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Negligence is a very common term in New York law, but clients are frequently unsure what this term means. Negligence means a lack of reasonable care which one person owes to another person. It is failing to foresee or anticipate that the wrongdoer’s risky conduct will cause injury to another. Negligence is not intentional or willful conduct, which also creates liability and can lead to legal responsibility for injuries caused. In order to recover personal injury damages in New York however, not only must negligence be proven, but it must also be proven that this negligence was the legal cause of injury or damages to another person.

Specific examples of New York negligence include: A driver causing a Brooklyn car accident by going through a traffic light; a landlord causing a Bronx slip and fall accident on an icy staircase by failing to apply sand, salt or otherwise remove the ice despite his knowledge of the condition; an owner of a dog allowing a Westchester dog bite when the dog had bitten a child one week earlier.

Negligence is not intentional or willful conduct, which also creates liability and can lead to legal responsibility for injuries caused. Examples of intentional conduct would be an assault at a bar, or libel, in which the wrongdoer intends to cause the injury, rather than accidentally causing the injury.

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Faced with vigorous opposition by Republicans and Democrats alike, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has abandoned his plan to provide driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants a scant two months after his initial proposal. Governor Spitzer’s original idea was to abandon New York’s policy of requiring a social security number as a component of obtaining a driver’s license, in order to encourage illegal immigrants to become better trained drivers and obtain car insurance to protect the public.

The irony is that even immigrant rights advocates opposed the more recent version of the driver’s license plan, which would have created three different types of licenses, with immigrants entitled only to a license which could not be used for i.d purposes. They argued that illegal immigrants would “never come out of the shadows” to obtain the lesser form of driver’s license, and that authorities would take advantage of the new policy by reporting the presence of the undocumented immigrants to the Department of Homeland Security.

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The Statute Of Limitations In New York is a legal term which means the time in which a lawsuit must be started to be legally sufficient. In New York State, there are numerous statutes of limitations for various different types of cases. For example, in New York motor vehicle accident cases, the statute of limitations is three years from the date of the accident. This means that even if the case is filed one day past the three year anniversary of the motor vehicle accident in New York, the case is legally defective and will be dismissed.

In New York medical malpractice cases, there is more than one type of statute of limitation, but a classic example of a doctor performing surgery on the wrong body part would have a statute of limitation of two and one half years from the date of the last treatment with that doctor.

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Britney Spears latest run in with the law in which she went through a red light and made an illegal left turn with her children in the car highlights two significant safety issues, one of which we wrote about in our April 8, 2007 blog. Namely, New York mothers driving while intoxicated with their children in the car. A video taken by TMZ.com videographers shows Ms. Spears going through a red light at a well known dangerous intersection in Los Angeles with her two young sons sleeping in the back and her court-appointed monitor in the front. Although on this occasion, Ms. Spears has not been charged with intoxication as part of her traffic offenses, her troubles with drugs, alcohol and vehicles are well documented.

The other issue is New York drivers disregarding traffic signals and routinely going through stop signs and red lights. More and more in this age of people in a hurry to get to their next destination, drivers treat traffic signals like inconvenient nuisances rather than part of the New York Vehicle & Traffic Law. For example, our office in White Plains is one block east of the intersection of Mamaroneck Avenue and Post Road. This intersection has a huge no left turn sign above the traffic lights, which drivers seemingly disregard at will, despite the fact that the intersection has been the site of multiple accidents over the years, and the frequent police presence from the City of White Plains Police Department.

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New York undercover sting operations are in full force over the last month. First, an undercover action precipitated by an advertisement in Craigslist brought the arrest on New York prostitution charges of several men who responded to this advertisement in Rye, New York. Westchester. More recently, in early November, a sting at a rest stop off of New York Interstate 684 in Bedford, New York resulted in the arrests of over 20 men, including a priest who is charged with attempting to engage in sex with an undercover officer.

Most recently, on November 8th and 9th, the Mount Vernon Patrol Task Force conducted an undercover sting operation that led to the arrests of 23 men on misdemeanor charges of patronizing a prostitute. In the Mount Vernon sting, near the Bronx border, undercover officers acted as decoys for suspects who approached the officers and allegedly offered to engage in sexual acts for money.

