New York Personal Injury Laws

Brick Layer Exposed to Asbestos

You’re a bricklayer. You’ve now been diagnosed with mesothelioma, and you’re wondering how did you get this disease?

 Mesothelioma Trial Attorney

Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I am a mesothelioma trial attorney, and I want to talk to you a bit about the types of exposures to asbestos that bricklayers faced from their work on the job. In order to do that, I want to talk to you about a prior client I had, and his work is a good example of how bricklayers are exposed to asbestos.

How Do Brick Layers Become Exposed

He worked at very large commercial sites, sites like the World Trade Center, and he also worked at smaller commercial sites. He was a union bricklayer, so he did all commercial work. And the smaller sites for him were six-story apartment buildings, and whether it was a big building or a small building, his work was kind of always the same. He did brick and masonry work, Brick and masonry walls, and from time to time, especially back in the 1950s, some of the actual brick that he used contained asbestos.

But mostly, most of his exposures to asbestos came from the work of other tradesmen. Now when he was doing his work, other tradesmen could be shoulder to shoulder with him or maybe within ten feet working with products that contained asbestos. If he was building walls in a boiler room, plumbers or steamfitters could be working on the boiler systems working with steam pipes and working with the equipment in the boiler room, all of which was insulated with asbestos.

Mixing asbestos, applying it as a insulation material to high heat and to steam equipment while my client, the bricklayer, is putting up a masonry wall not far away. They’re all breathing the same dust, and all of the tradesmen in the room are susceptible to getting mesothelioma. In addition, when he was doing his work in different parts of apartment buildings, other trades were putting up internal walls and putting in floors using building materials that contained asbestos.

These exposures to asbestos, caused by other trades working near my bricklayer client, caused him to get mesothelioma. Now why am I telling you all this? It’s because you have questions about mesothelioma, and about the types of exposures that bricklayers would have to asbestos.

I’m Joe Williams, and at our office we handle cases from mesothelioma victims every day, and we deal with these issues every single day. Call us at our office, we’ll answer your questions. Thanks.

Medical Malpractice in Sayville

Today on You Be The Judge. With hospitals being administered by fallible human beings, mistakes are inevitable. While hospitals have full disclosure agreements with their patients, you might be surprised to find out what happens after mistakes are made. The Center for Disease Control says tens of millions of people receive hospital services each year.

Examples of Malpractice

Over the decades the hospital industry has evolved and made necessary changes to protect patients. Nevertheless, hospitals are run by humans, and the unfortunate truth is that they make mistakes that put patients lives at risk. Researchers have long investigated medication errors. These errors show up in a variety of forms, including improper compounding the process of tailoring-made drugs for an individual, incorrectly writing out prescriptions, failing to monitor effects on patients, giving the wrong kind of medication, and administering too high or too low of a dosage.

Reporting Mistakes

A study led by Doctor Daniel Nussbaum showed that hospital employees are more likely to report mistakes under the protection of Blame-free anonymity. By giving these employees a safe environment to report mistakes, hospitals are then able to assess the reports and make appropriate changes. Before, they had very little information to work with. This progress is a good sign for both hospitals and patients.

Medication Errors Study

A recent study led by Doctor Assad Latif, examine medication errors and what happens afterward. Doctor Latif shared that, for the most part our findings were in keeping with what the existing literature tells us about the where and how of medication errors in a hospital. The most surprising finding was what we do about them.

Latif said about 98% of mistakes did not result in harming patients. However the patient and or their family is immediately informed when an error occurs barely 2% of the time despite literature supporting full disclosure and their desire to be promptly informed. Letting patients know about medication errors only 2% of the time sounds pretty scaring, doesn’t it?

Hospitals Make Mistakes

We should not assume that all medication errors threaten anyone’s well-being, or that the information would always be of importance to the patient. However, harmful mistakes do occur without patients knowing it. What do you think hospitals should do to ensure that the promised full disclosure is being fulfilled?

By: Edward Lake

Electrician Diagnosed with Mesothelioma

You’ve worked as an electrician, and you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma. You’re trying to figure out, “How did you get this disease?” Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney, and I want to talk to you about the types of exposures to asbestos that electricians faced. Now, in order to do that, I want to talk to you about a former client of mine who’s a member of Local 3, which is the electrician’s union here in New York, where we’re shooting this video right now. This particular client was diagnosed with mesothelioma, and he was exposed to asbestos in a lot of different ways. He worked with electrical panel boards, which controlled the electricity for a residential or commercial space. That’s where the electric current comes in from the street, and it is sent out through the switches to the building. In the back of the panel boards was asbestos containing Bakelite, that acted as a insulator between the busbar and the switches. From time to time, he’d have to drill or cut through that Bakelite, to fabricate the panel boards or to install and remove them.

