New York Personal Injury Laws

 Car Accident Attorney

When you’re in a car accident, there are many parties involved sometimes. There is the insurance company to deal with, the police department, your doctors. You need to have an experienced lawyer to help you work through your case who has your best interests in mind. Hire the Moore Law Firm. We have the experience and the resources to guide you through the process, and enable you to have piece of mind.

Auto Mechanic Asbestos Exposure

You were a professional auto mechanic, and you worked with asbestos-containing brakes your entire life. Now you’ve been diagnosed with Mesothelioma. Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a Mesothelioma trial attorney here in New City, and I can answer your questions.

 How One Auto Mechanic Was Exposed

I can do that by talking to you about some clients I’ve represented in the past. One client in particular, who was a former auto mechanic, and changed thousands of brakes on automobiles. In his deposition, he testified about the work that he did. He talked about using both OEM, Original Equipment Manufactured brake linings, which are brake linings manufactured by the same company that made the car.

He also used after market brake linings, which are manufactured by companies who didn’t manufacture the car. They just manufactured brake linings. What he would do, this former client of mine, he would take off the four wheels of the car after the car was put on a lift. He would remove the brakes. He would blow out the drum with an air compressor, causing a lot of dust in the air.

He would then take the new metal shoe with the attached brake lining out of the box, and install it into the vehicle, wheel by wheel. This process of removing the old brake, blowing out the drum, handling the asbestos-containing brake lining, the new one, and installing them into the vehicle, exposed him to asbestos dust. He did this work every day, and he did it for many decades, and was exposed to asbestos dust thousands of times from working on asbestos-containing brake linings in automobiles.

Now, if you’re an auto mechanic, you’ve probably had some very similar exposures. I’m sure you have questions about Mesothelioma and how auto mechanics were exposed to asbestos. I’m Joe Williams, and in our firm we handle cases every day for Mesothelioma victims. We can answer your questions. I invite you to call our office at the number below, and we’ll answer your questions. Thank you.

Sick From Mesothelioma but Still Pursuing a Case

You’ve just been diagnosed with mesothelioma, and you’re not feeling well. So how could you possibly get involved with a complicated legal case? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney. And I want to tell you that getting involved with asserting your legal rights as a victim of mesothelioma is not as complicated for the victim as you might think.

There’s one basic involvement that a victim of mesothelioma has in every mesothelioma case. They have to establish how they were exposed to asbestos. And the discussion about the ways a victim was exposed to asbestos is really just the story of that victim’s life. All the things that that person did when they worked and when they were at home, if they served in the military, the jobs they had, the interactions they had, home projects they did in their house, construction projects at home, cars that they might of worked on, maybe they tinkered in their garage, changed breaks in cars. These are just some of many examples of how people can be exposed to asbestos during the course of their life. But what’s important is this is just the story of that person’s life, and all the exposures that could of happened during the course of that life. That’s what we need to do.

We need to memorialize that life story, and we usually do it in the form of a deposition. The victim’s involvement is primarily in regard to that deposition and in regard to memorializing the potential exposure to asbestos that they had. But all of the other nuisances of a lawsuit, the day to day proceedings, any dealings with the court or judge, or things like that, that’s what lawyers do for the victim and their family.

So while a victim is really suffering through the diagnosis of mesothelioma and its aftermath, the victim shouldn’t be stressed about any legal proceedings that they should get involved with, because it’s really not as complex for the victim as they might think. And why am I telling you this? I’m telling you because you have questions about mesothelioma.

I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney, and we answer these questions every day. We represent mesothelioma victims and their wives and families each and every day. And if you have questions, I invite you to contact our office and we’ll answer your questions. Thank you for watching.

Passengers Injured A Number Of Ways

People can be injured in a variety of ways when traveling by train. Passengers are injured by slipping and falling, stepping in the gap between the train and platform, or having a door closed on them as they enter or exit the train. Passenger injuries on trains can include broken bones, torn ligaments, spine injuries, shoulder injuries, and even traumatic brain injuries. Sometimes, the full nature and extent of these injuries is not revealed for a long period of time.

 What To Do Immediately After

If you or a loved one has been injured on a train, you need to immediately seek medical treatment and contact an experienced railroad lawyer who is familiar with all of the federal laws and regulations that apply to the railroad industry. For a free consultation, contact me, Ira Maurer, for more information on how we can help you obtain all of the compensation you deserve.

Iron Workers Diagnosed With Mesothelioma

You worked as an iron worker, and you’ve now been diagnosed with mesothelioma and you’re asking yourself, “How did I 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 that iron workers had to asbestos. In order to do that, I want to talk to you about a former client of mine who was a union iron worker. He dealt with structural steel which he installed and worked on, which was also being sprayed with asbestos containing fire proofing spray. Now, he would be on one area of a floor while the sprayers were following his working and spraying the structural steel with fire proofing. That entailed mixing the dry fire proofing product with water, putting it into a gun, and the fire proof sprayers would spray the I-beams and the structural steel with this asbestos containing substance. While that was being sprayed onto the I-beams and into the air, my client was in the work space breathing in any asbestos dust created by that. In addition, after the fire proofing spray dried, and the ceiling had to be put in, hangers had to be attached – metal hangers had to be attached to the structural steel so that the drop ceiling could be installed. In order to do that, the fire proofing spray had to be scraped off of the structural steel. It was dry by that point, and the scraping of the fire proofing which contained asbestos caused dust in the air which the iron workers breathed – including my client. He also worked doing some ornamental iron work, and that meant that he was present at job sites when the job was more in the finishing process; when the internal walls were being put up, when the floors were being put in, because he would be putting in such things as railings and other steel fixtures, in perhaps tenant spaces or common areas. He was exposed to the work of other trades men who worked with joint compound or floor tile or ceiling tiles. Things that contained asbestos, and working with those products caused dust in the air that all the workers on the job site would breathe in. All of them being susceptible to later being diagnosed with mesothelioma. Now, decades later, years and years after his work with asbestos and work around asbestos, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma. His doctors, after taking an occupational history, told him that his exposures to asbestos back on the work sites was the cause of his mesothelioma diagnosis. Now, I am telling you all this because you have questions about mesothelioma and about the types of exposures to asbestos that cause mesothelioma. I’m Joe Williams, and at our office we deal with these issues every day. We represent victims of mesothelioma and their families as they pursue justice for exposures to asbestos. If you have questions, contact our office. We’ll answer your questions. Thanks for listening.

