Blog

With apologies to Aldous Huxley, it’s a brave new world out there in plaintiff’s personal injury advocacy: liability insurance carriers use computer-based, artificial intelligence (“AI”) modeling programs to evaluate claims.  There are numerous brands of injury valuation software in use by the liability insurance industry.  Claims are now routinely assessed and valued by computerized claims programs.  We begin a multi-part Blog analysis of these AI claims handling programs using AI itself, by asking ChatGPT for help. Introductory Part I here.

Once more, it is my honor to have been selected to the list of Upstate New York Super Lawyers for 2023.  The announcement was made in August 2023.  

Each year, Super Lawyers recognizes the top lawyers nationwide and in New York State via a patented multiphase selection process involving peer nomination, independent research and peer evaluation.  The Super Lawyers list recognizes no more than five (5) percent of attorneys in each state.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) often offers an excellent means of resolving almost any personal injury claim without the need for trial.

Again, it is my honor to have been selected to the list of Upstate New York Super Lawyers for 2022. The announcement was today, August 23, 2022.

Each year, Super Lawyers recognizes the top lawyers nationwide and in New York via a patented multiphase selection process involving peer nomination, independent research and peer evaluation. The Super Lawyers list recognizes no more than five (5) percent of attorneys in each state.

I have again been selected to the list of Upstate New York Super Lawyers again for 2021. The announcement was recently made. Having received the acknowledgement now seven years in a row is exceptionally gratifying.

It is with great honor I can say I have been selected to the list of Upstate New York Super Lawyers again for 2020. Each year, Super Lawyers recognizes the top lawyers nationwide and in New York via a patented multiphase selection process involving peer nomination, independent research and peer evaluation. The Super Lawyers list recognizes no more than five (5) percent of attorneys in each state. The announcement was just made.

Elmiron, or pentosan polysulfate sodium (“PPS”) is a prescription medication approved by the FDA to treat interstitial cystitis (“IC”), or “painful bladder syndrome” and osteoarthritis. Interstitial cystitis is a chronic condition affecting the bladder and pelvis. This condition mostly affects women. Recent studies show that patients taking Elmiron may develop a rare but serious eye disease called retinal maculopathy. Similar to macular degeneration, this condition alters pigment cells in the retina, changing the eye color while causing significant eye damage and vision loss. James T. Snyder Law, PLLC, is taking cases of eye disorders and vision problems in adults who took Elmiron.

As part of the new, April 2, 2020, enacted New York State budget, enabling legislation was adopted and signed into law that waives liability for the duration of the declared COVID-19 State of Emergency for all health providers and facilities affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in New York State. This affects not only COVID-19 patients, but any patient who presents at an affected healthcare facility or to a healthcare professional (doctor, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, nurse, therapist, technician, etc.), in New York during the period of the COVID-19 emergency declaration.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) has just requested that Eisai, Inc. (a Japanese drug company with U.S. headquarters in New Jersey), withdraw its weight-loss drug Belviq and Belviq XR from the U.S. market because of an increased occurrence of cancers observed among users. 

Far too often, plaintiff’s attorneys who pursue damages from tortfeasors are called “ambulance chasers,” “predators,” “sharks,” etc.  Yes, plaintiff’s attorneys make money, but in my experience their primary motivation is to right a wrong from a deep sense of devotion to justice, fairness, and speaking out for and representing average citizens – men and women who could not, in any other way, take on a Fortune 500 company for unfair and deceptive business practices, advertising, or downright unlawful plundering. Included in this blog post is an article from the September 9, 2019, Washington Post, written by Stanford Glantz, Ph.D., a professor of medicine and the Truth Initiative distinguished professor of tobacco control at the University of California at San Francisco.  In this article, Prof. Glantz explains how lawyers for ordinary folks expose the truth about how some unscrupulous corporations involved in mass consumer marketing actually conduct their business to rake in billions in profits from the unsuspecting public.

Deadly exposure to asbestos has occurred to people in every corner of New York State – and active exposure can still occur.  Asbestos exposure causes mesothelioma – an aggressive, usually fatal form of cancer that may take up to fifty (50) years to develop.  According to the New York State Health Department, approximately 200 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed each year in New York State and that number continues to rise. People at risk for asbestos exposure in the workplace include miners (talc miners in New York State’s North Country), factory workers, insulation manufacturers and installers, railroad and automotive workers, ship builders, gas mask manufacturers, workers in power and chemical plants, plumbers, firefighters, metal workers, and construction workers.  Many are veterans of the U.S. military who were exposed to asbestos while serving our country. 

