New York Personal Injury Law Blog

Dangerous property conditions cause dozens of accidents each year and while some may have been hidden, others were simply ignored. Property managers and owners are responsible for making sure that their buildings, grounds and other systems are properly maintained so that accidents don’t happen. Inadequate lighting, issues with foundations and other matters should be immediately addressed and the proper actions taken. When owners and managers fail in this responsibility, victims have the right to use the court system to obtain justice.

The causes and circumstances are unknown for a gas explosion that occurred recently at Nyack College in New York. It is also unknown if the explosion happened from a pipe, a heater or some other source but seven people are reportedly injured according to one account. No fatalities have been reported but home residents in the vicinity were asked to evacuate because of high gas levels. 

Once a teenager turns that magical age of 16, they feel that they have reached that transition to adulthood with a driver’s license, but many teen drivers often cause accidents because of distractions like their cell phone, conversations, and even stereos and dash electronics. Distracted driving is a problem that exists for many drivers but teenagers often have the attitude that they are invincible, making it difficult to convince them that they can’t handle the demands of driving along with the demands of their incoming texts and phone calls.

A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that driver distraction is a common problem for many teen drivers. While this may not be surprising, given the fact that teens tend to be glued to their mobile devices, the survey did show that 45 percent of students out of 8,505 surveyed admitted texting while driving, which should alert parents to the real dangers and risks of their child causing an accident in which someone is seriously injured or killed. It is important for teens to avoid cell phone use while driving and to understand the consequences, should they cause an accident.

People in New York have a general understanding that if they suffer an injury on private property, caused by negligence on the owner’s part, they have grounds for a lawsuit against that owner. It is even understood that a dog bite or attack also fits under a liability for the property owner, even if the dog somehow escaped from its yard. What is not so clear when it comes to premise liability is if the same statute can be applied to animals that escape and cause accidents.

A woman filed a lawsuit against property owners in North Bangor after she hit a cow that was standing on the road at night. The lawsuit claimed that the owners were negligent in allowing the cow to escape and therefore should be liable for her injuries from the accident. The New York Court of Appeals agreed with the woman, giving her the legal right to move forward with her lawsuit after it was denied by the lower courts.

When a car accident occurs, one factor that law enforcement looks for is a sign of distracted driving. Queens is an extremely busy community and it can be easy for a driver to be distracted by their cell phone, fatigue, a beautiful sports car or a pedestrian. Driver distraction can happen at any time so it is important for people to eliminate as many distractions as they can. This may involve turning off the cell phone, avoiding playing with a radio and keeping one's eyes on the road at all times.

An investigation of an accident that recently occurred in Queens may show that a driver was distracted by something at the time. For currently unknown reasons, a car ended up in an auto-body shop after it collided with another vehicle. The impact from the force resulted in the death of one of the shop's workers, a 33-year-old man.