 Where Does Asbestos Exposure Occur

He was exposed to dust from cutting the Bakelite. He also worked throughout the course of his career with switches – switches and arc chutes – which had asbestos components. Again, part of it was Bakelite, which he had to manipulate and cut during repair work, which exposed him to asbestos. This former client of mine dealt with large switchgear, which had asbestos components, as well as, large transformers, which had asbestos gaskets that had to be replaced each time the transformer was opened. He also pulled and cut wire that was insulated with asbestos insulation. All of these things throughout the course of an entire working career exposed him to asbestos on a continual daily basis. As a result of those exposures, he developed mesothelioma. Now, his mesothelioma was diagnosed many, many years after he stopped working, and that’s because– and the doctors who evaluated his case said the same thing. The exposure to asbestos, even though, many years prior, caused the mesothelioma decades later. It’s because there’s a period between 20 and 60 years – in some cases – of time between the time of exposure, and the time of diagnosis in mesothelioma.

Why am I telling you this? Because you have questions about mesothelioma. I’m Joe Williams. At our office, we deal with these issues every day. Call our office, we’ll answer your questions. Thank you.

Injured At Work

If you’ve been injured as a result of falling from a location at work or having something fall and strike you at work, you may have the right to bring a lawsuit under the New York State Labor Law. In order to determine whether or not you have a proper claim under that law, it’s necessary to access all the circumstances of your accident. For more information about a possible claim under the New York Labor Law, call the Maurer Law Firm or visit our website for more information on what you may be entitled.

The Jones Act and Mesothelioma

You were a civilian seaman on private shipping line ships years ago and you now have developed mesothelioma. So what do you do about it? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney and I want to talk to you about the asbestos exposures that civilian seamen experienced when working on these ships.

There’s a very important federal statute that applies to protect civilian seamen for their work on board ships and that’s The Jones Act. And The Jones Act is a federal statute that holds the owners of the ships responsible to the seaman for any unseaworthiness of the vessel. So, if the ship contained asbestos products that made the seaman sick with mesothelioma later in life that could be a claim that’s made under The Jones Act.

I want to talk to you about a particular client of mine who was actually a tugboat captain and this particular client was exposed to asbestos from the steam pipes from the boiler and equipment that drove the power to run the tugboat. And his experience is similar to that of a merchant marine sailor who could work in all the compartments in the ship including the engine room, and work around the boiler, and around the equipment, and work near steam pipes that were being repaired or maintained. All of these things creating asbestos dust that the seaman would breathe. And it’s that asbestos dust and that continual exposure – in the case of my client 40 years of exposure to asbestos dust on tugboats – it’s those exposures over a career as a seaman that allow that seaman, under The Jones Act – this federal statute – to bring the claim against his employer, the owner of the vessel. And a claim is brought for the illness – the mesothelioma diagnosis – which was caused by the exposure to asbestos those many, many years ago when the civilian seaman was on board that vessel breathing in the asbestos dust from his work on board ship.

I’m telling you all this because you have questions about mesothelioma and questions about the types of asbestos exposures that civilian seamen would face. I’m Joe Williams and at my office we deal with mesothelioma clients and their families every day, and we deal with these issues every single day. I invite you to give a call to my office, we’ll be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.

Diseases Caused by Asbestos Exposure

Let’s talk about some of the diseases that exposure to asbestos can cause. Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma and asbestos attorney in New York City. I can answer some questions for you as to the asbestos related diseases that are widely accepted in the medical and scientific community. These would be broken down into two types of diseases.

Non-Cancerous Diseases

The first are what we call scarring diseases, which are not cancerous diseases. The second are malignant diseases, which are a cancer process. So the first two diseases I’ll talk to you about is asbestosis and pleural plaque. Asbestosis is a fibrotic scarring of the inside of the lungs. The doctors will call it the parenchyma or the meat of the lung. A fibrotic scarring on the inside of the lungs, which can cause a lot of disability. It’s not cancer, but it can be quite serious.

