Blog

Binghamton, NY (PRWEB) January 17, 2011

New York drivers should use the start of a new year to review their auto insurance coverage and decide whether it will provide the financial protection they need after a crash, Binghamton car accident attorneyScott C. Gottlieb says.

“Many people purchase the minimum insurance they need to register their car and get their license plates, but you can hit that threshold quickly if you are in an accident – even if it’s a minor one,” Gottlieb says.

“That’s why it’s a good idea to review your policy and assess whether it’s going to be enough to cover your car damage, medical expenses, lost wages and other items if you are involved in an auto accident.”

Gottlieb is an experienced Binghamton personal injury attorney whose law firm, Scott C. Gottlieb, Injury Law Attorney, represents car accident and injury victims throughout Broome County and surrounding New York State communities.

Over the course of his 30-year legal career, Gottlieb says he has observed several instances in which the victim of a car crash caused by another driver’s negligence lacked auto insurance coverage that would adequately compensate them.

New York law requires drivers to purchase:

•      No Fault/Personal Injury Protection (PIP): This provides for up to $50,000 coverage per person for accident-related expenses no matter who was at fault. This covers the driver, passengers and pedestrians. It does not provide coverage to motorists who are driving while intoxicated or driving a motorcycle.
•      Third-party liability: This covers motorists who are sued for causing bodily injury or death to another driver. New York law requires minimum amounts of $25,000 for bodily injury to one person ($50,000 for two or more), $50,000 for death and $10,000 for property damage.

•      Uninsured Motorist (UM): This covers bodily injury suffered when a motorist is in an accident with a driver who has no insurance or is involved in a hit-and-run accident. New York law requires drivers to carry the same minimum UM limits as are required for liability insurance.

According to Gottlieb, a problem may arise when a car accident victim’s damages and expenses go beyond these minimum insurance requirements, such as when expenses exceed a driver’s PIP limits and the at-fault driver’s liability insurance fails to cover the remainder.

When reviewing their auto insurance policies, Gottlieb suggests that New York drivers look into purchasing additional PIP coverage or underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage to protect them in such a situation.

“Insurance issues and disputes with insurance companies can become very complex and contentious, and that’s why it’s important to consult with an experienced New York car accident attorney if you are involved in a car accident,” Gottlieb says.

Source

From today’s editorials: Businesses overpay on workers compensation insurance, and New York gets a windfall. That’s fair?

_______________________________

One of the last things Andrew Cuomo did as attorney general was announce that his office had secured a $120 million settlement from four insurance groups that had overcharged businesses for workers’ compensation coverage. But businesses won’t see a dime of the money they overpaid, thanks to the state Legislature.

Instead, the state, like some kind of Robin Hood gone bad, is keeping the victims’ money for itself.

As the attorney general’s office explains it, the Workers’ Compensation Board charges annual fees to insurers, which in turn pass the costs on to policyholders. A decade ago, the board changed calculations, but it apparently caused some confusion, resulting in some insurers charging too little to their clients, and some insurers charging too much.

In particular, 36 insurance companies that are part of four insurance groups — ACE, Zurich, Pennsylvania Manufacturers, and CNA — overcharged their policyholders, according to Mr. Cuomo.

The state learned of the overcharges, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver asked the attorney general’s office to investigate. The Legislature also took steps to make sure the industry ended the overcharges. So far, so good. But then, lawmakers required in the 2009 and 2010 budget bills that the excess charges to be returned — to the state, that is, not to businesses.

Mr. Silver, who joined Mr. Cuomo in a press release praising the recovery, may be pleased with the outcome, but just who has been made whole here? These overcharges didn’t come out of the state’s pocket in the first place. Keeping money that rightfully belonged to employers does nothing but turn these overcharges into a back door tax.

The Legislature’s money grab also taints the office of the attorney general. We realize these are tough financial times for the state, but that doesn’t justify using the attorney general’s office as New York’s ambulance chaser, capitalizing on victims to make a fast buck.

Mr. Cuomo, who was sworn in as governor a few hours after he announced that settlement, should work with the Legislature to do the right thing and ensure that this money gets to the employers it was taken from in the first place. And, as he prepares the state’s next executive budget, to make sure that New York doesn’t solve its fiscal problems by skimming any more money that was wrongly taken from its citizens or businesses.

Railroad employees often perform dangerous work in environments rife with potential for disaster. In the early 1900s, work conditions for rail employees were so hazardous that Congress passed the Federal Employment Liability Act, commonly known as FELA. FELA provides a uniform system of safety expectations and legal redress for railroad workers injured on the job.

