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New tragic reports continue to surface a week after the Asiana Airlines 214 crash. Though both Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia were killed immediately after impact, officials just confirmed last Friday that one of the girls was run over by a fire truck responding to the crash. It has not yet been confirmed whether this incident was the primary cause of her death.Later on Friday, a third passenger, 15-year-old Liu Yipeng died of complications resulting from the crash. In addition to the three victims that were killed, there are many more passengers who are still suffering serious injuries in the crash. Two passengers remain in critical condition.Though experts like Kevin Hiatt of the Flight Safety Foundation have reported that it might be several years before the NTSB determines the cause of the crash, it is important for the families of the victims to consider how will they be able to pay for their medical care. Can they be compensated for their pain and suffering? For disabilities that will last their lifetime?The United States, along with China and 128 other countries around the world, has adopted a law that was written specifically to help victims of accidents like the Asiana crash. This law holds airline carriers responsible for damages resulting from accidents up to $175,000 per passenger. This means that the Asiana victims will have their medical bills paid by Asiana Airlines up to $175,000, regardless of which party is ultimately found liable for the crash. With this law in place the passengers of Asiana flight 214 and their families are ensured the peace of mind of knowing that at least the first level of medical care will be compensated for.For all damages above $175,000, the crash victims will be able to recover in full unless Asiana is able to prove that it was not at fault. Although it now appears Asiana bears responsibility for this tragedy either because of technical malfunction or pilot error, you can be sure that the airline will most likely post a vigorous defense to avoid having to pay for the victims’ injuries. Because there are many victims with injuries that will require much more that $175,000 to cover their medical bills, the attorneys representing these victims have their work cut out for them to prove Asiana’s liability.Sources: USA Today, “Third Victim Dies from Asiana Crash; Runway Reopens,” July 12 2013.News10, “Determining Cause of Asiana Crash Could Take Years,” July 6 2013.

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As the NTSB continues to explore possible causes of the tragic Asiana Boeing 777 crash on July 6th, much of the news coverage until now has speculated about equipment malfunction and pilot error, or else recounted the injuries and the inconceivable horrors endured onboard the ill-fated aircraft. However the incident has also been a source of countless brave and selfless acts by the heroic passengers and crew.Cabin manager Lee Yoon-hye spoke of how her instinct to protect her passengers took over in the moments after impact. “I was only thinking about rescuing the next passenger,” she explained in a news conference on Sunday. “I didn’t have a moment to feel that this fire was going to hurt me.”She also told the story of how, when a young passenger became too frightened to evacuate the plane via one of the emergency slides, one of Ms. Yoon-hye’s colleagues carried him down to safety on her back.Fei Xiong helped her 8-year-old son leap from the plane directly onto the tarmac when she became concerned that the aircraft would become engulfed in flames before help arrived. Wen Zhang carried her 4-year-old son to safety through a small hole torn open in the wreck.Boeing 777s are designed to accommodate a complete evacuation within 90 seconds even if half the aircraft’s doors are inoperable. This capacity was put to the test on Saturday as much of the aircraft was damaged or in flames. Video footage of the impact and its aftermath shows that despite many injuries and two tragic losses of life, the evacuation of the plane was on the whole safe and efficient. This has a lot to do with crewmember training and passengers’ familiarity with safe evacuation procedures.Let’s have the Asiana Airlines tragedy serve as a reminder to all aircraft passengers of the importance of wearing a seatbelt, identifying all possible emergency exits, and familiarizing oneself with emergency protocol. Accidents like this will continue to occur, but we can ensure the best possible safety for ourselves and our loved ones by remaining aware of possible dangers and how to act in the event of an emergency.Sources: USA Today, “Asiana Survivors Recall Last Moments Before Crash” July 8 2013.CNN, “Why Asiana Airlines Flight 214 Crash was Survivable” July 7 2013.

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In the last three years Brooklynite Lavern Wilkinson has been let down by nearly everyone she thought she could trust.