In a follow-up to our recent blog about the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping, we have this to add: the New York State Health Department has just reported it is investigating multiple incidents of serious e-cigarette vaping-related injuries across New York, including several near-death incidents. Symptoms include heart attack-type chest pain, flu-like illness, shortness of breath, fatigue and vomiting. Doctors say the illnesses resemble an inhalation injury, with the body apparently reacting to a caustic substance that someone breathed in. The New York State Health Department is so concerned about the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping that it has just issued an August 2019 formal statewide health advisory, warning individuals to stop the use of e-cigarettes.

On April 3, 2019, the Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), issued a stark warning to Americans about the deadly health dangers of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), or “vaping” -- which are now being recognized as anything but “harmless” water vapor. The FDA noted that e-cigarettes can deliver nicotine chemicals “at higher levels than conventional cigarettes,” that vaping can cause seizures and convulsions in young people, and e-cigarettes can cause pre-cancerous changes to airways and lungs in users. In addition, a 2019 Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health study of e-cigarette products sold in the U.S. found they were contaminated with bacterial and fungal toxins, including those related to E-Coli and chlamydia.    

It is with great honor I can say I have been selected to the list of Upstate New York Super Lawyers again for 2019.  The announcement was just made. 

On July 24, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested that the medical device manufacturer Allergan voluntarily recall its BIOCELL textured breast implants and tissue expanders. The recall request was initiated by the FDA “to protect individuals from the increased risk of breast-implant associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL), associated with Allergan BIOCELL textured breast implants.” Of 573 cases of BIA-ALCL reported worldwide, the FDA found that 481 were reported to have Allergan textured breast implants at the time of diagnosis, with more related implant deaths possible.

You’re off to trial.  Congratulations.  As a trial lawyer in New York, you’ve spent a ton of time working out a theory of liability.  You may even have made a global demand for settlement -- which was, in truth, likely formulated without much detailed thought.  But now you’re going to trial, and you have to really consider the question: “What are damages?  How am I going to articulate them to the judge and jury?”  What’s in your potential damages tool kit before and during the trial?  What must you and/or have you adduced at trial to establish “damages”?  Fundamentally, damages rest on proof adduced during the trial -- nothing more.

Artificial Intelligence (“A.I.”) and mass data collection (“Big Data”) is changing the face of the insurance industry -- and not for the better for you and me. A New York Times article dated April 10, 2019, entitled “A.I. Is Changing Insurance: Some technologies are better left in the laboratory,” by Sarah Jeong, examines a massive effort by insurance carriers to utilize machine learning and secret algorithms to collect both public and private data on customers.  Use of this data raises serious concerns about how and to what extent insurance carriers may be engaging in what is called “proxy discrimination,” the use of facially-neutral information gained from other, “proxy” sources (i.e., not blatant racial or sex classification alone, but use of ZIP codes, grade point averages, credit card purchase information, facial recognition analysis, etc.), to identify targeted customers whom the carriers do not wish to insure, or will only insure at a higher premium payment.    

Someone clearly had enough money, interest and aggravation to take an administrative law determination on a traffic stop violation to New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.  That rarely happens. The case, Matter of Schoonmaker v. New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, 2019 N.Y. Slip Op. 02259 (Ct. App. 3-28-19), 2019 N.Y. LEXIS 614, involved the appellant Schoonmaker’s appeal of a Department of Motor Vehicles determination revoking his driver’s license for refusing to submit to a chemical test for driving while intoxicated in violation of N.Y. Vehicle and Traffic Law (“V.T.L.”) § 1194. 

As part of our on-going discussion of damages in personal injury cases, Part VII of this blog series addresses “Emotional Distress and Physical Consequences Thereof,” which is described at New York State Pattern Jury Instruction (“P.J.I.”) 2:284.  That section -- which is separate from the pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life charge -- can be read read to a jury if there is evidence in the record that the injured party’s injury caused additional, verifiable emotional or neurological sequelae, and may apply to claims when the plaintiff is in the zone-of-danger.

Potential personal injury (and all other legal case) clients beware: lawyers who are admitted to practice law in New York State but who reside in another state must maintain a physical office in the State of New York to practice law here and conduct legal business in the New York State courts.  This is the rule contained in N.Y. Judiciary Law § 470 (first enacted in 1862), which may come as a surprise -- and a trap -- to many attorneys licensed in New York but residing outside of New York State.