New York Personal Injury Legal Questions

Your initial question is "what arguments would she make" and then in your narrative you ask "what arguments can the paper make". The person who is directly involved has a lawyer who will handle the arguments on the defamed person's behalf and the newspaper's lawyers will deal with the issues as they see fit.... Read More

The fact that it was the store brand and not the national brand has nothing to do with it. What matters is your surgeon's statement that it was bacteria in the solution that caused the problem which required the surgery. But: can you prove it? Bacterial infections in the eye can come from any number of sources. See a products liability lawyer in your area the sooner the better. There will be a lot of information to ge through before it can be determined whether or not a suit would be viable.... Read More

You may very well have a case, though I'm not sure you understand all the terminology you are using. Normally, when a dr orders up an MRI of the spine, what they are looking for is a disc injury. It turns out you have two ruptured discs. I don't understand how they could miss that, which is what leads me to state that you may have a case here. But, to really determine that, you need to get all of your medical records and have them examined by an expert witness. Contact a medical malpractice lawyer in your area for more info.... Read More

Every day, I deal with people who suffer broken bones, permanent disability and the loss of thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) of dollars. You have some cuts and bruises, embarrassment, and spent a few hundred bucks you didn't intend to spend, all due to your drunken brother. Liability notwithstanding, it would not be worth pursuing the night club. Here's what you do: meet with your brother, in person, in private. Tell him that you went through a lot of grief due to his irresponsibility, and you are not going to put up with it ever again.... Read More

In order to prove a medical malpractice case, a claimant must prove a failure to conform to accepted practice, resulting in an injury. A bad result is not enough. You will need to get copies of ALL of your medical records and have a doctor review them; if he/she is willing to testify that the hospital failed to conform to accepted practice, then you have a case. But even then, you have to prove how much worse you are as a result of the malpractice. These cases are difficult and expensive to prove and they do not settle out of court. So unless you have catastrophic injuries, it does not make financial sense to go forward even if malpractice was committed.... Read More

I don't think you can sue a 15 year old, and if you could, he would have no assets. But, since the girl is a minor as well, it's possible you could sue when he reaches the age of 18 since she will still be a minor at that time, and since judgments can stick around a long time (up to 20 years in NY) then theoretically, his income, when he has one, can be garnished over the long haul. I doubt that his parents would be held liable, as you'd have to prove they knew or should have known this would happen (maybe you could, I don't know).... Read More

The general rule is that the statute of limitations is one year for an intentional act, unless there is a minor involved, in which case it extends to one year after attaining the age of majority. What you are trying to do is to invoke the "date of discovery" concept, that you did not know you had this issue, etc. until recently, and that this should "toll" the statute, in other words, that the one year should not start to run until you realized what happened to you. Without doing some research, I don't have a definitive answer, but my gut feeling is that it would not be accepted by the courts in your situation.... Read More

First of all, it is way, way too soon to make that kind of a decision: you state that you don't know why the air bag did not deploy. That's the first thing that needs to be determined. There are a lot of variables such as speed, crush damage, point of impact, angle of force etc. Next, it would have to be determined that there was a defect in the design or manufacture that caused the failure to deploy.This is very expensive, your lawyer will need to hire expert witnesses and expend hundreds of hours of work over several years to take this case on. Car companies don't settle, they have mega-bucks to pay their lawyers and they won't hesitate to spend $50,000 to defend a $25,000 case. So unless you have a skull fracture or ended up in a wheelchair or something like that, you can forget going up against the car company. But if the other driver caused the accident, that might be a possible course to pursue.... Read More

It may not be too late. In NY, if the Statute of Limitations has run while the individual is still a minor, then that person has one year past the age of majority to bring an action. There would be a lot of evidenciary problems proving standard of care, breach, causation and damages. So even if it is not too late, there still would be lot of difficulty proving the case.... Read More