Back in February 2010 Lavern checked into Kings County Hospital with a chronic cough. The doctors ordered a chest X-ray that clearly revealed early stages of lung cancer. Only no one notified Lavern. Rather than immediately initiating treatment that may very well have saved her life, the doctors directed Lavern to take Motrin and sent her on her way.
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The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is looking for answers in the aftermath of the Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crash on July 6th, which killed Ye Mengyuan and Wang Linjia, two 16-year-old Chinese students and gravely injured many more. The aircraft was carrying 291 passengers and 16 crewmembers from Seoul to San Francisco when its tail crashed into a seawall positioned just before the runway in the San Francisco Bay.This incident marks the first Boeing 777 crash in the aircraft’s history, dating back to 1995. Though Asiana Airlines has released a statement that they do not believe the accident to be a result of any mechanical failure with the plane, the NTSB is holding off from pointing fingers until a full investigation has been conducted. In the hours since the crash there have been speculation as to whether the pilot error or runway construction might be at fault.What is presently known is that the aircraft was traveling at “significantly” slower than target speed while approaching the runway, according to a NTSB report, and that there was a stall warning 4 seconds before the aircraft’s impact. 1.5 seconds before the impact the crew attempted to pull away from the runway, lifting the nose of the aircraft right before its tail crashed into the seawall.Autopsies are underway to determine the cause of Ms. Ye and Ms. Wang’s deaths. One of the girls is believed to have been ejected from the aircraft upon impact, and there is some evidence that she was then run over by an emergency vehicle rushing to the scene of the crash.Other passengers suffered head trauma and spinal fractures in addition to other injuries. It is estimated that over 180 passengers have sustained injuries from the crash.Our deepest sympathy goes out to these passengers and their families. We will continue to cover this story as more information is released, and we hope the NTSB conducts a thorough investigation that may yield information about the reasons for the crash and how tragedies like these can be avoided in the future.Source: Chicago Tribune, “Pilot of Crashed Asiana Plane was ‘In Training’ to Fly Boeing 777,” July 7, 2013.

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Incidents of abusive police tactics have been all over the news lately. Often these stories prompt the reader to ask questions like, “What if that happened to me?” and “What kind of recourse can an individual victim have against an entire police force?” More often than not, the answers to these questions lie in the field of personal injury law. A civil rights lawsuit was filed in Paterson, NJ last month in response to an incident of police abuse that occurred outside a sports bar in September 2011. A group of uniformed police officers were caught on video beating and kicking a handcuffed man named Alexis Aponte. Aponte had been embroiled in a bar brawl when an ununiformed cop attempted to break it up, and Aponte responded by threatening him. What followed was three minutes of a brutal beat down involving a large number of police officers, some with up to 18 years of experience on the force.The lawsuit includes a second plaintiff, Miguel Rivera, who was also involved in the fight and was similarly cuffed and beaten unconscious by the officers, just off-camera. Aponte and Rivera’s attorney alleges that over $900 was stolen from the two men additionally. The full video of the incident can be found here.Even more recently, in Hawthorne California, a man named Leon Rosby bore witness to an officer shooting his dog to death after Rosby was cuffed for playing music too loud outside a police standoff. The officers had asked Rosby to turn his music down, and when he did not immediately comply, they arrested him. Rosby locked his dog inside of his car and offered his open hands to the police for arrest.  But when his dog leapt out of the window to protect his owner, one of the officers pulled out his gun and fired four shots, killing the dog in front of Rosby’s eyes. Here is the link to the graphic and disturbing video.Granted, these stories are rarely as simple as black and white. Aponte and Rivera were involved in a bar fight and Rosby had blatantly disregarded a police officer’s command. Police work is dangerous, difficult business, but just like any other profession it needs to be regulated. Police officers who cross the line have to be held accountable for their actions, and police forces are notoriously bad at self-regulating. That’s why Congress passed US Code Section 1983, a law that allows individuals to seek damages when they are made victims of police abuse. Because of this law, it is often personal injury lawyers who draw the line in cases of police abuse, and hold abusive cops liable for their actions. Police abuse is an unfortunate and all too common occurrence in the US, but it is important to remember that every individual has a right and a viable means to fight back.  Sources: LA Times, “Video of Hawthorne police killing sparks web protests” July 2 2013.NJ.com, “Video of Paterson police kicking, dragging handcuffed suspect leads to federal suit” June 30 2013.

