

When you’re talking about medical or dental malpractice, you’re really talking about negligence. To prove a medical or dental malpractice case, we must show the doctor has failed to meet accepted standards for medical care in your community. Some examples of medical or dental malpractice include failure to diagnose breast cancer or an impending heart attack. Malpractice may also stem from a surgical error. For instance, an oral surgeon may place an implant too close to a nerve. To know if you have a valid malpractice case, it’s essential that an experienced lawyer reviews your medical records and consults with appropriate medical experts. The selection of the right medical expert in your case is extremely important. I will only work with a doctor who truly believes you have a valid case. If you feel you or a loved one has been injured as a result of the negligence of a doctor or dentist, and you would like to arrange a free consultation, please contact us or chat with us on our website.

The Steps to Proving a Mesothelioma Case

How do we prove a case for a mesothelioma victim in court? Hi, I’m Joe Williams, I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City. I can tell you that in order to prove a mesothelioma case, a legal case for a victim in court the first thing that we have to do is we have to be able to prove that a particular company is responsible to that particular victim. So how do we do that? Well one of the primary ways that we establish that proof is through the victim’s own testimony at a pretrial deposition. Also, through their testimony at trial in which they talk about that particular company’s products and how they believe that product exposed them to asbestos. They generally talk about the dust that was created from the work that they did with that product. There’s also other ways that we prove that that particular company is responsible to our client. That’s in the form of employment records, work records, for navy seamen, men who served on navy ships. We get records from the US Naval Archive in Washington D.C. for that particular ship. Often these records show every piece of equipment that was ever put on those ships. So there’s many ways to prove one particular company’s responsibility to our client. The next thing we have to show is that that company new or should have known that asbestos was dangerous and that they never warned our clients about these dangerous. How do we do that? Well we do that through company documents, documents from that same company that failed to warn our clients about the dangers of asbestos through internal memorandums, through internal research documents. All of which that show that that company either knew or that they certainly should have known that asbestos was a danger and that they never warned our clients about the dangers of asbestos. The last thing generally that we have to show in a legal case for a mesothelioma victim is that our client was injured. Of course every mesothelioma victim suffers greatly. It’s not just them but their spouses and family suffer as well. We document that through the use of medical experts who talk about mesothelioma and it’s course on the human body. Also through that individual victim’s medical records. Also through the testimony of physicians sometimes the treating. Physicians who actually treated out client were able to document all of the different medical treatments and really all of the suffering that our client has gone through from the time of their first symptoms until the present day when we’re in court dealing with that mesothelioma case in front of a judge and jury. Now, you may have many more questions about all the ways that we seek to prove a mesothelioma case on behave of our client and we can answer those questions for you. I’m Joe Williams and in our firm we handle cases for mesothelioma victims everyday. This is what we do. It’s who we are. I encourage you to call the number on your screen below. That’s our office number and we’ll answer you questions as well. Thank you.

Upfront Attorney Fees

When a mesothelioma victim and their family come into my office, one of the first questions they ask me is are there any upfront costs or fees for me to handle their case? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City. I can tell you that the answer to this question is absolutely not.

 Paying to Prosecute Your Case

In a mesothelioma case, the lawyers for the victim lay out the money to prosecute the case. So things like court filing fees– to file the case, to start the case, there’s a fee in the courthouse to do that. The lawyers lay out that money. Fees associated with continuing the case, the lawyers lay out that money. Fees associated with hiring expert witnesses– a mesothelioma case requires the hiring and retaining of some very important expert witnesses in order to support the medical and exposure claims that are made in the case. All of those fees are disbursements which are laid out by the attorneys in the case. I can tell you at our firm, we never ask a client to set forth any payments, any money, until the case is concluded.

 Post-Settlement Money

What happens is the case is prosecuted until it’s completed. At that point, the money that is obtained in the form of a settlement or a judgement or verdict at trial, the lawyer takes the disbursements and pays them back, then takes the lawyer’s fee. All the remainder of the money, whether it be in the form of a settlement or a verdict at trial, all of that is the client’s proceeds from the result obtained in that case.

Contact Us With Questions or Concerns

Now you may have many more questions related to this topic and others. I’m Joe Williams. My office number is listed below. I encourage you to give a call to our office. We will answer your questions. We’re here to help you and to answer your questions. Thank you.

Plasterers Exposed to Asbestos

You spent a career as a plasterer. Now you’ve been diagnosed with Mesothelioma and you’re wondering how it is that you got this terrible disease.

Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a Mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City, and I certainly can answer these questions for you.

How Plasterers Became Exposed to Asbestos

We know that plasterers dealt with plaster every day of their working career. And back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and before that time interior structural walls in commercial building, and in residential as well, were made with plaster. And that means, as you know, that wire lath was installed within the wall and the plaster was a dry mixed product, mixed with water and applied to the lath and allowed to dry, then sanded down. And the amount of dust created from that sanding was tremendous in the workspace of every worker on that job site. And we know that many of these plaster products back in that timeframe contained asbestos.

Sometime in the ‘60s some of the building materials changed and we went from plaster walls to sheetrock walls. And that’s of course what’s in use today. The sheetrock nailed or screwed—used to be nailed, now they’re screwed to the studs, and they used to be wood studs now they’re mostly metal studs, between the seams of the sheetrock a product called joint compound was used to seal and smooth the walls in those areas. And also for all of the nail or screw holes where the sheetrock was attacked to the studs. And the joint compound on large construction sites was usually a dry product that was mixed with water and applied to the seams of the sheetrock and to the screw or nail holes. Additionally, that joint compound came in a premixed compound which was in a bucket or a can and it was already wet and it was applied to the wall in the same way on the seams of the sheetrock or on the screw or nail holes. And whether it started wet or dry, eventually it was made wet and put on the walls and allowed to dry. And once it dried it had to be sanded smooth. And multiple coats of this process was done and sanded down, all creating a lot of asbestos dust that plasterers and workers breathed.

So these are many of the ways that a plasterer would have been exposed to asbestos dust on a work site. Now, I’m sure you have many other questions about your work and how it could have caused you to be exposed to asbestos. Well, we have the answers. I’m Joe Williams. I invite you to call my office at the number below and we can discuss your case and the way you were exposed to asbestos.

We handle Mesothelioma cases every day. We represent the victims of asbestos exposure each and every day and we’ll be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.