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In New York State Courts, the Plaintiff, or the person that is suing for money damages, has the burden of proof, meaning that the New York plaintiff must present evidence establishing that he or she is entitled to recover compensation from the defendant. Conversely, the defendant has no legal obligation to prove or disprove anything. The burden of proof in a New York civil case, which is a lawsuit for monetary damages, such as in a motor vehicle accident, or trip and fall accident, or in a case of medical malpractice, or injuries from an animal bite, to use some examples, is “a preponderance of the evidence.” A preponderance of evidence is defined as evidence establishing that it is slightly more likely than not that the defendant is legally responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries.

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The fatal car crash on New York’s Bronx River Parkway this past Wednesday has Westchester residents calling for stricter traffic enforcement. An elderly Yonkers couple, Ralph and Phyllis Cecere, were killed in the horrific car accident car crash when a Honda driven by 18 year old Justin Martinez collided with their Cadillac, which then burst into flames. According to the Journal News, a witness observed Martinez weaving in and out of traffic, driving on the shoulder of the roadway, and driving at an excessive rate of speed.

In response to numerous calls by Westchester County residents for increased traffic enforcement, the Westchester County Police Department has outlined the steps they are taking to curb aggressive driving, reckless driving, and reduce auto accidents. These steps include the following: aggressive driving details, in “low profile”, unmarked vehicles; spot speed enforcement checks; radar screens to inform drivers of their speed; and the placement of unmanned patrol cars, called “drones”, to cause drivers to slow down in the belief that the cars do have officers inside them.

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New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has unveiled a plan for a multi-tiered driver’s license which has support from the federal government yet is facing much opposition in New York, including by many representing undocumented immigrants. The plan calls for three types of licenses:

1. An enhanced driver’s license which will be as secure as a passport–this is intended for people who will soon need to meet ID requirements even for the short drive to Canada;
2. A second version which will meet federal standards under the Real ID Act, which is designed to make it harder for illegal immigrants to get licenses;

3. A third type of driver’s license which will be available to undocumented immigrants, in order to “bring those people out of the shadows” and ensure that the immigrants get driver’s training and obtain automobile insurance in New York.

Under the new administrative order of New York Governor Spitzer, New York would be the fourth state after Arizona, Vermont and Washington to agree on federally approved secure licenses. However, Governor Spitzer continues to face staunch opposition to his plan in the Republican controlled New York State Senate, which wants to ensure that “illegal immigrants will not get any version of a license.” The Senate is holding firm to the present New York State requirement that in order to obtain New York driver’s licenses, immigrants must first be in possession of a social security number.

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On October 25, 2007, the United States Senate rejected the Dream Act (Development, Relief and Education of Minors Act) by a vote of 52-44. The Dream Act would have allowed illegal immigrants who plan to attend college or join the military, and who arrived in the United States with their families before they turned 16, to become legal residents and ultimately citizens. In order to make the legislation veto proof, supporters of the Dream Act fell 8 votes short of the 60 that they needed to do so. Originally, the Dream Act was part of a broad immigration plan that would have legalized as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants and fortified the border. The broader plan failed in the Senate, as major boosters such as Senator John McCain bailed out on his support of the measure when he believed it was negatively impacting his presidential campaign chances.

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In New York, in order to win a case when you are injured in a slip/trip and fall accident, the most important factor is proving “Notice.” Notice is the legal term which means knowledge by the defendant supermarket, shopping mall, department store, other place of business, or municipality, that a particular dangerous condition existed for a period of time, and the failure of that business owner or municipality to repair that condition despite their prior knowledge.

There are two basic types of Notice which can be proven in a dangerous premises case in New York. The first is “Actual Notice.” Actual Notice is defined as knowledge which was provided to the defendant by informing them before the accident by way of a writing or conversation, that the dangerous condition existed and needed to be repaired. For example, in a Bronx trip and fall accident, before a case can be brought against the Bronx municipality, you must prove that they were warned of the broken section of the sidewalk and failed to make repairs. This is the reason that fall down accidents are so difficult to prove against municipalities–What are the chances that someone actually wrote a letter to a municipality before your accident informing the municipality that the sidewalk was cracked or not level? One advantage that we have in prosecuting cases against the 5 boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island, is the Big Apple Pothole Corporation. Essentially, what Big Apple does is chart every sidewalk in the city for defects, and then send maps to the City of New York of these specific defects, which can then be used in court to legally prove notice. Unfortunately, Big Apple’s reach does not extend past the five boroughs into the suburbs or rural New York to protect the victims of municipal negligence there.

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