Diagnosed With Mesothelioma

You’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma, but your employer and every employer that you ever worked for is out of business and you’re concerned with how you could have a legal case.

Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City, and I can tell you that almost every client that walks into my office brings up this concern. I’ll give you an example.

 Worker’s Compensation for Asbestos Exposure

A plumber that I represented recently came to my office and talked to me about his exposures to asbestos, but his big concern was that the four plumbing companies that he worked for during the course of his career as a plumber, which was over 40 years, they were all small companies and were all out of business. I explained to him that in New York State, and in most states, you can’t even sue your employer for work-related injuries; your benefits are limited to worker’s compensation.

How a Plumber was Exposed

So when I met with this client, this plumber, we talked about all the ways he was exposed to asbestos and it came out that he was exposed to asbestos from all types of equipment during his 40-year career as a plumber, boilers, and pumps, and asbestos cement, and pipe covering and pipes, and all sorts of things, and he was able to have a very strong and successful case.

 Employer Out of Business, Not Out of Responsibility

Why am I sharing this with you? Because this is a common concern. The client comes into my office and informs more that their employers are out of business, and they think that they can’t address their legal rights. And I explain to them that it’s not just the employer who can be responsible, there’s many other entities who can be responsible, and an asbestos case is really an attempt to capture all of the lifetime exposures to asbestos.

 Contact Us With Questions or Concerns

I’m sure you have many more questions about this topic as it relates to mesothelioma, and we can answer those questions. I’m Joe Williams, and if you look at the screen below you’ll see my office number. I encourage you to give us a call, we’ll 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.

Slip and Fall Claim Process

Today on You Be The Judge. If you slip and fall, can you really sue and easily win? Go inside a real life slip and fall claim and see what a judge looks for when determining who is at fault. We’ll show you the facts and let you be the judge. While the idea of slipping, falling, suing and winning is often joked about, if you were the one left with the medical bills, you may want to know if the property owner played a role in the accident.

1. Who Do You Sue

First, who do you sue? The defendant will most likely be the property owner or manager. The defendant has the duty to keep their premises reasonably safe from hazard.

2. Determine Breach of Duty

Number two, did the defendant breach their duty and/or damages caused as a result? In other words, was the property owner, manager or an employee somehow neglectful by causing or creating the dangerous situation? Knowing about it but not doing anything to prevent it? Or if they didn’t know about the danger, should they have known? Not only must you prove that the defendant breached their duty, you must also prove what is called proximate cause, which says that the injuries were the result of that specific accident.

3. Reasonable Defendants

Three, did the defendant act reasonably? If someone trips over an object left on the floor, was there good reason for the object’s position or could it have been easily and reasonably moved before anyone could trip on it? Did the property owner take precautions to minimize the danger? How long was the danger present prior to the accident?

4. Injured Person Acting Careless

Number four, was the injured person acting carelessly? Everyone has the duty to protect themselves and to be careful. Would another reasonable person in the same situation notice and avoid the danger? Was there a legitimate reason that the person was on the property? Had the owner placed a barrier or warning sign for the danger? Was the injured person engaged in activities that could increase the chance of slipping and falling?

Contributory Negligence

For example, texting while walking. In a slip and fall lawsuit, both sides will attempt to prove that the other was at least partially at fault. In some states there is contributory negligence. This is where the plaintiff is in any way at fault, they cannot recover damages.

Comparative Negligence

Other states have comparative. If the plaintiff is partially at fault, that percentage is subtracted from any award. Finally, some states will offer compensation if you are less than 50% at fault, but none if you are more than 50% at fault. Ultimately, the injured person bares the greatest burden of proof.

Slip & Fall Litigation Example

Now we’ll go inside an abbreviated real life claim, present the facts, and ask you to make a ruling. A woman we’ll call Helen went with her husband to visit their son at a correctional facility. Helen entered and noticed someone nearby with a mop in hand, a bucket on the floor and a caution sign. As she walked, she tried to stay on the carpet runner and eventually stepped off to get to where she was going. At that point, she did not see any mops, buckets or signs. As Helen stepped off, she slipped and fell to the floor. Helen’s husband’s foot slipped too, but he was able to avoid falling. The facility’s standard policy was to put caution signs in a square around wet areas. Consider the previously mentioned criteria of slip and fall lawsuits.

Number one, did the facility breached their duty to keep their premises reasonably safe from hazard? Two, did the facility act reasonably? And three, was Helen careless? Now it’s time for you to be the judge. Should the defendant be held responsible for all part or none of the accident?

By: Edward Lake

Two Different Judicial Systems

Here in the United States, we have two separate and distinct judicial systems. Each state has its own court system, and the US Government has its own federal court system. An experienced attorney is going to know exactly whether or not your case belongs in state or federal court. At the Maurer Law Firm, we will be able to evaluate your case and tell you what’s in your best interest. If you have questions about where your case needs to be brought, call the Maurer Law Firm. I’ll be able to tell you exactly whether or not your case should be in state or federal court.