The next non-cancerous disease is known as pleural plaques. And the pleura is a sac-like lining outside the lung. So if you think of a piece of saran wrap. That’s the texture of the pleura. And the pleura can develop scarring from the asbestos fibers that a worker breathes in over the course of their life. On a CAT scan, or even sometimes on an X-ray, these show up as what’s called as pleural plaques. Again, not cancer but can be serious.

Cancerous Diseases

With respect to the cancerous diseases, there’s two that I want to focus on today. The first is lung cancer. Lung cancer is a cancerous tumor, a malignant tumor in the meat of the lungs, in the lung parenchyma. And the second cancerous diseases caused by asbestos that I want to focus on today, and it’s certainly the most important asbestos related disease because of the severity of it, is malignant mesothelioma.

Malignant mesothelioma of the pleura is a cancerous tumor that grows on that pleura surface that I described a moment ago, that saran wrap-like sac that surrounds the outside of the lung. This malignant mesothelioma tumor grows in a diffused pattern. If you think the rind of a grapefruit. Sometimes people think of a cancerous tumor as, what we call like a golf ball tumor. Malignant mesothelioma doesn’t grow in that way. It’s more of a diffused pattern, like the rind of a grapefruit, and it’s caused by exposure to asbestos.

Now I’m sure you have many other questions about the disease pattern and the diseases caused by asbestos, and we can answer those questions. I’m Joe Williams and everyday at our firm, we handle cases from mesothelioma victims and their families. And we certainly can answer your questions, and we’d be happy to do that. I hope you found this video informative, and I thank you very much for watching.

Dangers of Distracted Driving

You’re driving down the road, and you see that guy, the one holding-up traffic because his attention is one his cellphone. You shout at him, “Really?” You think to your self, “That idiot is going to hurt somebody.” Some people just don’t mixed their phone and driving as well as you do. Well, at least you think you mixed them well.

Let’s consider this thing called: distracted driving. Let’s call it any activity that can divert a person’s attention from the primary task of driving, such distraction include: grooming, texting, eating, changing the radio station, talking on a cellphone and so forth.

Humans have long claimed the ability to multitask, and with our current culture, technology saturation at an all time high, people believe more than ever that they are good multitaskers. While it’s possible to do more than one thing at a time, the human brain is incapable of devoting sufficient attention across multiple tasks, when just one of them require much attention.

Earl Miller Distracted Driving Research

MIT, neuroscientist, Earl Miller, puts it bluntly. You’re not paying attention to one or two things simultaneously. He says, “You’re actually switching between them very rapidly.” Even the things we do very well, with little conscious thought, can be a big bite out of the mental capacity which has strict limits by nature. Talking on the phone is easy, but it uses up mental capacity, and depending on the conversation, it can eat up most or all of our attention.

Dr. Miller says, “We’re mistaken when we believe we’re paying attention to everything around us when we multitask.” Psychologist say we’re also prone to inattentional blindness, that’s the failure to notice something even when we’re looking right at it. One of the most famous study to show this phenomenon involved an invisible gorilla. Participants watched a video of six people passing basketballs, and counted how many times the players wearing white passed the ball. In the middle of the video, a woman in a gorilla suit walks into the middle of the screen, thump her chest, and then leaves. About 50% of the participants didn’t even notice the gorilla – they were demonstrating inattentional blindness.

Consider the Following Factors that Can Affect Inattentional Blindness.

One: Obviousness

This has to do with the object’s ability to catch our attention. For example, especially on a rainy day, a gray car pulling out in front of your car would not be as conspicuous as a bright red car.

Two: Expectation

When we expect certain things to happen, we might overlook or blackout to what actually is happening. For example, if we expect the car up the road to be moving, when it’s really stalled, we may not realize we’re approaching the stalled vehicle at high speed. Three: capacity. As stated earlier, we can spread our attention around only so far. Even when we are expert at something, the activity consumes a certain amount of attention. Talking on the phone, texting, dialing: each demands part of our mental capacity, and can easily compete for the same resources we need for staying aware of our surroundings.

Distracted Driving Risk

Distractions can blind the mind the things around us, and driving is one of the most dangerous activity the average american engages in, with approximately 33,000 traffic fatalities annually. So we have a choice, will I pretend to be an expert at multitasking while driving, and put my mind at greater risk for inattentional blindness, increasing the possibility that I will harm other, and myself too, or will I choose to drive cell free with myself off as many distractions as possible and devote my mind to safer driving?

