Personal Injury

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Negligence cases, particularly those arising from car accidents, involve many facts, and hence questions of fact that are typically for a jury. However, there are situations where a plaintiff might be entitled to judgment as a matter of law. One example of such a situation is the case of State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v.…

Read More Plaintiff Awarded Summary Judgment in Auto Accident Case Where Defendant’s “Sneezing Fit” Was Documented in Police Report
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In Santiago v Weisheng Enters. LLC, the Appellate Division, First Department affirmed the denial of summary judgment to defendants on plaintiff’s personal injury claim. From the decision: Defendants property owner and lessee-restaurant failed to establish their entitlement to judgment as a matter of law, in this action where plaintiff alleges that he was injured when he…

Read More Defendants Not Entitled to Summary Judgment on Plaintiff’s Slip/Fall Claim
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In Taveras v 1149 Webster Realty Corp., 2015 NY Slip Op 09192, the court held that plaintiff’s trip-and-fall case should not have been dismissed: [W]e find that defendants in this case failed to meet their initial burden of establishing, prima facie, their entitlement to judgment as a matter of law by asserting that plaintiff could not…

Read More Plaintiff Adequately Identified Defect Causing Him to Fall; Summary Judgment for Defendants Overturned
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Forman v. Henkin, 2015 NY Slip Op 09350 (App. Div. 1st Dept. Dec. 17, 2015), decided by the First Department on December 17, 2015, represents yet another data point in an evolving body of case law assessing whether a party to litigation is entitled to the other side’s social media postings. This issue typically arises in…

Read More First Department Limits Facebook Discovery in Personal Injury Case
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Consider this law-school-exam-like scenario: Person goes to hospital, where she is prescribed medication that makes her drowsy (but not told that it will do so). She then, under the influence of the medication, drives and hits plaintiff with her car. Can plaintiff sue the hospital for negligence? These are the (simplified/summarized) facts of the Court…

Read More Court of Appeals: Hospital Owed Duty to Third Party
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You may have heard that Al Sharpton’s daughter Dominique has sued the City of New York for $5 million to recover for injuries allegedly sustained in a trip-and-fall accident. Here’s her April 29, 2015 lawsuit. An article in yesterday’s NY Post noted that Ms. Sharpton “was a no-show [on Dec. 2, 2015] for the first court…

Read More Dominique Sharpton’s “No Show” in Her $5M Personal Injury Case Against the City of New York
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A recent case, Jaquez v. Lind-Ric Hous. Co., 48 Misc. 3d 1204(A), 17 N.Y.S.3d 383 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 19, 2015), illustrates the difficulties faced by plaintiffs in slip-and-fall cases, particularly those where the alleged defective condition is not a structural defect or a transitory condition (water, debris, etc) but rather the nature of the…

Read More Slip/Fall on “Slippery” Interior Stairs – Case Dismissed
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In litigation, the question of “personal jurisdiction” – i.e., whether the court has jurisdiction (power) over the person of the defendant – is arguably the most critical/important: If the court does not have jurisdiction, plaintiff loses without regard to the merits of the case. Stern v. Four Points by Sheraton Ann Arbor Hotel, 2015 NY Slip…

Read More Online Hotel Reservation Insufficient to Establish Personal Jurisdiction in New York
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Shawn Bickham just wanted a Coke. He got one from the fridge and started drinking. After he had finished about half the can, he “felt something get caught in his throat” which “felt like something poking and something just stuck, lodged [in his throat].” It turned out that the object was a non-metallic “dried, brittle…

Read More Case Arising From Ingestion of “Dried, Brittle Mass” From Coke Can Survives Summary Judgment Under “Res Ipsa Loquitur” Theory
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