New York Personal Injury Laws

What to on Scene After a Car Accident

If you’ve been in a car accident, you need to exchange information with the other party at the scene, give a detailed accurate statement to the police, and notify your insurance company right away. It’s important that you document the accident clearly and concisely.

Contact the Morrow Law Firm on more information on what to do if you’ve been involved in an auto accident.

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.

Stresses of Mesothelioma

You’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma. You’re suffering, you’re feeling lousy, and you’re just not sure if you’re going to go ahead and pursue your legal rights from your exposure to asbestos. Perhaps it’s just too difficult, or too much to handle right now. Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City. I’d like to talk to you about the stresses that a client faces when dealing with a diagnosis of mesothelioma.

This diagnosis is a terrifying diagnosis. The doctor sits you down, and perhaps after a biopsy, talks about this bizarre word, mesothelioma, that you probably never heard before. Perhaps tells you about what it is and what can happen, and all of the very fearful things that you could be in for as a victim of mesothelioma. Perhaps the very last thing in the world you’re thinking about is, “Well, let me pursue a legal case related to my asbestos exposure.” My response to you is, I totally understand. A lot of my clients say the same thing. It’s a very normal reaction.

What I tell my clients, and I’ve had many clients say this to me, and what I always tell them is, as the lawyers who for a living every day represent victims of asbestos exposure, persons who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, at least half of our task is focused on taking those stresses away from you. Handling your case in such a way so that it doesn’t stress you out. Not bothering you with all the minute details and stressors that you don’t need in your daily life.

Things like a deposition – that sounds like a horribly daunting thing to have to go through. Well, in most mesothelioma depositions that we do, we either go to the victim’s home, or we do the deposition in a hotel conference room right near their house, so that they don’t have to travel. Travelling for someone who’s sick is very difficult. It’s really the last thing you want to do is get in a car, or a car service, and travel out to a lawyer’s office. In my circumstance, my office in New York City.

Things like signing papers. In a normal case, clients travel to the lawyer’s office. In a mesothelioma case, the lawyer for a mesothelioma victim understands what the victim is going through. We go to you. The lawyers go to your house. We sit with you, and talk about your concerns and your problems.

Medical bills – these kinds of things stress out the family members, and the victim themselves, all these medical bills that pile up. Well, it’s important to have a process in place to deal with the bills from Medicare, and to deal with the bills as they pile up, and to know that in a mesothelioma case, one of the claims in the case is for repayment of those very medical bills. The point I’m trying to make

Shipyard Workers Exposed to Asbestos

You worked in shipyards, and now you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma, and you’re wondering what caused your mesothelioma. Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney here in New York City, and I can answer your questions. We know that shipyards were filled with asbestos. Shipyards such as here in New York are good examples– the Brooklyn Naval Yard. The Brooklyn Naval Yard, that’s where the ships were built during World War II and thereafter, and they were worked on, serviced, built from the ground up, as well, in that yard. There’s also private shipyards that are not naval yards, where non-naval ships were worked on, both built, constructed, maintained, and repaired. Whether it was the building of a new ship, or the repairing of an existing one, the work was the same, and it involved working with asbestos products, such as insulation, insulation on steam pipes, insulation on equipment such as large boilers on these ships, asbestos blankets, which were put on turbines on these ships. Asbestos gaskets were cut and fabricated at these shipyards to use on these pipes, on the steam pipes, on the hot water pipes on these ships, and that’s something that happened often, almost every day, at a shipyard. Bags of asbestos cement, high temperature asbestos cement, as well, would be used and mixed with water, and applied to the piping, the equipment, and the machinery on these ships, and at these shipyards. So, there are a multitude of exposures to asbestos that a shipyard worker would have. I’m sure you have more questions about how shipyard workers were exposed to asbestos. Well, we can answer those questions. I’m Joe Williams. I invite you to call the number below. We’ll answer your questions. We help mesothelioma victims every day. We’ll answer your questions. Thank you for watching.

Co-Workers Giving Evidence on Past Exposure to Asbestos

A person’s been diagnosed with mesothelioma. What would we do to try and develop the evidence of how they were exposed to asbestos? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City. And I can tell you that one of the main things that we try to do when our clients are really too ill to testify or just are suffering through their diagnosis, is that we contact their co-workers.

What’s important to know about this is that when workers work in industry, they work side by side, sometimes for 30, 40 years with friends who almost become family members. We contact those folks and talk to them about the exposures that our client had. These co-workers can provide tremendous information about the types of exposures, the manner of exposure, and how it happened, where it happened. And often times, the co-worker isn’t ill, hasn’t contracted mesothelioma as of yet, and they are able to recount the stories and the history of how the work was done, and what was done, and where it was done.

