Personal Injury

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Today the Second Circuit held, in Velez v. City of New York (LYNCH, Lohier, Carney) that plaintiff, the mother of representative for her deceased son Anthony Velez, was not entitled to a new trial following a verdict for defendants. Mr. Velez was murdered after the police officers searched an apartment based on a confidential tip from him.…

Read More City Not Liable for Negligence Following Murder of Confidential Informant
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In Hoffman v. Brown, a premises liability case, the Second Department recently reversed a denial of summary judgment for defendants and dismissed plaintiff’s complaint. Plaintiff alleged that he sustained injuries while descending an exterior staircase abutting the side of defendants’ house.  Plaintiff claimed that as he stepped on the second step from the top of the…

Read More Defendant Wins in Staircase Injury Case; Plaintiff Fails to Prove Creation or Notice of Hazardous Condition
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In the recent decision of Newsome v. County of Suffolk, the Appellate Division, Second Department, considered the “professional judgment rule” in the context of a negligence claim arising from a police dog bite. Plaintiff, a custodian, was bitten by a “dog employed by the canine unit of the Suffolk County Police Department” while at a…

Read More Police Dog Bite Case Continues
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In Bock v. LouMarita Realty Corp., 2013 NY Slip Op 51396(U) (decided August 26, 2013), a slip-and-fall case, the trial court granted defendants’ summary judgment motion. Plaintiff alleged that he fell on the sidewalk outside defendant Pasticceria Bruno’s bakery in Greenwich Village after stepping on “an extremely slippery piece of rock or concrete off a very…

Read More Slippery When Wet: Court Dismisses Sidewalk Slip/Fall Case
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In a recent court filing, petitioner Peter Maddocks seeks an order directing McFadden’s Restaurant & Saloon to keep from destroying, and to allow petitioner to inspect, surveillance videos, photographs, and or recordings from August 9, 2013. Mr. Maddocks claims that these materials must be preserved for potential litigation arising from serious injuries he sustained after he…

Read More Man Injured by “Fire Shots” Seeks to Preserve Videos and Photos
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The words “technicality” and “loophole” are frequently used to describe certain legal developments or results that, for one reason or another, don’t “seem” right. Unfortunately, they are often used irresponsibly and in a way that perpetuates both ignorance of the law and unfair stereotypes of lawyers as sleazy manipulators. Take, for example, the New York…

Read More On “Technicalities” and “Loopholes”
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In Clindinin v. New York City Housing Authority, NY Supreme Ct. # 109954/2010, the New York Supreme Court recently denied defendant New York City Housing Authority’s motion for summary judgment. In his complaint plaintiff alleged that while taking a shower the water changed erratically “from cold and cool to scalding hot” and that the building’s “defective and unsafe”…

Read More Plaintiff Overcomes Summary Judgment in Shower Burn Case
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The Appellate Division, First Department this week held, in Tadmor v. New York Jiu Jitsu, that the defendant should have been granted summary judgment on plaintiff’s claim arising from an injury to his left knee while sparring with another student in a mixed martial arts class. The court held that plaintiff, who served in the…

Read More Israeli Army-Trained Martial Artist Assumed the Risk of Injury
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An upstate trial court recently held, in King v. Cornell University, that defendant Cornell University was not entitled to summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by the parents of an intoxicated student (Khalil Jamal Godfrey King) who died after falling from a 200-foot tall cliff into the Fall Creek gorge on Cornell’s campus. The (tragic) facts,…

Read More Lawsuit Against Cornell Can Continue; Drunk Student Was Not “Hiking” When He Fell Off Cliff
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