Category: News

A trip and fall on the upper west side building leads to a fractured pelvis

On April 25, 2016, our client went to visit a friend who lived on the upper west side of Manhattan. 

Upon leaving her friend’s apartment, our client took the elevator from the fifth floor to the lobby. When the elevator got to the lobby, she opened the elevator door and stopped to hold the door open for another woman who was entering the elevator.

The lobby floor where our client fell and fractured her pelvis

 While holding the elevator door open, our client was standing on top of a landing that was elevated six inches above the lobby floor.  When she let go of the elevator door, our client took a few steps towards the lobby of the building.  Unaware of the height difference between the landing she was standing on and the lobby floor, she fell over the six inch riser, landing on the left side of her body on the lobby floor. Schulman Blitz, LLP’s investigation revealed that the building’s lobby was in violation of the New York City building code, and that the building’s owners had been issued citations by the New York City Department of Buildings for these violations prior to our client’s accident.  The building’s lobby had many other code violations that the landlord did not repair, making it a dangerous condition for anyone who came through the building. 

After our client fell, an ambulance was called and she was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital’s emergency room where she was diagnosed with various fractured bones in her pelvis, including a displaced transverse fracture of the left inferior and superior pubic rami, a non-displaced fracture of the left sacral ala, a non-displaced fracture of the left anterior acetabulum, as well as a medial meniscus tear of her knee.

  Our client was admitted to Mt. Sinai Hospital for three days, then was transferred to a rehabilitation facility where she remained an inpatient for over a month. Once she was discharged to her home, she required at home healthcare aid and underwent a course of physical and occupational therapy. Justin Blitz, Esq. settled our client’s case for $300,000 shortly after depositions were held.

Schulman Blitz, LLP’s client was a passenger in her friend’s jeep when a New York City Department of Sanitation truck made a left turn in front of their Jeep which was proceeding straight through a Brooklyn intersection, causing a devastating collision.As a result of the crash, our client suffered a concussion, severe facial lacerations, and a fracture to her wrist.

Our client also suffered a carpal tunnel injury to her wrist which required surgery. Carpal Tunnel release surgery is done with an endoscope, a thin flexible tube with a camera attached.

The endoscope is guided through a small incision made at either the wrist or palm. The endoscope allows the doctor to see the transverse carpal ligament which is then cut, releasing pressure on the median nerve, relieving carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms.

After many years of litigation, on the eve of trial, Justin Blitz, Esq. settled our client’s case for $275,000.

Schulman Blitz, LLP’s client, a grandfather and owner of an auto body shop in Astoria, was on his way to his sister’s apartment when he tripped and fell on a broken sidewalk in front of a hotel.

As a result of the fall, he tore the rotator cuff in his shoulder, requiring a surgical repair which included the insertion of surgical anchors. During the course of the litigation, Schulman Blitz, LLP was able to prove that the sidewalk defect that caused our client to fall existed for at least 9 years before the accident took place and the hotel’s owners took no steps to try to repair the defect. page6image11752 page6image11912

Shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin, Stephanie Mastrocola, Esq. and Justin Blitz, Esq. settled the case at an out of court mediation for $180,000 with the insurance company for the hotel.

On February 2, 2014, Schulman Blitz, LLP‘s client and a group of his friends were attending a bachelor party in Manhattan.  After the festivities had concluded, our client and his friends were on a party bus on their way home to Long Island. While driving eastbound on the Long Island Expressway, the party bus driver stopped the bus in right hand lane of travel and directed our client and the other passengers to get off the bus in order to assist a Police Officer from the NYPD’s Mounted Unit whose horse trailer had become detached from his NYPD vehicle and was disabled on the right hand shoulder of the LIE. The NYPD officer directed our client and his fellow bachelor party attendees who got off the bus to help lift and reattach the horse trailer to the back of his NYPD vehicle.   As they were about to lift the horse trailer, a car being driven by a drunk driver crashed into the rear of the horse trailer, which subsequently struck our client  who went careening into the air and landed on the pavement head first.  Our client lost consciousness, was bleeding, and his entire body was contorted. The injuries our client sustained from the crash included fractures to his ribs and injuries to his back, knee and brain. Our client’s knee injuries required him to undergo an  arthroscopic surgery to repair a tear to his posterior cruciate ligament. Our client’s injuries to his back required him to undergo a lumbar spine laminectomy and fusion surgery.  The surgery to his back required implanting  a prosthetic device to fuse the vertebrae at the L4-L5 levels of his spine. The surgeon inserted screws and a metal rod in his lumbar spine to repair the damage. A few days before the trial was set to begin, the parties agreed to enter into a private mediation with former Appellate Division, Second Department Justice Peter Skelos.  At the mediation,  Justin Blitz, Esq. and Fred Schulman, Esq. settled our client’s case for $1,300,000,00.

