New York Injury Lawyers Blog

June 6, 2018

Renowned Heart Doctor Violated Ethics Rules, Harmed Patients

In an attempt to advance the medical field, a world-renowned heart surgeon stands accused of violating ethical rules and harming patients, according to a groundbreaking report by ProPublica. The heart doctor, O.H. “Bud” Frazier, is credited with saving thousands of lives in his obsessive, career-long drive to create an artificial heart. However, to reach his admittedly noble goal he skirted ethical guidelines, defrauded Medicare, and harmed patients in an attempt to advance his research. Perhaps most disturbingly, his clinic, Texas Heart in Houston, along with several other doctors on the staff, apparently knew of Dr. Frazier’s ethical lapses and proceeded to either do nothing or actively hide the illegal and immoral behavior, according to the newspaper’s expose.

According to ProPublica, Dr. Frazier, who quit performing surgeries last year when he turned 75, is accused of the following:

Inappropriately diagnosing patients with advanced stage heart failure, in an attempt to install experimental heart pumps in the patients. According to hospital records viewed by the newspaper, an internal investigation made the Board of Directors at St. Luke’s Hospital, the hospital in charge of Texas Heart, aware of the problem who wrote at the time that if “…the affiliation should be dissolved, the impact to St. Luke’s market position is unclear. It’s likely that such news would generate national attention and negatively impact our standing in the US News and World Report rankings.” The executives chose to do nothing at the time.

June 2, 2018

Increasing Concerns Over Worker Safety in New York

by Gallivan & Gallivan

Three Metro-North construction workers were injured in March when an iron beam fell off a truck and pinned the workers to the railroad tracks in East Harlem. According to the New York Post, a 2-by-3 foot beam fell on Track 3 at East 100^th Street and Park Avenue. All three of the construction workers involved in the accident were taken to the hospital, two suffered significant injuries when the beam fell on them and the third construction worker injured his leg.

The accident comes on the heels of the death of an MTA worker in the same month at the 125^th street station. In that instance, the MTA worker, identified as St. Clair Richards-Stephens by the New York Post, was walking on a wooden rail when it collapsed. Richards-Stephens fell approximately 20 feet to the lower-level of the station and, after frantic efforts to revive the construction worker by medical personnel, was declared dead at the scene.

May 29, 2018

Hit-and-Run Fatalities Increase Across the Country

by Gallivan & Gallivan

Hit-and-run fatalities have seen a marked increase throughout the country as more Americans are bicycling and walking to work, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citing a report released by AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the newspaper states that hit-and-run fatalities increased 61 percent between 2009 and 2016. In 2016 alone, 68 percent of the fatalities in hit-and-run accidents were pedestrians or bicyclists. According to the Wall Street Journal, the increase in Americans choosing healthier modes of transportation is the leading cause of the increase in deaths.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 1,980 fatal hit-and-run accidents which caused a stunning 2,050 deaths. Both of these numbers represent record highs, according to the federal agency which has been tracking these statistics for over four decades. Overall, there were 40,000 traffic fatalities in 2017 – the second year the rate of fatalities has seen a significant increase, and following years of declining deaths in traffic accidents.

May 25, 2018

Scaffolding Collapse in Brooklyn Injures Construction Worker, Two Pedestrians

by Gallivan & Gallivan

Three people were injured in April when scaffolding collapsed near the entrance to the Borough Hall Train Station in Brooklyn Heights. The scaffolding, which was being taken down at the time, left one construction worker with serious injuries and two pedestrians with relatively minor injuries. The company responsible for the scaffolding, New Force Construction Corporation, has previously been fined $25,000 by the New York City Department of Buildings for not following worker safety laws.

According to a witness speaking to CBS New York, “We just all of a sudden heard a crashing of the scaffolding, and then people screaming.” Other witnesses described a similar scene of mayhem when the 20-foot section of scaffolding in front of the Starbucks came crashing down onto two pedestrians who happened to be walking under the sidewalk shed. According to witnesses on the scene, the two pedestrians suffered relatively minor injuries while the construction worker’s arm appeared to be “seriously hurt and badly injured.” In addition to the three New Yorkers injured in the collapse, the faulty sidewalk shed also took down a crosswalk light at the intersection of Court Street and Joralemon Street, according to the NYPD.

May 22, 2018

New Safety Grades Released for NYC Hospitals

by Gallivan & Gallivan

New York hospitals rank among the lowest in the nation for patient safety, according to a non-profit group. The Empire State ranked 48^th out of the 50 states, a one-spot improvement from last year. Overall, almost 6 percent of hospitals received an “F” for patient safety – a notable increase from the nationwide average of under 1 percent. A total of 137 hospitals in New York were graded, according to NBC New York.

The rankings, which are released every year, are released by Leapfrog Group and rank 2,500 hospitals across the country. The grades – ranging from an “A” to an “F” – are based on the rate of hospital errors (including medication errors), accidents, infections, and the number of preventable pressure ulcers, among several other factors. Leapfrog Group ranks hospitals individually and then aggregates the data and ranks each state collectively.

