Personal Injury
General negligence representation for New Yorkers injured on the premises of others, in encounters with animals, in the course of medical care, and in circumstances beyond the traffic and workplace categories the firm otherwise handles.
Slip-and-fall, trip-and-fall, and negligent maintenance.
A premises liability claim in New York proceeds under ordinary negligence: the possessor of real property owes a duty of reasonable care under all the circumstances to persons lawfully on the premises. Recovery requires proof that the possessor created the dangerous condition, had actual notice of it, or had constructive notice — meaning the condition existed for a sufficient length of time before the accident that the possessor, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have discovered and remedied it. The constructive-notice element is the litigation battleground in most slip-and-fall matters, and it is developed through preservation of surveillance video, timesheet records for the responsible maintenance staff, and cleaning-log documentation.
Distinct rules apply to snow-and-ice accumulation under the "storm-in-progress" doctrine, to municipal defendants under prior-written-notice statutes such as NYC Administrative Code §7-201, and to interior conditions under the Multiple Dwelling Law and applicable building codes. The firm calendars notice requirements and identifies the governing standard at intake.
The vicious-propensity rule.
New York does not apply the "one-bite" rule in the form followed in some jurisdictions. Recovery for injury caused by a domestic animal requires proof that the animal had a vicious propensity and that the owner or harborer knew or should have known of that propensity. Vicious propensity is not limited to prior bites — prior aggressive lunging, prior confinement requirements, prior warnings issued by neighbors, and prior insurance-carrier notices can all supply the requisite notice.
The firm's dog-bite practice includes securing veterinary records for the animal, canvassing prior-incident witnesses, and pursuing the homeowner or renter policy under which liability typically attaches. Where the animal is owned by a commercial establishment or a landlord who permitted the animal on premises with actual knowledge of its propensity, distinct liability theories apply.
Screening and prosecution.
Medical malpractice litigation in New York is governed by CPLR §3012-a, which requires the plaintiff's counsel to file a certificate of merit — an attestation that counsel has consulted with a licensed physician who has determined that the plaintiff's claim has a reasonable basis. The firm's practice is to conduct that consultation at intake, with a physician in the appropriate specialty, before the retainer is signed. A matter that will not survive medical-expert screening will not be filed.
Where the screening supports a claim, the firm develops the theory of departure from accepted medical practice, causation to the plaintiff's injury, and damages. Coordination with a life-care planner is typical for matters involving ongoing medical need. The statute of limitations is generally two years and six months from the date of the alleged malpractice under CPLR §214-a, subject to the continuous-treatment doctrine and the "Lavern's Law" foreign-object and cancer-misdiagnosis provisions.
Actions on behalf of the estate.
An action for wrongful death is brought under EPTL §5-4.1 by the personal representative of the decedent's estate. The measure of damages is the pecuniary loss to the decedent's distributees — meaning the reasonably-expected support, services, and inheritance that the distributees would have received had the decedent survived. New York does not permit recovery for grief or the emotional loss itself in a wrongful-death action; those elements are captured, if at all, in a separate survivorship action under EPTL §11-3.2 for the decedent's own pre-death conscious pain and suffering.
Wrongful-death matters typically require coordination with a probate attorney handling the estate, an economist to establish future-earnings and pecuniary-loss calculations, and — where the death was preceded by conscious pain and suffering — the treating physicians and hospital staff who cared for the decedent. The firm handles the tort side of the matter and coordinates the estate-side work with counsel of the family's choosing.
Life-care planning and long-tail damages.
Catastrophic-injury matters — traumatic brain injury with permanent cognitive deficit, spinal cord injury with paraplegia or quadriplegia, severe burn injury requiring ongoing surgical intervention, amputation — differ from ordinary personal-injury matters in that the damages horizon extends over the balance of the client's life expectancy. The damages presentation requires a life-care planner (typically a certified rehabilitation counselor or nurse case manager) who prepares a written plan quantifying the anticipated future medical, attendant care, adaptive equipment, home modification, and vocational costs.
The firm engages the life-care planner at the outset of the litigation, not at the eve of trial. The life-care plan is a living document — updated as the client's condition stabilizes and as new categories of need become foreseeable. Presenting the plan to the defense in mediation, backed by the treating and consulting record, is the mechanism by which a catastrophic file receives its accurate valuation.