On September 24, 2008, our client Marcia, a 65-year-old woman who was employed as a psychologist at a local New York City hospital, was on her way home from work and was heading towards her apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. She was crossing 71st Street at its intersection with Broadway when she was struck by a car that was heading south on Broadway.

As we all know, there are often three sides to a story. In this instance, we only had one side. We don’t know exactly how the accident occurred. The driver of the vehicle said that he was the first car in line waiting for the light to change for cars to proceed south on Broadway. The defendant driver claimed that when the light turned green, he began to move and Marcia “darted out” into the street, and he did not have a chance to stop before striking her.

Yet the driver’s story didn’t make much sense. For one, Marcia had been living in Manhattan for 38 years, crossing that same street everyday, and had never “darted out” into the street before. Also, there was a witness to the accident who told a different version of events, yet this witness died shortly after the accident took place. Additionally, when the driver told his version of events at a subsequent deposition, there were many inconsistencies throughout his testimony regarding how the accident occurred.
Unfortunately, Marcia never got to tell her side of the story. When the car struck Marcia, her head hit the pavement and she suffered a devastating traumatic brain injury. Marcia’s injury did not manifest itself right away. After the accident, Marcia spent three days in St. Luke’s Hospital where she was treated for her head trauma. As weeks went by after the accident, Marcia began to have headaches, started to forget things, and became unable to go to work and treat her patients.
As the weeks turned into months, Marcia started losing the ability to recall basic facts. She would forget where she lived, what her name was, and the names of her family members. She would wake up to go to work and forget how to get to her office.
Marcia’s family, based in Chicago, became concerned and flew to New York to help Marcia. Marcia started getting various treatments with neuropsychologists and traumatic brain injury specialists, all of whom were stunned by the decline in her memory and cognitive skills.
Eventually, Marcia had to completely leave her psychology practice and was forced to move to Chicago where she entered an assisted living facility near her family. She resides there today and now requires 24 hour assistance with all aspects of her life. She has little memory of her life before this accident took place.
Schulman Blitz, LLP brought a lawsuit on Marcia’s behalf against the driver and owner of the car that struck Marcia.
The insurance company for the car claimed that that their driver was not responsible for Marcia’s accident and would not offer any money to settle the case. In the interim years, the cost of Marcia’s care became tremendous and increasingly burdensome on her family.
Earlier this year, we began preparing for trial and the case was scheduled to go to trial this fall. We were eager to finally get a chance to tell what we believed to be Marcia’s version of events, yet we had many concerns as to the difficulties that the case presented at trial. For example, Marcia had no recollection of the accident, and by this point, she was not able to articulate herself in any meaningful way.
As the trial approached, after extensive and intense negotiations with the car’s insurance company,
Schulman Blitz, LLP was able to procure a settlement for Marcia in the amount of $250,000, which represented the vast majority of the car’s available insurance.
When we at Schulman Blitz, LLP settle a case for our clients, there is always a feeling of gratification when we are able to hand the client their settlement check at the conclusion of a case. In this instance, due to Marcia’s condition, we never had that opportunity, and we sent her check to her brother in Chicago as he is responsible for taking care of Marcia’s legal and financial affairs.
When Marcia’s brother Frank received the settlement check, he sent us a short note. The note replaces the feeling of satisfaction that we were unable to have since we could not hand Marcia her check personally.

Fred Schulman, Esq. and Justin Blitz, Esq. recently settled a medical malpractice/wrongful death case for $2 million. Our client was the wife of a

Our client was the wife of a 22-year-old man with two young children who went to his doctor complaining of various symptoms including rapid weight loss and excessive thirst.  The doctor didn’t realize that he was suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis and sent him home.  Three days later, he was unable to breathe and went to the emergency room of a local hospital where he was admitted and his condition continued to deteriorate until he passed away two days later.

