Articles Posted in Accidents, Personal Injury and Wrongful Death

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On June 29, 2011, Syracuse personal injury lawyer Anthony S. Bottar filed a New York wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the wife and son of Robert B. Burkard, a 47 year old man who was killed when his car was struck on June 28, 2009 by a vehicle operated by Leo A. Coleman. Burkard’s widow and son also sustained serious injuries in the collision, which occurred at the intersection of County Routes 54 and 125. The named defendants are several Sackets Harbor establishments, including the Boathouse, Sackets Harbor Brew Pub and Good Fellos.

As reported in the Watertown Daily Times article titled “DWI Victim’s Widow Sues 3 Restaurants,” Coleman admitted that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident and now is serving time in state prison.

Under New York State Dram Shop laws, all businesses that serve alcohol to customers have a duty to ensure that they do not provide alcoholic beverages to customers that are visibly intoxicated. A restaurant or bar that serves alcohol to a patron that is visibly drunk (or who may be drunk given the number of alcoholic beverages consumed over a given time period) may be liable for damages caused by the intoxicated customer, including personal injuries that arise out of a car accident that occurs after the customer leaves the bar.

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According to Syracuse.com, the body of Richard G. Fesko was found on Friday afternoon in a manure pit off of East Lake Road in Skaneateles, New York. The circumstances of Mr. Fesko’s death are under investigation. The family told police that Mr. Fesko was spreading manure the day he died.

Generally, manure is spread by a tractor equipped with a manure spreader. Customarily, the spreader is either attached to or pulled behind the tractor. Tractor attachments, including manure spreaders, can cause tractors to become unstable and tip or roll depending upon the terrain. If a tractor that does not have ROPS (roll over protection systems) flips or rolls, the driver can be thrown from the equipment and suffer serious injury and/or be crushed underneath the weight of the machine.

For more than twenty years, farm equipment manufacturers have known that ROPS save lives. While most manufacturers build their machines with ROPS, some have refused to do so — primarily because ROPS make equipment more expensive. In these circumstances, the manufacturer of the equipment may be liable for personal injury and/or wrongful death. Other equipment was manufactured and sold before ROPS became standard operating equipment. Even so, manufacturers have a duty to notify existing customers that safety devices have become available and can be retrofit to old machines. We discussed ROPS subsidies in our prior post entitled “New York Tractor Rollover Injury and Death To Decline With ROPS Subsidy.”

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Many people do not understand how the legal system works when it comes to an injury sustained in a car accident, or while on-the-job. “The system clearly favors the insurance companies,” said Syracuse personal injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Law, PLLC. “But the Baldato decision begins to level the playing field.”

New York has a “No-Fault” law which pays for lost wages and medical bills following a car accident. However, in order to receive the benefits, an injured person must do everything the No-Fault insurer says. One of the requirements will be to attend an independent medical examination, also known as an IME. At the IME, a doctor selected by the insurance company will see the injured person, usually for 15-20 minutes, and then generate a report. In almost all circumstances, the IME report will provide that there is nothing wrong with the person. No-Fault benefits then terminate (i.e., instant financial savings). A similar process exists under New York’s workers compensation law. If a worker is injured on-the-job, they are entitled to lost wages and medical care provided they follow the directions of the Workers Compensation insurance carrier. One of the requirements will be to attend an IME. As is the case with No-Fault, often the IME report will provide that there is nothing wrong with the person. Workers Compensation benefits then terminate.

Until recently, you could not file a New York medical malpractice lawsuit against the IME doctor for incorrect advice, e.g., that the injured person is not hurt, has no disability and/or is fit to return to work, because of the absence of a “doctor-patient” relationship. This is no longer the case.

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“New York has more than 7,000,000 acres of farmland and almost 25,000 farm families. And farming in New York, especially on our hilly landscape, can be challenging,” said Syracuse personal injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Law, PLLC, a team of New York product liability attorneys.

