Phone: (516) 487-8207
The Press and Sun Bulletin, a local newspaper out of Binghamton, New York, recently noted the burden that lawsuits place on a small municipality's finances. The paper focused on Vestal, the small town housing Binghamton University just west of Binghamton.
Local officials are concerned about the financial and time burdens of dozens of pending litigations. Among the general grievances and other civil actions are a wrongful death lawsuit and a personal injury claim.
The wrongful death case was filed in April 2010. It holds the town liable for the death of a driver after a car crash. Nellie Testa, 87, was hit by a Dodge truck as she made a left turn. The Dodge had surpassed the 50mph limit at impact. Ms. Testa died as a result of injuries sustained from the crash. The lawsuit cites the town's failure to install a traffic signal and to set up signs either to prohibit left turns or to warn of the dangers ahead. This is despite the town admitting the dangers of the intersection all the way back in 2004. The town protests that it is not their prerogative, but that of the state's Department of Transportation, to fix traffic signals.
The looming personal injury case was filed in January this year and is that of municipal worker Patrick Williams. Mr. Williams was injured in 2007 on his way up a lift to work on a water storage tank. He had his fingers caught in the lift and later required finger amputations as a result of his injury.
In a town with 12,000 to 13,000 permanent residents, the ongoing cost of these cumulative suits can be a real concern.
As a practicing medical malpractice, wrongful death, and personal injury attorney in New York, I deal with city negligence like this every day. Here is what I don't understand. The article fails to focus on the injured victims and the injured families. Instead the focus of the entire article is about the finances and whether or not this small town has the ability to pay for any damages they may ultimately be responsible for.
Why isn't the paper instead focusing on the compensation that these people may be entitled to by law, if in fact those injuries were caused by the negligence of this small town. That, to me, is the more important question. Towns and municipalities can always find different ways to pay for judgments they may be legally responsible for. Instead, when you have tort reform activists who worry more about costs associated with injured victims who are seeking compensation rather than the injured victim, you wind up with skewed stories that focus on the wrong thing.
If you would like more information about how medical malpractice and accident cases work in the state of New York, I encourage you to explore my educational website http://www.oginski-law.com. If you have legal questions, I urge you to pick up the phone and call me at 516-487-8207 or by e-mail at lawmed10@yahoo.com to answer your questions. That's what I do every day. I welcome your call.
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