The doctor didn’t realize that he was suffering from diabetic ketoacidosis and sent him home.  Three days later, he was unable to breathe and went to the emergency room of a local hospital where he was admitted and his condition continued to deteriorate until he passed away two days later.

Schulman Blitz, LLP sued the doctor and the hospital for medical malpractice and wrongful death.  We secured a $2 million settlement for the benefit of his wife and children.

Schulman Blitz, LLP’s client was a passenger on a BoltBus that was traveling from Baltimore to New York City. As the bus was exiting the Manhattan side of the Lincoln Tunnel, it collided with a car, dragging the car against the side of the tunnel exit wall.

As a result of the impact with the car, our client was thrown into the stairwell of the bus, severely injuring her shoulder and knee. Our client’s knee injury required arthroscopic surgical repair, as did her shoulder injury.

Our client tore her biceps tendon and rotator cuff tendon developing a “frozen” shoulder. She required arthroscopic surgery to repair her SLAP lesion in her shoulder.

After the completion of depositions, Schulman Blitz’s senior associate Stephanie Mastrocola, Esq. settled our client’s cases for $360,000 with the insurance company for the car and BoltBus.

Our client was a passenger in a yellow cab when the driver lost control and struck a parked vehicle. As a result of the heavy impact, our client’s face struck the plexiglass divider of the taxi, which caused her to sustain a fractured nasal bone and a deviated nasal septum.

At the time of the accident, our client was an aspiring opera singer who was pursuing her Masters Degree at the Manhattan School of Music. After the accident, she began to have voice difficulties which affected her singing. Thomas Schiro, Esq. and Fred Schulman, Esq. settled our client’s case at mediation with the insurance company for the taxi cab for a confidential amount.

Trevor Noah has sued the Hospital for Special Surgery and an orthopedic surgeon following an alleged botched surgery last year.

The 37-year-old host of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court against the hospital and orthopedic surgeon Riley Williams III alleging they were negligent while he was in their care.

Noah was treated at the hospital between August 2020 and December 2020 for “various medical conditions and other related treatment, including surgery which was performed on November 23, 2020,” says the suit, filed Nov. 29.

The suit claims the hospital and Williams failed to properly diagnose Noah’s illness and condition, failed to refer him to specialists and medical personnel with proper skill and training, and negligently performed surgery, among a slew of other accusations.

Noah’s attorney, Justin Blitz, claims the comedian “sustained permanent, severe and grievous injuries.” The lawsuit does not seek a specific sum of money.

Read More: Daily News

On June 25, two men caught fire in a Sag Harbor Goop store. On this, everyone involved — the brand, the men, witnesses, authorities — agrees. But in the intervening weeks, confusion and conflicting accounts have muddied what initially looked like a straightforward (if wild) explanation: According to the East Hampton police blotter, candles exploded after someone added rubbing alcohol into the mix, leaving the two men with serious burns.

Publicly, Goop has said little about the incident aside from taking pains to clarify that candles were in no way involved. In recent years, multiple customers have complained about Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina candles combusting spectacularly inside their homes. However, Goop would like to make clear that sexy votives did not contribute to the blaze. “There was an accidental fire in connection with a s’mores station at the Goop store recently,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to the Cut. “We are wishing a speedy recovery to the two injured parties and are grateful there were no additional injuries. No candles were in use at the time of the accidental fire.”

The spokesperson declined to provide any more information about what may have caused the fire or whether rubbing alcohol was involved. But according to attorney Justin Blitz — whose firm, Blitz Law Group, handles personal-injury cases and who is representing the two injured men — that is how the whole thing started. According to Blitz, both men were servers at Little Gem, a New York–based catering company (which, for the record, is owned by Blitz’s wife; she confirmed the mens’ injuries). Blitz believes they were “bystanders and victims” of an explosion that occurred at a s’mores station set up as part of a Goop party, where customers were roasting marshmallows over a rectangular stone container emitting a row of flames. The Cut has reviewed footage of this device in action, and a quick spin around Amazon reveals a number of similar-looking products that specify isopropyl alcohol as the preferred fuel. This does not seem like a good or safe idea for a crowd, seeing as rubbing alcohol is highly flammable, but it may help explain the following events.

Read More: The Cut