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Your selection of a personal injury attorney could mean all the difference in your ability to get the best possible results. The personal injury attorneys at the Long Island and Manhattan office of Levine and Slavit have received millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts on behalf of injured clients. Our outstanding track record of results, our reputation for integrity and our extensive experience as personal injury trial lawyers gives our clients an advantage every time. Some of our results include:
Decedent was a married mother of three. Defendant driver testified under questioning by our office at her deposition that at the time of the accident she was not wearing her glasses as required by her driver license because she could see better without them.
Experts: Economist, Accident reconstruction.
Pedestrian crossing in middle of block struck in head by side view mirror of a passing rented van. The driver of the van left the scene of the accident without identifying himself or the van’s plate number. Through our investigation, we located the driver and successfully pursued and recovered damages for our client from the rental company.
Our client was driving his vehicle when it was struck in the rear by a truck. After conservative treatment failed to alleviate his pain, our client underwent surgery for a fusion. Complicating this case was the fact that our client had injured his back in previous accidents. In addition, immediately following the accident, he lost very little time from work, which involved some heavy lifting. Only some months later did he stop working, opening the door for the defendants’ lawyer to contend that something must have happened in the interim to cause him to stop working. The defendants’ insurance company had attempted over a long period of time, in court and through mediation, to convince our office and our client to accept a much lower settlement offer. When it became apparent that we were prepared to go to trial, the offer greatly improved and the case settled.
Levine & Slavit obtained a settlement for a 39 year-old woman who was the driver of a car that was involved in a multi-vehicle accident on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. The case settled during trial after the defendant drivers were cross-examined and it became clear that the jury was probably going to assign blame for negligence against more than the one defendant who had not seriously contested his own fault.
This case was referred to our office by an out-of-state lawyer on the eve of the expiration of the Statute of Limitations. We expeditiously and timely drafted, filed and served a summons and complaint.
One of the more challenging aspects of the case was that our client, a commercial airline pilot, did not receive any significant treatment for her back injuries for several months after the accident had occurred. Her initial treatment focused primarily on her neck. The defendants’ attorneys intended to argue that the herniated discs in her back were not caused by the accident, but were degenerative changes for which she had received medical treatment prior to this accident.
Settlement on the eve of trial on behalf of a woman who was driving her motor vehicle on a parkway when a dead and rotting tree, which was situated next to the roadway, fell onto her vehicle. The accident occurred on a windless morning. The governmental authority responsible for maintaining the parkway denied that it had prior notice that the tree was dead. Levine & Slavit immediately retained an expert arborist to inspect the conditions at the scene of accident while they were current. The expert was prepared to testify that the governmental authority was negligent for failing to notice that the tree had been dead for a number of years, notwithstanding that there were obvious telltale signs that the tree was dead and rotting, and thus posed a hazard to passing motorists. Depositions of the defendant revealed an archaic and lax inspection procedure. As a result of the accident, our client sustained injuries that required her to undergo two back surgeries, as well as arthroscopic surgery on her knee.
Structured settlement for infant plaintiff who was struck by a motor vehicle and fractured her leg. The motorist contended that the infant darted out from in between two parked cars. Through questioning of the defendant at his deposition, Levine & Slavit was able to learn that at the time of the accident, the driver was looking for a parking space and therefore was not paying attention. The insurance company tried to avoid paying the full amount of its insurance policy, but our office insisted that the entire policy be paid.
An infant plaintiff was unable to breathe following post-surgical extubation. An emergency tracheotomy was performed. Approximately ten days later, a doctor, using a flashlight, looked into plaintiff’s mouth and noticed that a gauze pack that the anesthesiologist negligently failed to remove during the surgery was stuck in the infant’s throat. When the nurse pulled the gauze pack out of plaintiff’s throat, the child was able to breathe normally.
Experts: Oral surgeon, Anesthesiologist.
Plaintiff was injured when he slipped and fell down a flight of stairs while on the job. He spoke with the personal injury attorneys at our Manhattan office after other attorneys had advised him that he had no lawsuit to pursue and that his only recourse was to claim Worker’s Compensation benefits. We realized that he had a meritorious lawsuit against the hospital and doctor for failing to diagnose that, due to the fall, he had sustained a herniated disc in his neck. The delay in diagnosis had worsened his condition and required emergency surgery. He was left with permanent spinal cord damage. Our client was able to recover both damages in the lawsuit and Worker’s Compensation benefits. An interesting note in this case is that the investigator hired by the defendant’s insurance company to secretly record surveillance videotape of our client tried to trick our client by calling him and falsely telling him that he had won free Yankee World Series tickets and that he had to pick-up at Yankee Stadium immediately. It was only later, when we were given the videotape and showed it to our client, that he was able to figure out why, when he had arrived at Yankee Stadium on that day, there were no tickets for him, and nobody there knew what free tickets he was talking about.