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In 2003 when Evander Childs High School student Jamie Perez was slashed by two of his classmates, his attorney filed suit against the City of New York for the lax conditions that allowed this incident to occur. A Bronx judge found the City responsible for the school’s negligence. All of this made sense because the City has been largely in control of the public education system since Mayor Bloomberg’s dramatic education reforms in 2002.When the city appealed the decision, however, an appellate court dismissed the case altogether because of a bureaucratic booby trap that required attorneys to file suit against the otherwise defunct Board of Education rather than the City in all cases against the public school system. Jamie Perez and his family were left without a dime.This is just one of many instances where the City of New York has used its authority to deflect legitimate lawsuits that may cost the City large sums of money. The City controls an elaborate system of corporate entities, and in the event of an accident the victim is required to file a Notice of Claim to the correct entity within 90 days of the accident for the City to ever be held liable. If, as in the case of Jamie Perez, it is filed with the wrong party, the case against the City gets dismissed.No other defendant in New York is granted this benefit. The City has constructed the most convoluted organizational structure imaginable so that any attorney filing suit against the City has to be extremely careful to avoid having their case thrown out.Jamie Perez’ lawyer, like many lawyers who have been tripped up by this system, is now being sued for malpractice as a result of his mistake.The ordeals that Jamie Perez and his attorney have faced for the last decade make up only a small part of the bigger pattern of the City’s clever shirking of responsibility when faced with a lawsuit.Sources: New York Times, “The Board of Education Lives On, If Only to Be Sued” May 5, 2013.NYC Department of Education, “DOE Leadership” 2013.

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The limits of New York Court of Claims Judge Renee Forgensi Minarik’s authority were called into question last month in the hospital negligence lawsuit Thurston v. State. Minarik was forced to make a decision against her conscience but in accordance with an ancient law, the 1846 wrongful death statute that ignores the grief of loved ones in determining the damages in a wrongful death case. Justifying her decision, Minarik explained, “bad laws make hard cases.”Thurston v. State pitted the family of Cheryl Thurston, a physical and mentally handicapped woman who drowned in a bathtub at the state-run Office for People with Development Disabilities Pittsford facility as a result of her caretaker’s negligence, against the State of New York.Cheryl had a condition that caused her to suffer from frequent seizures, and as a result she required constant supervision from the facility’s staff. On August 30th, 2008, Cheryl was left alone in her bathtub, where she experienced a seizure and then drowned before she was able to regain consciousness.The way that the present wrongful death statue is worded, because Cheryl was not earning income at the time of her death and because she was not conscious of her suffering, her case is not worth any pecuniary damages. Judge Minarik was forced by the law to dismiss Cheryl Thurston’s case, in the face of everything she knew to be just.”It is repugnant to the Court to have to enforce this law which places no intrinsic value on human life,” she wrote in her decision.Minarik’s authority would not allow her to award damages to the Thurston family or to punish the negligent facility for their flagrant error, but in her decision she acknowledged the need for significant legislative reform.Minarik’s sentiment is one that the New York State Trial Lawyers Association is in agreement with. Earlier this year they proposed an update to the 1846 wrongful death statue, which, they point out, predates the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Their proposal, dubbed Zachary’s Law after a two-year-old boy who was killed by the negligence of a hospital that was ultimately not held financially responsible, is an attempt to realign the law with modern ideas about the value of human life.Grief is real, and like physical pain and suffering it should have value in court. The negligent hospital that treated Zachary Storms understood the significance of grief. That’s why they paid for grief counseling for each of the hospital staff that was present for Zachary’s death. His parents, however, who stood by him and even held him down as instructed while doctors poured an exorbitant amount of activated charcoal solution down his throat, filling his stomach and lungs and eventually killing him, were not qualified to receive compensation for the grief they suffered and are still suffering.Because the present wrongful death statute awards damages based primarily on expected future income, it is highly biased towards high-income earners. The families of wealthy men and women are compensated more fully than middle and working class families. The lives of children and the elderly on the other hand, are nearly worthless in the eyes of the court because they are not earning income.This is a law that needs to be reformed, for Cheryl Thurston, For Zachary Storms, and for all the future victims of negligent institutions with little to no income.Sources: New York Law Journal, “Judge Forced to Make ‘Repugnant’ Decision,” June 4, 2013.New York State Trial Lawyer’s Association, “Shouldn’t New York’s grieving families be compesnsated for their profound loss?” 2013.

