Injured while visiting / vacationing in New York City?

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Injured while visiting / vacationing in New York City?

via Friedman & Simon, L.L.P. Attorneys at Law by admin on 9/7/11

Nearly 50 million people a year visit NYC as tourists or vacationers; it is sad and inevitable that some people's holiday will be marred by an accident or injury while sightseeing in the safest big city in the United States.

New York City has the world's largest rapid transit system with more than 600 miles of track, over 400 stations and a billion rides annually (saving $5,000,000,000 in congestion costs), so it's not surprising than at least 20 people a year meet their demise on the subway (in addition to those who suffer a mishap, injured while underground).

Another iconic Big Apple fixture is the yellow taxi, with more than 13,000 NYC cabs shuttling 240,000,000 fares across nearly 1,000,000,000 miles on Gotham's bumpy streets, resulting in almost 5,000 accidents annually.

Most tourists see the city by way of the sidewalk, where more than 2,000 slip and fall cases occur every year, costing NYC over $50,000,000.

NYC has almost 1,000,000 buildings and the city is always under construction, with scaffolding erected in many places to ease work.  Even with rigorous safety standards and skilled workers, scaffolding accidents can and do occur.

Sometimes, it's the journey, not the destination that creates trouble for city visitors.  NYC tour bush crashes unfortunately do happen, sometimes resulting in serious injuries.

Costing NYC over $4,000,000,000 annually, there are more than 7000 pedestrian-related vehicle accidents causing injuries or fatalities.

New York City has also been the site of spectacular mishaps, such as crane accidents and aviation disasters, which almost certainly had a devastating impact upon the lives of some people merely visiting New York City.

Over the last twenty years the phrase "I was visiting New York City when…" has played a significant role in many personal injury cases handled by our firm.

We once represented a cab driver who retained us because while he was in a lane approaching the toll booths at the Queens Midtown Tunnel when an offending vehicle crashed into the rear of his taxi.  Our client suffered a life-changing, devastating injury to his back.  Eventually he required a complex surgery which left him disabled, unable to ever return to his earlier ten to twelve-hour days of operating a cab.  While we argued that the accident was one hundred percent the fault of the defendant (who had a legal duty to keep up a safe distance between the front of her car and the rear of our client's car), she raised a defense claiming that the plaintiff's negligence was, in fact, the cause of his injuries.  The offending vehicle driver argued that our client cut in front of her car without signaling, a split second before the impact, thereby creating a dangerous situation where a crash could not be avoided.

Our client was transporting a California science professor from the airport to Manhattan at the time of the accident.  The professor took another taxi from the accident scene so that he could stay on schedule, telling our client that he would be willing to make a statement about the accident and providing his home contact information.

We contacted the professor back in California and he provided a written statement. He said that our client had been in the very same lane for several minutes before the accident, that our client did not switch lanes and that our client was stopped for a time before the impact by the offending vehicle.  This passenger was not affiliated with our client so bias could not be effectively argued in court.  Ultimately, the professor's statement (who presented very credibly) tipped the scales in favor of our client.  While this case involved a witness visiting NYC, more often we have been contacted and eventually retained by someone injured while visiting New York City.

For example, in another case our visiting client's driver pulled over to the highway shoulder to remove sunglasses from the glove compartment and was suddenly struck by another vehicle.  The resulting impact from the rear (partly due to negligence by the offending vehicle driver and partly due to our client's host driver not pulling over fully into the shoulder off the roadway) tragically led to a severe spinal injury to our client, who ultimately underwent a surgery to fuse her cervical spine.

This particular client, after receiving emergency medical care in New York City, returned home to Virginia to continue treatment, convalesce and ultimately to consult with her local attorney about how to protect and advance her legal rights.

Her local attorney referred her to us.  As experienced New York personal injury lawyers, it was our privilege and honor to win a significant result for her, to compensate her for her injuries and other damages.

Another client from out-of-state was visiting her adult daughter (a striving young aspiring career person, who, like many before her, came to New York City to "find her star") when the client was badly hurt.  The walk-up apartment building had a stairway that had long been in disrepair, with a dangerous condition ignored by the landlord, by building management and by the building superintendent.  As a result our client fell and suffered an awful broken bone injury.  Her joyous visit became a nightmare.

She too contacted our firm after her return home from New York State.  We successfully prosecuted her claim, recovering compensation for her and holding the reckless landlord accountable.

Quite frankly, a visitor injured while visiting New York City is best served by retaining an experienced New York personal injury lawyer.

As described above, we have represented many people hurt while visiting New York City.  We are sensitive to the many special considerations of such cases.

While such cases may require the attendance of the client at certain related proceedings (depositions, medical examinations and if necessary, at trial) we will, via telephone, conferencing, email, fax, overnight delivery and all other means available, do whatever we can to reduce travel for the client and maximize the client's convenience.  If and when attendance at case proceedings within New York State actually does become necessary, we will do everything we can to make sure proceedings are held on the same and/or successive days, to avoid the need for multiple trips.  If your accident injury case involves the phrase "I was visiting New York City when…" and you were ultimately injured while visiting New York City, we invite you to call us now.

We will do whatever we can to give you the best information possible for you to protect and advance your accident injury claim.

If you or a loved-one are the victim of an accident while in New York City, contact us to understand and preserve your rights.

If you found this article informative, these links may be of interest to you:

MTA Conductor Reveals Gruesome Side of Working Underground

I am a New York City Transit Subway Conductor, Ask me Anything

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