New York Personal Injury Law Blog

According to the New York City Buildings Department, the elevator that crushed a 41-year old woman on Wednesday morning had recently been serviced. Only hours before the New York City elevator accident, workers had performed electrical maintenance on it. That maintenance is now the center of the Buildings Department's investigation.

The victim was pinned between the elevator and shaft wall when the elevator she was stepping into unexpectedly rose. She was crushed to death.

Park Avenue in Brooklyn is well known to residents and authorities alike. Sadly, though, its notoriety is due to its dangerousness. And, one intersection in particular, Park Avenue and Hall Street, is receiving extra attention from the New York Times' The Local blog.

According to Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Gastel, an average of four New York City car accidents and four injuries occurred per year between 2005 and 2009 at the intersection. Whether the accidents are occurring because of speeders on Park Avenue, impatient drivers waiting to cross Park Avenue on Hall Street, or some other reason, most agree that something needs to be done to prevent them.

One construction worker has died and four others were injured when a building they were working on collapsed under the weight of concrete that had been recently poured onto the third floor. The accident occurred in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 8.

Although this accident is tragic, it is unfortunately not rare. New York City construction accident lawyers know all too well that the city's construction workers regularly face the risk of injury or death on the job site.

In early October, a Hannibal man was killed in a New York industrial accident while working at Novelis, Inc., an aluminum rolling plant. The man, a rolling technician, was trapped in a piece of equipment he was operating. He was stabilized at the hospital, but later died from his injuries.

This accident was the second workplace accident in only three months at the plant. It follows a serious on-the-job accident in August, when a man was injured in the plant's remelt area.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the company are currently investigating the August and October accidents. It may be months before we learn of the cause of the New York workplace injuries, as OSHA inspectors must go through extensive discovery to determine if Novelis, Inc., violated any safety regulations or otherwise acted negligently.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is hoping to issue new Hours of Service rules by the end of this month.

According to the FMCSA, truck driver fatigue is likely a factor in 5.5 percent of fatal large truck accidents. It is believed that the percentage of fatigue-related accidents can be reduced by decreasing the amount of time drivers spend behind the wheel and on-the-job. As New York City truck accident attorneys, we often see the devestating impacts of truck accidents and understand the value of any safety measures meant to prevent accidents and save lives. 

On October 18, 2011, a New York bus-and-truck crash injured eight people. The accident happened on the New York State Thruway, approximately 35 miles outside of New York City. According to the accident report, the Trailways bus rear-ended the truck after the truck slowed down for a car entering the highway.

This is one in a tragic series of bus accidents that have plagued New York and the East Coast this year, including:

• A July crash between a semi truck and tour bus in Waterloo, which injured more than 30 people
• A March tour bus accident in the Bronx that killed 15 people
• A March tour bus accident in New Jersey that killed two people
• A May tour bus accident in Virginia that killed four people
• A June tour bus-and-semi truck accident in Pennsylvania that killed the bus driver and injured more than 20 people
• A July New York tour bus crash that killed two people and injured 35

These accidents have prompted legislators in New York and in the United States Congress to call for safer buses and better bus driver training.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, "8 Injured in Crash Involving Bus, Truck," Associated Press, Oct. 19, 2011.

In our last blog, we discussed a New York scaffolding accident where scaffolding collapsed on a city bus, injuring bus riders. Now, we have learned that New York business groups are again trying to reform New York's scaffold law.

A coalition of business organizations - including the Business Council of New York State, the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Associated General Contractors of New York State and the New York Farm Bureau - has attempted to revive a reform bill in the Assembly. If passed, the bill would hold workers responsible for scaffold accidents caused by their own intoxication, other criminal act or violation of safety standards.

The coalition has cited research by the Pacific Research Institute that shows changing the scaffolding law could create up to 86,000 new jobs in construction by reducing liability insurance costs. However, according to New York City construction accident lawyers, changes to the law would take away construction worker protections and could lead to more scaffolding violations by employers (and, thus, more scaffold accidents).

On Tuesday morning, a West Harlem scaffolding accident injured seventeen people. Scaffolding around a two-story building collapsed, falling onto a city bus. Those injured by this scaffolding / bus accident included eight bus riders and two police officers. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.

However, the New York City scaffolding accident did cause quite a stir. The scaffolding was erected around a building set to be demolished. When the scaffolding fell, so did bricks from the building.

Inspectors had recently examined the demolition site and had found nothing wrong with it. The New York Department of Buildings is investigating the scaffold collapse and has put a stop-work order on the construction site in order to prevent future construction-related accidents.