The New York Disability Law Blog : New York Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Turley, Redmond & Rosasco : Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, Nassau, Suffolk, Bronx, Staten Island

At this magical time of year,  while so many New Yorkers are still struggling economically, let us not forget all the important things we still have.  In the spirit of the Christmas season, let us try to put aside our worries, if only for one day, and rejoice for the things that matter most - the happiness and health of our families!

For those among us who are not working due to accidents or disease, may 2010 bring you a return to work and good health.  The attorneys at Turley, Redmond, Rosasco & Rosasco have dedicated our professional lives to representing injured and disabled claimants with construction accident claims, ERISA and private long term disability claims, Social Security disability claims and workers' compensation claims.  May 2010 bring happier, healthier and more prosperous days to all the clients we serve.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I am looking forward to attending the Inaugural Dinner of the new St. John's University School of Law Center for Labor and Employment Law at the Williams Club in New York City this Thursday. In attendance will be our Law School's new Dean, Michael A. Simons.  I am deeply honored to have been asked to become an inaugural member of the Board of Advisors of this prestigious new Labor and Employment Law Center  ,which I am sure will be yet another jewel in the law school's crown.

The Center for Labor and Employment Law would not have been possible without the long-standing support and groundwork of David L. Gregory, The Dorothy Day Professor of Law.  Many moons ago when I was President of the Law School's Labor & Employment Law Society, we recruited the iconic Cesar Chavez, then President of the United Farm Workers, to speak on campus to a rousing student body. Since then, Dave Gregory has turned the law school into one of the nation's pre-eminent recruiting locations for future labor lawyers. 

The new Center's stated purpose is to:  "creatively and dynamically prepare law students for professional excellence as superb labor and employment lawyers of impeccable integrity". Having been a Guest Lecturer at the law school for over 15 years now, I can unequivocally state that St. John's Law School produces some of the finest future labor lawyers in the United States. The new Center will only add to the it's already well deserved reputation.   

The Attorneys at Turley Redmond, Rosasco & Rosasco are honored to have LexisNexis name our New York Disability Law Blog one of the top 25 workers compensation blogs in 2009 from across the United States for the second year running! LexisNexis is the premier legal publisher in the US, and to have their commendation means a lot not only to our law firm, but to our loyal readers as well. 

We are among very good company, as the top 25 workers" compensation blogs include such notables as The Workers' Comp Insider,  Safety Community, Workers' Comp Forum, Managed Care Matters and the NY Workers' Compensation Alliance Blog (which was written by me up until 9/11/2009). 

Our attorneys take seriously our devotion to providing timely and useful information to claimants injured on the job. To that end, we will be launching a new blog soon aimed more narrowly to the special issues faced by workers hurt on construction sites in NYC, The New York Construction Accident Law Blog.  We will announce the official launch here, so look back in the next week or so.

Once again, thanks to LexisNexis for their recognition of all 25 top workers' comp blogs. While producing well written and useful blog posts can be time consuming, we all do it because we care about injured workers. 

Turley, Redmond &  Rosasco, LLP,  New York's Leading Construction Accident Lawyers and Workers' Compensation Lawyers,  wishes all NY workers, either healthy or injured, a restful Labor Day 2009.  You deserve it. Stay safe out there! 

Last week the New York Daily News had an excellent story by Heidi Evans detailing the battle 9/11 responder Daniel Arrigo has gone through to obtain his workers' compensation benefits.  Here we are - nearly 8 years since the World Trade Center tragedy - and insurance companies are now  to fighting 9/11 workers comp claims harder than ever as the spotlight has shifted from terrorism to the economy.  Give the New York Daily News credit for keeping the spotlight shining bright on the health of  WTC first responders and volunteers.

In a follow-up to the Daily News article, I was interviewed by the leading trade publication on workers' compensation issues, Workcompcentral, on Mr. Arrigo's case.  In the article, I stated that Mr. Arrigo's plight is "sadly familiar" to those of us attorneys who handle 9/11 Ground Zero claims on a regular basis.  Sadly, there are many more "Daniel Arrigos" out there in need of  experienced Ground Zero workers' compensation lawyers because insurance companies fight legitimate claims with one hand, while asking for taxpayer bailouts with the other.  Disgusting! 

At this festive time of year, when so many of us are struggling in economic despair, let us not forget all that we still have.  In the spirit of the Christmas season, let us try to put aside our worries, if only for one day, and rejoice for the things that matter most - the happiness and health of our families.

For the those among us who are not working due to accidents or disease, may 2009 bring you a return to work and good health.  The attorneys at Turley, Redmond & Rosasco have dedicated our professional lives to representing injured and disabled claimants with ERISA and private long term disability claims, Social Security disability claims and workers' compensation claims.  May 2009 bring happier, healthier and more prosperous days to the clients we serve.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

It has now been one week since the sad death of Walmart worker Jdimytai Damour, and of course, this being New York,  the lawsuits are already flying.  One attorney has filed a lawsuit for the family against Walmart in the Bronx (where else!) claiming Walmart was "careless, reckless and negligent".  In my opinion, the direct lawsuit against Walmart for negligence will be dismissed promptly. 

Mr. Damour's family cannot sue Walmart directly due to the "exclusive remedy" provisions of the Workers' Compensation Law.  Filing a negligence lawsuit directly against Walmart probably had more to do with the attorney getting his name in the news than actually holding Walmart responsible.  And some question why lawyers have a bad image?

Based upon the reported facts,  Mr. Damour worked for a temporary staffing firm called Labor Ready.  Walmart contracted with Labor Ready for temporary workers to fill holiday staffing needs. In this case, the legal concept of a "General/Special" employer-employee relationship would come into play.  If Walmart exerted "direction and control" over Mr. Damour (ie, "go unlock the doors and let the lions in"), then Walmart is considered a "Special Employer" even if Mr. Damour got his paycheck from Labor Ready. 