According to the National Safety Council, the leading cause of farmer death over the past 40 years has been tractor rollovers or overturns. Many of the tractors involved in incidents leading to serious injury or death were brought into the country long ago. Some of the tractors were imported through intended channels, including authorized United States dealers and distributors. However, some of the equipment is “gray market.” Gray market equipment is equipment manufactured for another market, such as Asia, but imported into the United States through private channels for resale and use.

However tractors made their way into the United States, and into the possession of New York farmers, many are not equipped with rollover protection systems (also known as ROPS). ROPS include seatbelts, as well as cabins or cages to protect an occupant from a crush injury should the equipment flip during use. “These machines may be unreasonably dangerous and, in turn, defective,” Bottar said.

This year, New York State will spend as much as $100,000.00 to equip tractors with ROPS by offering a discount or subsidy to farmers of $600.00 for a ROPS system to update equipment manufactured by, e.g., Kubota, Yanmar and Caterpillar. The telephone number for the ROPS hotline is: 1-877-ROPS-R4U.
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“More than 400 construction accidents occur every day,” said Syracuse work injury lawyer Anthony S. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Law, PLLC. “Aggressive deadlines and tight budgets often lead general contractors and property owners to cut corners. Unfortunately, many of these accidents are preventable.”

Last Wednesday, a Binghamton construction accident led to traffic delays on the Vestal parkway, near the main entrance to Binghamton University. At or about 7:30 a.m., a construction worker was driving an excavator when the arm of the machine struck and severed a utility pole. The pole fell to the ground and downed a Time Warner Cable fiber optic line. Fortunately, no one was injured.

This was not the case with the June 3, 2010 Binghamton scaffolding collapse discussed in our entry titled Syracuse Work Injury Lawyer Consulted On Binghamton New York Construction Accident Liability.

“In this instance, the workers were lucky,” said New York personal injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq. “Not everyone is. We recently represented a man who was strapped to a utility pole when it broke and fell to the ground. His pelvis was crushed in the fall. While we were able to recover $1,700,000.00 for him, he is now permanently, totally disabled. He will never be the same.”
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UPS has agreed to pay a $1,300,000.00 fine and will submit to independent New York State vehicle inspections for 5 years in order to settle allegations that it knowingly permitted unsafe delivery vehicles to operate within the State of New York. “The investigation, and settlement, should reduce the risk of UPS delivery truck accidents caused by equipment failure,” said Syracuse personal injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq. of Bottar Law, PLLC, an upstate New York law firm with nearly three decades of experience handling complex personal injury matters.

Bottar added, “sometimes, claims against couriers like FedEx, UPS or DHL are more complicated than truck driver negligence. In our practice, we are often asked to invest significant resources into determining whether it was vehicle failure, not driver inattention, that led to the accident. Certainly, businesses can be liable for allowing tires to wear, brakes to fade, and frames to crack.”

According to a March 1, 2011 press release entitled “A.G. Schneiderman Announces Crackdown on Dangerous UPS Trucks, Secures $1.3 Million In Settlement,” an OAG investigation dating back to 2004 began when a UPS mechanic advised the OAG that UPS was allowing UPS delivery trucks to be driven, despite cracked frames. Apparently, potentially dangerous trucks were identified through an “Annual Vehicle Retirement Process” but were kept in operation despite “cracked” or “rotted” frames.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was quoted in the North Country Gazette as stating “UPS knowingly endangered not only the lives of their own employees but the lives of the driving public.” Further, “[b]y keeping these rotting and decaying trucks on the roadways, UPS was an accident waiting to happen.” According to UPS, it “neither admits nor denies the allegations that formed the basis of the investigation.”
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“For nearly three decades, Bottar Law, PLLC has represented people throughout the State, like 27 year old Erin Freitag, who have been injured by a municipal employee,” said Syracuse personal injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq. “Sometimes municipal employees are negligent, usually by failing to properly maintain a roadway (leading to an accident), or for failing to timely remove snow/ice accumulation but, from time-to-time, we are asked to represent people involved in an incident with a municipal dump truck, garbage truck, plow or piece of heavy equipment.”

