A 2003 Staten Island ferry accident case has finally been settled in court. The Associated Press reports:

Lawyers say the widow of a man killed in the 2003 Staten Island ferry crash has settled a wrongful death claim against New York City for $8.7 million.

The lawyers made the announcement on behalf of Kathy Healy and her four children.

Healy’s husband, John, was killed in 2003 when the ferry crashed into a dock at full speed.

A trial on Kathy Healy’s lawsuit had been scheduled to start Monday in federal court.

The city’s corporation counsel did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.

The boat’s pilot was on painkillers and suffering from extreme fatigue. He pleaded guilty to negligent manslaughter and lying to investigators and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The city’s ferry director got a year in prison after pleading guilty to negligent manslaughter and admitting he failed to implement or enforce a safety rule.

Posted in: Accident Lawsuit, Water Accident | Comments(0)

A 17 year old Brooklyn, New York girl has filed a $300 million lawsuit after an accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down. Valerie Piro was thrown from a van she was riding in to a school function in Vermont after the van flipped.

Now she’s filing a 300-million dollar lawsuit, blaming her school, track coach, Ford, the car rental company, the seat belt manufacturer and the Department of Education.

"It’s called negligence if you drive off the highway with 12 children in the car. You should be able to keep your car on the highway," attorney Fredric Eisenberg said.

But the coach’s attorney says Vermont police found there was no error on Taylor’s part.

She has not returned to work at Stuyvesant. She fractured her neck in the accident and also plans to file suit.

Piro’s lawyer also says the 13-passenger Ford van was dangerous and lacked side air bags.

Posted in: Accident Lawsuit, Brooklyn, Car Accident | Comments(0)

Nursing home CEO Helen Sieger failed to obtain worker’s compensation insurance for her employees and learned the hard way about the new New York state law requiring employers to do so when she was arrested last week.

Sieger, 55, was arrested and charged with not covering employees with workers’ compensation insurance for over one year, from May 31, 2007 to June 26, 2008. Sieger employs more than 400 to take care of more than 300 nursing home residents.

"Today’s arrest should send a strong message: Employers who think they can wait until they get caught before getting workers’ compensation insurance are in for a rude awakening. Any employer trying to cheat workers and the State by failing to have workers’ compensation insurance will be held accountable by my office," [New York state Attorney General Andrew] Cuomo said in a statement.

The new state law makes it a felony offense to not have worker’s compensation insurance for all employees on the job.

Posted in: New York State, workplace accident | Comments(0)

Yesterday the New York Times ran a story entitled “Settle or Go to Court? Study Finds Most Get it Wrong”, which addresses the issues of settling out of court versus going to trial. Sometimes those who go to trial receive less in a court case than they would have if they had settled.

Note to victims of accidents, medical malpractice, broken contracts and the like: When you sue, make a deal.

That is the clear lesson of a soon-to-be-released study of civil lawsuits that has found that most of the plaintiffs who decided to pass up a settlement offer and went to trial ended up getting less money than if they had taken that offer.

“The lesson for plaintiffs is, in the vast majority of cases, they are perceiving the defendant’s offer to be half a loaf when in fact it is an entire loaf or more,” said Randall L. Kiser, a co-author of the study and principal analyst at DecisionSet, a consulting firm that advises clients on litigation decisions.

Defendants made the wrong decision by proceeding to trial far less often, in 24 percent of cases, according to the study; plaintiffs were wrong in 61 percent of cases. In just 15 percent of cases, both sides were right to go to trial — meaning that the defendant paid less than the plaintiff had wanted but the plaintiff got more than the defendant had offered.

The rest of the findings can be read here.

Posted in: lawsuit | Comments(0)

WABC is reporting about an overnight accident in lower Manhattan that killed two window washers as they were working on a building in the financial district:

Two cousins washing windows were killed when their construction lift toppled over in Lower Manhattan this morning,

Eyewitness News is told the men — ages 35 and 37 — died while working in front of the World Financial Center, at West and Vesey streets, at around 12:45 a.m.

They were apparently moving their construction lift, which can lift three to four stories into the air, when the vehicle hit a depression in the roadway. The lift toppled over, crushing them.

The workers were rushed to New York Downtown Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Officials say one of the workers may have been on the lift, while the other was moving the vehicle.

Posted in: New York City, transportation accident | Comments(0)