However, a recent investigation conducted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica found that injured railway workers increasingly face significant challenges in obtaining compensation for their injuries. In several lawsuits against a major railroad company for employee injuries, key evidence has been lost or destroyed in the hands of the railroad company.

Federal Employment Liability Act (FELA)

Employees covered by FELA are not covered by the regular workers’ compensation statute. Instead, rail workers injured on the job must pursue a claim for legal compensation through FELA.

Through a FELA lawsuit, an injured rail worker may obtain compensation for:
-Past and future medical treatment
-Past and future wage loss
-Past and future pain, suffering and mental distress.

Generally, under workers’ compensation, anyone injured while working is compensated, regardless of who was at fault for the injury. Unlike workers’ compensation, FELA states that railroad companies are liable for injuries to their employees only if the railroad company was negligent or failed to meet applicable safety standards.

Comparative Negligence for Injured Railroad Workers

In addition, the amount of money an injured rail worker receives for a successful FELA claim is reduced by the worker’s percentage of fault in causing the accident. For example, after a trial, a jury may award $100,000 to an injured a railroad worker. Because FELA uses a system called comparative negligence, the jury will then allocate the percentage of fault between the injured worker and the railroad company. If the jury finds the employee is 25 percent at fault, the award will be reduced by 25 percent to $75,000.

Railroad Injury Statistics and Liability Costs

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) operates one of the largest railroad networks in the U.S. The company moves freight throughout the U.S. and Canada, generating $14 billion in revenue in 2009, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune also reported that accidents and work injuries are a significant expense for BNSF; its insurance subsidiary paid more than $100 million each year to resolve legal claims against BNSF from 2007 to 2009.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration, more than 500 people have been killed and almost 1,700 injured in about 4,100 accidents involving BNSF trains or crossings in the last 10 years. BNSF stated that civil judgments against the company were issued in 118 cases over the same time period.

Rail Companies’ Legal Misconduct

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and ProPublica injured BNSF employees have encountered significant difficulty in litigation with the railroad company since 2000.

BNSF or its lawyers have been cited for legal misconduct in 13 cases involving train collisions or workplace injuries, primarily for obstructive discovery practices including losing, withholding or destroying evidence. In four cases, judges declared mistrials or ordered new trials because the company or its lawyers had engaged in significant misconduct.

One example of losing evidence comes from a Kansas case, in which BNSF was accused of removing evidence from an accident scene where a company brakeman was severely injured when hit by a train. Two BNSF crew members testified during trial that a supervisor said he would keep an oncoming train out of the work area. BNSF claimed that the crew was never told the train would be held, and it faulted the brakeman for stepping into the train’s path.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BNSF did not locate the brakeman’s two-way radio the night of the accident and then later lost the radio when someone found it and turned it in. Since one of the key issues in the case was the brakeman’s location was when he struck, having the radio would have helped accident-reconstruction experts determine where exactly he was. In addition to losing this key evidence, BNSF gave conflicting answers as to whether its workers marked the place on the tracks where the train stopped, which also would have assisted with the accident reconstruction.

Another example of lost evidence comes from a case in Missouri, in which BNSF lost the ladder involved in an employee accident. A worker was cleaning windows in a locomotive shop when he claimed his ladder collapsed, requiring him to have back surgery and take narcotics for chronic pain.

During the trial, BNSF offered another ladder as evidence to prove the ladder was in safe working condition. After the injured cleaner testified that the substitute ladder was completely different from the ladder he was using at the time of his injury, the judge refused to allow it as evidence, reported the newspaper. The jury awarded the worker $5.5 million, an award that was later upheld by the Missouri Court of Appeals.

BNSF is not the only railroad company cited for misconduct in legal proceedings. According to a 2004 New York Times report, Union Pacific was sanctioned seven times for destroying or failing to preserve evidence from July 2001 to January 2003.

As the Minneapolis Star Tribune and ProPublica investigation demonstrates, lawsuits against railroad companies can be challenging. Therefore, the assistance of a lawyer experienced in FELA claims and railroad injury cases is invaluable. If you or a loved one has been injured while working for a railroad company, contact an attorney experienced in handling FELA claims to discuss your legal options.

Source

WEST PALM BEACH — A long-standing controversy over a back procedure performed on car accident victims has sparked a new war of lawsuits between insurance giant State Farm and doctors and workers from a local surgery center.