These co-workers can be deposed. They can be produced at a deposition and they can talk about all the ways that our client was exposed to asbestos dust from various products and at various locations. And importantly, one co-worker can lead to more co-workers. The pursuit of co-workers and finding witnesses to the exposure to asbestos is a very important part of a thorough work up of a mesothelioma case. Now, I’m sure you have many more questions as to how we work up a mesothelioma case, and we can answer your questions. I encourage you to call my office at the number below. I’m Joe Williams. We’d be happy to answer your questions for you. Thank you.

Lab Workers Exposed to Asbestos

Did you know that asbestos was used in various types of lab equipment? And that asbestos could cause lab workers – lab technicians – to develop mesothelioma later in life? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney, and I want to talk to you about some these asbestos exposures. Now, in a lab setting, lab workers, lab technicians, work with gloves. Back years ago, those gloves when picking up a heated beaker or a hot surface– those gloves could have been asbestos gloves – gloves actually made with asbestos components. They worked with aprons for their safety protection. Ironically, these gloves were used as a safety precaution, yet they contained asbestos. Additionally, aprons that the lab technicians would wear, often times contained asbestos, to protect from heated objects, or perhaps ovens that they were working with during their lab experiments.

Asbestos pads and asbestos mats were used in lab settings. Wire mesh screens were used in lab settings. All of these things decades ago, could have contained asbestos, which exposed the worker – the lab technician – to asbestos dust during the course of their work each day, every day, over a course of a career. These exposures could cause a lab technician to develop mesothelioma years later. I’m telling you all this because you have questions about mesothelioma, and how mesothelioma is caused.

I’m Joe Williams. At my office, we deal with these issues each and every day. We represent victims of mesothelioma and their families. If you have questions, I invite you to call us, and we’ll answer your questions. Thank you very much.

Legal Rights and Evaluating Your Past for Evidence

A family member has been diagnosed with mesothelioma and you’re wondering do they have any legal rights? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City, and I can give you some information about this topic and it’s a very important one, because workers in industry and in various trades throughout the course of the past century often worked for decades with their hands building America and working with asbestos products. These same workers are the folks who 30, 40, 50, 60 years later, have been now diagnosed with mesothelioma. They are put in the position of taking this path down into their history, into their past to try to figure out how they could have been exposed to asbestos. What I can tell you is that everyday at my office, we represent individuals who are suffering with mesothelioma. We represent them and their families as they take this journey to try to figure out how they contracted this terrible disease. What we do in all of these cases is we look for the companies, the defendants as they are called, who could have exposed our client to asbestos. When we’re able to find who those companies were through a very thorough investigation and lot of research into these cases, we then proceed to demonstrate in court how those companies failed to warn our clients about the dangers of asbestos. You see under the law in various states and certainly in New York State, there is a duty to warn of known dangers to end users, perhaps like you or your family member who work with these asbestos products and that failure to warn about the known hazard, the hazard being cancer, mesothelioma creates liability on these corporate entities. Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because you have questions about mesothelioma and the legal process as it relates to mesothelioma, and we can provide answers to those questions. I’m Joe Williams and every day we represent victims of mesothelioma. We can answer your questions as well. I hope you found this video informative, and I thank you very much for watching.

What is Asbestos?

You or perhaps a family member have been diagnosed with mesothelioma and you’ve been told that mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos. What is asbestos? Hi, I’m Joe Williams. I’m a mesothelioma trial attorney in New York City. I can answer this question. To answer the question the first thing I can tell you about asbestos is that it’s a mineral. What that means is it’s a rock and it’s a rock that was mined out of the ground primarily in South Africa and Canada. Now there were other asbestos mines throughout the world but those are the two primary ones that we see in asbestos cases here in the United States. This mineral, this rock, asbestos came to be know as the magic mineral. The reason why asbestos came to be known as the magic mineral is for two very important properties that asbestos has. One, it’s a tremendous insulator. Asbestos fibers can’t be burn with a blow torch, it can’t be destroyed. So it’s a perfect insulator. Two, asbestos has tremendous strength, tensile strength and it was used in various products throughout the United States for those two properties. Insulating and strength. Workers in industries, in various trades were exposed to asbestos from these asbestos fibers and they later in life contracted mesothelioma. Asbestos is an industrial toxin, a poison, a carcinogen that causes mesothelioma. I’m sure you have many more questions about asbestos and the different properties of asbestos as well as mesothelioma. We can answer your questions. You should pick up the phone and call the number listed on your screen below, that’s my office number. I’m Joe Williams and we handle these cases everyday for victims of mesothelioma. This is what we do everyday. I hope you found this video informative. Thank you for listening.

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.