According to the Watertown Daily Times, Ms. Freitag was walking through an Elm Street parking lot on March 18, 2011 when she was run over by the back tires of a Potsdam Department of Public Works front loader. Whether the Village DPW is liable for Ms. Freitag’s injuries will depend on how the accident occurred. Even if media reports suggesting that Ms. Freitag was distracted are true, that does not mean that the Village does not owe her a duty of care.

“Anyone can make a mistake at any time,” Bottar added. “Even an employee with a perfect safety record. Years ago, we represented a woman who was run over by a street sweeper. She was, literally, sucked-up into the machine. True story! When municipal employees finally found her inside the street sweeper bin, she was badly injured. That employee had a good safety record, but the woman should not have been run-over.”
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Anthony S. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Law, PLLC, a team of Syracuse personal injury lawyers handling complex New York car accident lawsuits throughout Upstate, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Tammy and Zackary Burkard, and the Estate of Robert Burkard, deceased.

The lawsuit against Leo R. Coleman, 29, arises out of a collision that occurred in June of 2009 at the intersection of County Route 54 and Morris Tract Road, in the Town of Clayton. A pickup truck being driven by Coleman broadsided the Burkard’s Jeep. Robert Burkard was killed in the collision. Tammy Burkard and her son suffered serious injuries. According to the Watertown Daily Times, Coleman was charged with first degree vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated and seventh degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, cocaine. According to WWNY, Coleman told the Court “I operated my car and was intoxicated and drove at a high rate of speed and the way I drove caused the death of Mr. Burkard and injured Mrs. Burkard.” Coleman is presently incarcerated at Wyoming Correctional Facility.

The Coleman family owns a number of north country restaurants, including the Fairground Inn, Barracks Inn, Sboro’s, Cavallario’s Cucina, Shorty’s, Art’s Jug and Atilio’s in Watertown, Foxy’s Restaurant in Fisher’s Landing, The Stone Jug in Sackett’s Harbor, and Cavallario’s Bayside Pizza and Steak and Seafood House in Alexandria Bay.
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Your News Now reports that an Amtrak passenger train traveling from Cleveland, Ohio to Albany, New York collided with a tractor trailer in Dunkirk last week. The driver of the semi-truck was killed in the accident, though neither the train’s crew members nor any of its 236 passengers were injured in the crash.

Police reported that the driver of the truck attempted to drive around a lowered track crossing gate when the cab of his truck was struck by the train that was traveling over sixty miles per hour. Passengers said they felt the impact of the collision, but were otherwise unaware of what had occurred until several hours later.

Trains are a part of every day life here in central New York, and while they are a necessary and useful part of our transportation infrastructure, they also pose a threat to passengers, pedestrians, and motor vehicles. Because trains are heavy and travel at high speeds, when railway accidents occur, they usually have devastating consequences.

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In what has become an unsettling trend, WSYR reports that another traffic accident has occurred on the Onondaga Lake Parkway where the CSX railroad bridge crosses over the roadway. Over the weekend, a rental truck struck the railroad bridge, which in turn ripped the roof off the truck and scattered debris onto the roadway. The incident occurred at the same location as the Megabus accident that claimed four lives last fall, though no injuries were reported from this latest occurrence. The bridge is adorned with blinking lights and signs to warn drivers of the low clearance, but accidents continue to plague the area.

In response to this latest accident, New York transportation officials have reiterated their intent to investigate any and all possible solutions to the problem. Hopefully the transit authorities will find a solution that will prevent future accidents and keep drivers on the Onondaga Lake Parkway safe.

The railway bridge and underlying roadway may present an unavoidable danger to those who drive on the Parkway. While, undoubtedly, the incidents that have occurred were the result of many factors, the accidents may have been caused in part by road and bridge design, as opposed to simple driver negligence. When crashes happen under these conditions, it is extremely important for crash victims to contact a Syracuse, New York injury attorney as soon as possible to ensure that rights to recovery are protected. A lawyer can evaluate the circumstances that led to your injuries and help you pursue all the parties at fault. With an attorney’s help, you are better able to pursue your legal interests and make decisions that are ultimately right for you.
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