Experts: Vocational economist, Orthopedist, Neurologist.
Action for wrongful death and conscious pain and suffering of 30-year-old woman, married with one child. Decedent’s medical history included end stage renal failure and seizures. The decedent presented at the defendant hospital with severe shortness of breath and other signs and symptoms of acidosis. Blood analysis revealed an extremely low level of anti-seizure medication. No precautions were taken to guard against falls, and decedent was left unattended and unrestrained on a stretcher, at which time she suffered a seizure and fell, striking her head on the floor. Even after she fell, the defendants (hospital and physicians) did not diagnose her worsening condition of fluid overload, with fluid accumulating in her lungs. She went into respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest, and passed away several weeks later.
Experts: Economist, Pathologist.
In this case, our office represented a woman who had a defibrillator implanted by prominent interventional cardiologists. Immediately after the procedure, our client experienced shortness of breath and chest pain. The doctors failed to diagnose that in inserting the defibrillator, the atrial lead had perforated the pericardium and right atrium. Instead, our client was incorrectly diagnosed with an inflammatory process. As such, our client was unnecessarily treated with steroids over a period of time, and she underwent numerous thorancentesis procedures due to multiple, recurrent pleural effusions. Eventually our client went to a hospital in New York City where a correct diagnosis was made. Unfortunately, as a result of the unnecessary steroid treatment, our client developed avascular necrosis and had to have surgery for a hip replacement.
Settlement during trial on behalf of a 30 year-old woman who sustained a tear of her uterus and uterine artery during the birth of her first child. Our client underwent numerous surgical procedures to control post-partum hemorrhage, but ultimately had to undergo a hysterectomy. Levine & Slavit retained an obstetrician/gynecologist to review the hospital record. In the expert's opinion, the injury occurred because the doctor who was delivering the baby, in using a vacuum to assist in the delivery, used the vacuum in an improper way causing the injuries. Through careful questioning of the defendant doctor at his deposition, the doctor essentially confirmed that he had used the vacuum in the manner that the expert said was improper. At trial, the defendant doctor, apparently realizing that his answers at the deposition were not correct, attempted to explain that his deposition testimony were misunderstood. The case settled during the defendant doctor's testimony at trial. Of note is that before the client came to our office, a prominent New York City law firm had rejected this case.
In this case, our client went to an emergency room of a hospital complaining of severe abdominal pain and vomiting. The triage nurse noted a history of abdominal pain and vomiting lasting for approximately 20 hours. The emergency room doctor, however, wrote that our client had been experiencing symptoms for about 4 hours. After giving our client intravenous fluids and observing her for a few hours, the doctor discharged our client and told her it was safe for her to fly as she and her family had planned. By the time our client arrived at her destination, her appendix had burst. She initially underwent surgery and treatment at a local hospital, but then had to be airlifted to a major city hospital due to severe peritonitis and other life-threatening conditions. As a result of the delay, our client suffers from internal scarring that interferes with her bladder function. At the deposition that our office took of the emergency room physician, he in essence confirmed that had he correctly realized that our client had been experiencing her severe symptoms for 20 rather than for 4 hours, he would not have discharged her without giving her much stronger discharge instructions than he gave her to return to the hospital if her symptoms persisted.
Our client went to a new dentist whose improper preparation and insertion of a bridge, and improper root canal therapy, led to further teeth decay. The dentist then informed our client, who was in her 50's, that it was necessary that all of her remaining teeth be extracted and she wear full upper and lower dentures for the rest her life. The defendant dentist admitted at his deposition that he did not give our client any alternatives to the dentures. He also admitted that our client had informed him when she first saw him that her mother had worn dentures, and she had hoped to avoid wearing dentures herself. We retained an expert who opined that the defendant dentist's root canal therapy was improperly performed, that there were preferable alternatives to dentures, such as implants, and that the defendant, who was a general dentist, should have referred our client to specialists.
The plaintiff was riding down an escalator in a department store when she was struck by a carton of shoes that a stock boy was moving on a hand truck. Instead of using the freight elevator as he was supposed to, the employee decided to use the escalator because he was closer to it. However, when he got to the top of the escalator, the shoeboxes came off the hand truck and fell down the escalator, striking the plaintiff. She injured her knee and developed Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, which caused her constant interminable pain. At the time of trial, she could barely walk. The defendants argued that plaintiff's problems were from a prior knee injury, but the jury was persuaded to reject the defendant's argument.