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The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is now facing accusations that it skewed a study in 2011 precipitating the closing Fung Wah, Sky Express and 24 other Chinatown bus companies.While it appears the Transportation Safety Board made an error in their classification of bus companies, I have represented clients in enough catastrophic accidents involving both Chinatown and traditional terminal-based bus companies to know that curbside buses leave a lot to be desired in the safety category.Just this year I resolved a case for a young father who was killed and a woman who was badly injured on a Sky Express bus accident in 2006, and I am in the early stages of a trial for another Sky Express accident that occurred in 2011, causing the deaths of several passengers.I am also preparing a case for a 2011 accident involving a Worldwide Tours bus, in which over 50 people were killed or injured, and I was recently retained by the family of a young man who was killed in Universal Bus Travel accident in 2013.I have a career’s worth of experience working for victims of accidents caused by the negligent business practices of Chinatown bus companies. I have found time and again that these companies are extremely successful at evading authorities in order to continue putting their passengers’ lives at risk by cutting corners, and I think that the closing of 26 of these companies back in March was no more than a small step in the right direction.One of the largest of these companies was Sky Express, a company that transported passengers between North Carolina and New York’s Chinatown, and whose dangerous cost-cutting practices have caused a number of accidents for which I have represented the victims. Though Sky Express was shut down in 2011, the Department of Transportation never followed through in confiscating the neglected buses they had in operation.Since then, it has been reported that two new bus companies, Ming An and General Bus, have cropped up and inherited much of what was left over from Sky Express. Over half of the vehicles belonging to General Bus were purchased from Sky Express, and half of their drivers were formerly employed by Sky Express, according to the Charlotte Observer. Ming An is also using Sky Express buses and drivers.Since its inception Ming An has been cited and fined numerous times for speeding or having drivers without commercial licenses. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s records the company is in the bottom .2 percent of bus companies in driving safety.The authorities closed down Sky Express in name only. The same hazardous vehicles and unqualified drivers are still out on the road today.What is scariest about these bus companies is how their cheap prices continue to attract a large client base. The rock bottom rates offered by companies like Ming An, General Bus, and until recently, Fung Wah and Sky Express, combined with their flagrant disregard for safety puts low-income passengers in the difficult position of choosing between their wallets and their lives.The popularity of these Chinatown bus companies represents a real need for low cost transportation between cities in the east coast. But it should never come at the expense of passenger safety.Sources:Bloomberg, “NTSB Defends Study Preceding Chinatown Bus Safety Sweep,” by Jeff Plung, May 19, 2013. Charlotte Observer, “Sky Express Driver Sentenced, But Unsafe Drivers Still Remain,” by Eli Portillo, January 24, 2013.

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Two commuter trains collided near Bridgeport, Connecticut Friday night, leaving over 60 passengers injured. Fortunately there were no fatalities in the collision, but 5 passengers suffered critical injuries.The accident occurred around 6:10pm when an eastbound train heading for New Haven derailed and crossed into the path of an oncoming New York bound train. There were an estimated 700 passengers aboard both trains.At this time authorities are uncertain of what caused the eastbound train’s derailment. Amtrak has announced that it is shutting down train service between New York and Boston indefinitely. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading an investigation into the accident, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority is halting normal service on the New Haven Line until the investigation and repairs are completed.We agree with the MTA that one of the main priorities in the wake of this incident should be finding out what went wrong with the eastbound train causing it to derail so that this kind of tragedy might be avoided in the future.We sincerely hope that the present victims are properly treated for the physical and emotional trauma they endured. We wish them the best in the coming days.

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