Once Walmart is deemed a "Special Employer", it is protected from any direct lawsuit for negligence by the exclusive remedy provisions of the NY Workers' Compensation Law.  Without any fanfare, Walmart will quickly move to dismiss the lawsuit based upon the defense that workers' comp is the exclusive remedy.  As I said in a prior post, the Damour family will get a measly one time $50,000 payment to his estate (plus a $6,000 expense) for the life of their loved one under the workers' compensation law, and they probably don't need an attorney.  

Workers' Comp Central has been quoting me in their articles this week regarding the tragedy.  Here are a few excerpts from those articles for those of you without a subscription:

A top officer of the New York Workers' Compensation Alliance is calling for a criminal investigation by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo into the death of a temporary worker trampled in the rush for bargains at a Long Island Walmart Store before sunrise last Friday.
Troy Rosasco, co-chairman of the workers' advocates group, said Monday the world's largest retailer is shielded from a lawsuit in the death of 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour because of New York state's exclusive remedy law.

"He had never worked for Wal-Mart before. This was like sending a guy into the (Roman) Coliseum and telling him to unchain the door and let the lions in," Rosasco said. "What happened was foreseeable. They created a danger when they called it a blitz sale. A blitz is defined by Merriam Webster as a sudden attack."

Walmart may be sued by the mall or security company for contribution, but it cannot be sued by the Damour family itself.  They only have a workers' compensation death benefits claim against Walmart. This is another reason NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo should investigate this terrible tragedy brought on by Walmart's greed. 

ABC News published an important article today highlighting the sharp rise in immigrant worker deaths on construction sites in the New York City area.  This problem, which I addressed in a prior post recently, is reaching epidemic proportions. 

As detailed in the article, just the other day a Ukrainian immigrant was decapitated after plunging 42 stories while working on a construction site on a Donald Trump Hotel in lower Manhattan.  Under the current New York Workers' Compensation law, the most his widow and children can collect for his death is $500 per week, plus payment of only $6000 toward his funeral bill. 

I told the reporter the story of one of my clients (an undocumented worker) who was severely injured last November when a brick wall fell on him while working on a construction site in Queens.  Despite multiple surgeries and being an inpatient at Jamaica Hospital for over a week, he still has not received his first workers' compensation check.  This is not unusual in cases where unscrupulous employers are paying immigrant workers "off-the-books" and not reporting their wages to the workers' compensation insurance company to save on premiums.  Workers' compensation lawyers like myself see sad cases like these every day.

Thanks to Susan Donaldson James  and ABC News for reporting on this growing tragedy.  Unfortunately, in the current political climate, it is questionable whether the federal government has any desire to address the safety of undocumented workers on construction sites??? 

Being a construction worker in New York City is becoming more deadly, according to new reports from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Amid a building boom in New York, construction worker accident related deaths are up 87% since 2005. 

As the NY Times reported earlier this year on construction deaths, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already taken some positive health and safety inspection measures to stem work related scaffold and ladder accidents in New York City.  However, it appears that part of the problem involves the intractable immigration crisis. 

Many shady construction general contractors and sub-contractors are hiring non-union undocumented workers who are not given adequate safety training or equipment.  As can be expected, the death toll is falling disproportionately on Latino construction workers.  This is because the percentage of Latin and Mexican construction workers are growing by leaps and bounds.  In addition, immigrants from India, Poland and other Eastern European countries are increasing on non-union (i.e., less safe) work sites. 

The workers' compensation lawyers at Turley, Redmond & Rosasco have unfortunately witnessed the impact of construction accident deaths on families first hand.  Hopefully, the issue of immigrant construction worker safety in NYC will be studied by the newly confirmed Chair of the NY Workers' Compensation Board, Zachary S Weiss.  As Governor Spitzer so correctly notes, we cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend these immigrant workers do not exist.  These are real human beings who are dying almost every day, sometimes due to employer greed trying to avoid paying union wages.  Let us not build our gleaming New York City skyline on a foundation of blood.

Welcome to the newly designed New York Disability Law Blog!  As you will notice, I changed the official title of the blog from "The Disabled Worker Law Blog" to the  more informational "New York Disability Law Blog".  This is in keeping with the blog's purpose of providing useful information and insight regarding disability claims to fellow attorneys and the general public. 

To this end, I am excited to announce the creation of the blog's "Disability Law Library" which will be continually added to and updated.  I hope that this will eventually become the first place attorneys and claimant's turn to when researching disability claims and legal issues.  Still in it's formative stages, the library will have sections on long term disability and ERISA claims, Social Security  disability, New York workers' compensation, civil service disability pensions, scaffold /ladder /construction site lawsuits and a new section on the unfortunate expanding area of veterans' disability claims.

In addition, in 2007 we hope to do a better job collaborating with fellow bloggers such as Jonathan Ginsberg and his excellent Social Security Disability Radio Blog.  Please feel free to comment about the new design and let me know how the New York Disability Law Blog can better serve your needs.  Talk to you soon.

Workers on construction sites in New York are given special legal rights under New York Labor Law Sections 200, 240 and 240(1). These laws are sometimes referred to as the "Safe Place to Work Law" or the "Scaffold Law." These laws may allow construction workers to sue for pain and suffering in addition to collecting New York State Workers' Compensation Benefits. Depending upon the workers' injuries, these construction accident lawsuits could be worth multimillions of dollars for the worker and his family. Only a highly qualified disability trial attorney should handle construction accident lawsuits in New York City or Long Island. Call us toll free today at 1-877-NY-DB-LAW for your Free Case Evaluation by one of our attorneys.