Our client tripped and fell due to a broken edge of a step leading from a building to the public sidewalk. She fractured her ankle and the fracture had to be reduced with surgery and the insertion of hardware. Our client is left with a permanent impairment of her ability to walk and get about. The defendants contended that the break of the step edge was minimal and that our client should have known about the condition since she had been living in the building. Levine & Slavit countered these defenses by retaining an engineer to testify as an expert and to explain why the condition constituted a tripping hazard. The settlement consisted of part cash and part a structured payout.
Our client was injured when he tripped and fell down a marble staircase in the defendant’s building that had a broken and missing chunk from the edge of a step. Our client was an ambulance worker who was responding to a call that a person in the building was acting in a threatening way and needed medical attention. Police officers accompanied our client and his partner to the building. Our client tripped and fell as he was escorting the person down the steps.
The defendant’s insurance company and lawyer attempted to prove that our client was injured not because of the broken step, but because the person he was trying to help pushed him down the stairs. The defendant also contended that the condition of the step being complained of was not of sufficient size to be actionable under the law. Our office countered these arguments citing case law holding that the defendant’s proof alleging that our client was pushed was hearsay, and holding that because the condition was located at the edge of the step, its size was sufficient for our client to recover damages for his injuries. We also successfully countered the defendant’s contention that MRI studies made of our client’s shoulder and ankle did not show the extent of damage that our client’s surgeon found.
It is significant to note that when we were first contacted by our client, he stated that he was looking for a workers’ compensation lawyer. By listening to our client’s version about how his accident occurred, we realized that not only did he have a valid workers’ compensation claim, for which we referred him to a law firm concentrating in that field of law, but in addition to that claim he had a valid lawsuit against the building owner.
The personal injury attorneys at our Manhattan office represented the parents of a boy just under two years of age who was severely attacked and bitten on the face by a dog. The child suffered severe and permanent facial scarring and extreme emotional suffering from the experience. Under New York law, while it is not necessary to prove that a dog had bitten another person before biting the plaintiff, the plaintiff is obligated to prove that the dog had vicious propensities about which the dog’s owner either knew or should have known. In our case, notwithstanding that we hired an investigator to canvass the neighborhood, we could find no witnesses to testify as to the dog’s vicious propensities. Nevertheless, through skillful deposition of the dog’s owners, we were able to discover enough information so that the defendants chose to settle the case rather than risk a verdict.
A pedestrian was run over and killed by a New York City Apple Tours bus. The victim died almost instantly. New York Law does not allow surviving family members to recover for the emotional loss suffered by those left behind after a wrongful death; recovery is limited to the decedent's pain and suffering and to the estate's financial loss. With the help of a forensic pathologist, the personal injury attorneys at our Manhattan office were able to demonstrate the victim's conscious awareness of his impending death. We defeated a motion to dismiss our claim for punitive damages, not withstanding that under New York Law it is difficult to obtain an award of punitive damages in a motor vehicle accident case. Our work opened up meaningful settlement negotiations and resulted in a substantial settlement for our client.
Expert: Forensic Pathologist
Plaintiff underwent a thorough pre-employment physical, including a laboratory analysis of his blood. The plaintiff was told that the results of the examination were normal. Approximately one year after the plaintiff was working at the company, during which time he received medical attention at the company’s medical office without improvement in his condition, he was seen by an outside physician. The doctor immediately recognized a dire situation, which was diagnosed as suffering from chronic myelogenous leukemia ("CML"), a condition which, if left untreated, is life threatening. When the outside doctor obtained the results of blood tests performed in connection with plaintiff’s pre-employment physical, plaintiff learned for the first time that the blood tests were not normal as his employer had advised, but that it showed abnormalities indicative of CML. As a result of the plaintiff’s delay in learning of the disease, he sustained a significantly diminished loss of chance for cure, and extreme mental anguish from his awareness of the implications of the loss of the year in obtaining treatment due to the delayed diagnosis. This case was settled only after the personal injury attorneys from our Manhattan office successfully defeated multiple motions to dismiss plaintiff’s complaint upon multiple grounds, including that the action was barred by the Workers’ Compensation Law. Had the defendants prevailed on any one of the grounds upon which dismissal was sought, plaintiff’s case would have been dismissed.
If you live in New York City, schedule a consultation with one of the personal injury lawyers at our Manhattan or Long Island office today! Time is a critical factor.
* Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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