May 21, 2018

First Revenge Porn Lawsuit Filed in New York City

by Gallivan & Gallivan

A health professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) filed the first civil lawsuit under New York City’s “Revenge Porn” law, which was passed in November last year and went into effect in February. The professor, Dr. Spring Chenoa Cooper, alleges that her ex-boyfriend shared explicit images and videos of her online and linked the intimate material to her CUNY faculty page, in an attempt to harass her and destroy her career.

In her lawsuit, Cooper alleges that after ending a “tumultuous” relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Ryan Broems, in November, he began harassing her for weeks online by asking her invasive and inappropriate questions about her relationships and sex life. After blocking his text messages and social media accounts, she received a message from an unknown Tumblr account that demanded she provide intimate details of her life or else intimate pictures and videos of her would be posted online. After refusing the Tumblr user’s demands, intimate videos and pictures of her appeared on the user’s page. In the lawsuit, Cooper alleges that the Tumblr user is her ex-boyfriend Broems because he is the only person who received the explicit photographs and videos.

May 21, 2018

NYT: Seeking Profit, Doctors Lure Patients into Unnecessary Surgeries

by Gallivan & Gallivan

Doctors and legal financing companies are pushing women into receiving unnecessary surgeries in a brazen attempt to win legal settlements, according to the New York Times. The article focuses on women who have received vaginal mesh implants – a medical procedure fraught with problems for some women. In the illuminating piece, women with these implants are contacted by legal financing companies, which offer high-interest rate loans to finance removal of the implant. In the end, the women typically receive an unnecessary, and sometimes unsafe, medical procedure that they are then forced to pay for over time, with a high-interest rate attached.

The article describes the process as follows: Women with vaginal mesh implants are contacted by a legal financing company. The women, who may or may not have any side effects from the device, are warned of impending doom – in one instance described by The Times, a company representative told the woman that her life was in danger. These women, understandably alarmed, are then told that doctors can remove the implant and the women can even receive part of any legal settlement from the supposedly malfunctioning device.

May 9, 2018

Quality of Medical Care Improves for Most Americans

by Gallivan & Gallivan

A recent study highlighted the improving areas of medical care in the United States. Released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the study tracked seven main criteria related to healthcare between 2000 and 2014 – person-centered care, patient safety, healthy living, effective treatment, care coordination, and affordable care.

Here is the breakdown on how America’s healthcare system changed according to each of the metrics:

Person-Centered Care. The study defined “person-centered care” as whether or not a patient achieves their healthcare outcomes, not merely whether a disease has been effectively treated or managed. Overall, the trend for this metric has markedly improved since 2000. A full 83 percent of patients who had visited a doctor in the last 12 months reported improvement in person-centered care. Perhaps as important, none of the patients indicated their care “worsened” on this metric during the fourteen-year period.

Patient Safety. Keeping a patient safe while in a hospital or doctor’s office also saw an improvement during the study. Overall 66 percent of patients reported an improvement in this metric, which reflects broader trends of data available in this area. Between 2008 to 2014, the number of infections related to a central venous catheter dropped from 1.9 per 1,000 patients to 0.67 per 1,0000. Similar improvements in patients receiving hip joint replacement surgeries. In 2009 a full 16.4 percent of Americans undergoing this notoriously tricky procedure reported “adverse effects”, a number that dropped to 9.8 percent by 2014.

April 25, 2018

New York Renews “Self-Driving” Car Program

by Gallivan & Gallivan

In the wake of the first pedestrian fatality caused by a “self-driving” car, New York renewed its autonomous driving program this month. The program will operate under the strict limits set by Gov. Cuomo a year ago and will last until April 2019, when government officials will re-examine the program and its effectiveness. The measured approach favored by New York contrasts with many states in the western part of the United States, including California and Arizona, which have provided car manufacturers more unfettered access to their roadways.

New York’s history with autonomous vehicles has been relatively brief. After quickly securing a permit last year to test its technology, Audi became the first automobile manufacturer to test a self-driving car in New York. The drive only lasted 6.1 miles, though and Audi has not performed any other test drives in the Empire State since its initial run. Cruise Automation was the only other company granted a permit to test drive the futuristic vehicles, but apparently never utilized the permit.

April 23, 2018

At 14-Year High, Construction Deaths in New York Continue to Increase

by Gallivan & Gallivan

In 2016, a total of 71 construction workers were killed on the job in New York State. This number represents a 29 percent increase compared to 2015 and brought New York’s construction fatality rate to a level not seen since 2002. New York consistently ranks among the “Top 10” most dangerous states for construction workers. Perhaps most concerning, construction fatalities are increasingly more likely outside of New York City, which actually saw a decline in construction deaths – from 25 to 21 – during the same period.

Construction workers have always performed a dangerous job with limited protections. However, the decline of unions coupled with the reduced power of regulatory agencies has only made the job even more dangerous. A construction worker in New York is now 4.6 times more likely to die while on the job than the average New Yorker, according to NBC New York. Accounting for almost half of all deaths, falls were the leading cause of death for construction workers over the last decade.