Take the pledge to drive cell free at www.drivecellfree.net. You can also download our free eBook: Distracted Driving, The Multitasking Myth. It will tell you more about the psychology behind inattentional blindness, bust the myth that talking on the phone is the same as talking to someone in the car, give you interesting and practical facts and statistics surrounding distracted driving, and explain some of the legal ramifications of distracted driving – go to www.drivecellfree.net. Finally, to help make our street safer, we invite you to share this video with your friends and family.

By: Steven Gacovino

Seeking Legal Help

You’ve been diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma; you and your family are very stressed out, you’re not feeling well, and you want to wait a while before you take on perhaps the stresses of a legal case even though you know you were exposed to asbestos. Let me explain to you why that’s not a good idea.

Some Medical Information

Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney, and I want to talk to you about mesothelioma and why it’s important to get help right away in seeking justice for your mesothelioma diagnosis. I have next to me an anatomical drawing of a right-sided mesothelioma, and in this diagram we see a lung. The lung parenchyma here is represented by this tissue, and we can see it’s scarred and fibrotic, that’s called asbestosis, an indicator of a lot of asbestos exposure over a long period of time. And this area here, this yellowish-white area, is a malignant mesothelioma tumor.

This tumor grows in a diffuse pattern, and it’s been described as growing sort of like the rind on a grapefruit, and it grows and encases the lungs and causes shortness of breath, and as it grows and gets bigger and thicker a patient has more difficulty breathing; more difficulty expanding their lungs, because their lung are being collapsed by this tumor, which pushes against both the bony ribs, but the bony ribs don’t move, so it pushes against the spongy lung tissue and causes the lungs to contract and causes the patient to not be able to get a full breath, causes the patient to be short of breath.

As mesothelioma progresses, and unfortunately it progresses very, very quickly, over the course of months the mesothelioma tumor can grow outside of the lung and go from a stage 1 tumor to a stage 2, 3, or 4 tumor based upon the spread of the tumor to local and distant sites. And it’s important that mesothelioma is a malignancy that grows quite quickly, so it’s important that even though a person who’s a victim of mesothelioma is feeling quite lousy and is very upset it’s important at the onset, to seek out whatever legal help you’re going to seek.

So that that way qualified, confident people can get to work for you to help you seek justice while you’re strong, while you’re able to memorialize all your exposures to asbestos, while you’re able to discuss all the ways that you think that you were exposed to asbestos.

You have questions about mesothelioma. I’m Joe Williams. At our office, we represent mesothelioma victims every day. I invite you to give a call to our office, we’ll answer your questions. Thank you very much.

Railroad Workers Exposed to Asbestos

How were railroad workers exposed to asbestos, and what can they do about it if they get mesothelioma? Hi, I’m Joe Williams, I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney and I want to talk to you about the types of exposures that workers on the railroad would have confronted during the course of their working career.

Protection With FELA statute

The first thing you need to know is that railroad employees are protected under the FELA statute. It’s a federal statute, the Federal Employers Liability Act, which requires the railroad to provide a safe working environment for their railroad employees. So if the railroad was negligent and not providing a safe working atmosphere, and if the employee gets sick and gets mesothelioma as a result, the railroad can be held legally responsible for that.

 A Former Client

Let me illustrate this by talking to you about a former client of my office who was a railroad worker. Now, this railroad worker worked on locomotives and trains as well as the cars themselves and he was exposed to asbestos from the insulation on the exhaust system of the locomotives, to asbestos from the controls and switches in the electrical components of the cars themselves, and he was exposed to asbestos from the work that others did around him with asbestos containing brakes that existed on the cars. There was also iron brakes, but some of them were made of asbestos. All of these exposures contributed during the course of a working lifetime to, unfortunately, give this client mesothelioma, and when he was diagnosed with mesothelioma he wanted to know what he could do about it. After an understanding that the FELA statute was designed to protect him, he was able to bring a claim against the railroad under the FELA statute.

Now why am I telling you this? It’s because you have questions about mesothelioma and the types of exposures that railroad workers would confront on the job. I’m Joe Williams, at my law firm we represent mesothelioma victims each and every day, and we deal with issues like this every day. If you have questions I invite you to contact our office. We are here to answer your questions. Thank you for listening.