State Farm Insurance Co. filed a federal lawsuit early Tuesday against Palm Beach Lakes Surgery Center doctors Jeffrey Kugler, Jane Bistline and Jonathan Cutler as well as two men who helped managed the practice – Gary Carroll and Mark Izydore. The suit alleges the group worked with a medical manufacturer and local law firms to inflate prices for unnecessary medical procedures that cost the insurers more than $13 million.

The doctors fired back with a defamation suit against State Farm in Palm Beach Circuit court just hours later, claiming the insurance company’s allegations are part of a scheme to keep from paying claims.

“This is not something new. This is what State Farm does when there’s a threat to their bottom line” Anthony Vitale, one of the surgery center’s attorneys, said of State Farm’s suit. “It’s a completely bogus lawsuit.”

Surgery center attorney Robert Wilkins filed the suit on behalf of the doctors along with Miami attorneys Michael Kauffman and Vitale, who said the groups traded lawsuits Tuesday after State Farm pulled out of an agreement the parties reached in 2008 not to sue one another. Attorneys for the surgery center had sued State Farm earlier that year but later dropped the suit.

At the center of both suits are a diagnostic test and a procedure called a percutaneous discectomy, a minimally-invasive back procedure which doctors say alleviates back pain.

At the surgery center, Bistline performed the diagnostic test and Kugler and other doctors performed the back procedure using a controversial medical device called the SpineWand.

Cutler, one of the surgery center’s founders, also founded the company DiscoCare to distribute the SpineWand. Cutler later sold the company to ArthroCare for $25 million.

By March of this year, SpineWand manufacturer ArthroCare had paid nearly $7 million in settlements to insurance companies – including $2.5 million to State Farm – over objections to billing practices of the DiscoCare subsidiary, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

State Farm attorneys in Tuesday’s suit say the surgery center’s doctors engaged in a fraudulent billing practices They also name Kugler and Bistline’s private practices as defendants.

The suit alleges that Carroll and Izydore, a convicted felon, coordinated the doctors’ activities and maintained relationships with personal injury attorneys “to knowingly profit from the medically unnecessary procedures, according to the suit. The insurers claim Carroll and Izydore used their management company, Palm Beach Practice Management, Inc., another listed defendant, to funnel profits from the procedures.

Although the firm wasn’t named as a defendant in the suit, State Farm attorneys named the local law firm Steinger, Iscoe and Greene in their lawsuit, saying the firm represented at least 59 patients who had the procedure.

David Spector, the West Palm Beach attorney who filed State Farm’s suit, declined to comment on the case Tuesday, as did State Farm Florida spokesman Chris Neal, saying the litigation was ongoing.

According to the doctors’ suit against State Farm, the Florida Department of Health in 2008 dismissed accusations State Farm filed against them a year earlier alleging fraud.

Vitale says that State Farm’s tactics are similar to the attacks they launched against the use of other medical procedures, like the MRI, when they were first introduced.

The surgery center’s attorneys in their suit against State Farm said leading medical schools, including Harvard Medical School, John Hopkins University and Stanford Medical School, all teach their students the back procedure.

As for the number of surgery center patients who were also Steinger firm clients, Vitale said there’s nothing wrong with doctors and accident injury attorneys referring patients to one another.

He called the allegations yet another ploy from the insurance company to keep their profits high.

“What they’re doing is taking every pretext they possibly can to deny every patient their right to treatment,” he said.

Nearly one out of every five no-fault auto insurance claims closed in the New York City area in 2010 appears to have elements of fraud, according to a new study from the Insurance Research Council (IRC).

And as many as one in three claims appears to be inflated, the group said, after a review of claims from 2007 to 2010 found the percentage of no-fault claims in the New York City area with the appearance of claim abuse rose from 29 percent to 35 percent.

“The apparent amount of fraud and excessive billing by some health care providers in the New York City metropolitan area is truly stunning when compared to the rest of the state,” said Elizabeth Sprinkel, senior vice president of the IRC.

The IRC’s study, New York’s No-Fault System: Preliminary Findings From Closed Auto Injury Claims, found that elements of fraud appeared in 22 percent of all New York City metropolitan area no-fault auto insurance claims — known as personal injury protection (PIP) claims — closed in the fall of 2010. Under New York’s statewide no-fault auto insurance system, PIP is the portion of an auto insurance policy that covers the treatment of injuries to the driver and passengers of the policyholder’s car.

The study also revealed that another 14 percent of the New York City area claims appear to involve either overbilling or excessive utilization of medical services, otherwise known as claims buildup. “While this may not rise to the level of criminal fraud, New York’s honest drivers are essentially subsidizing unscrupulous health care providers when instances occur,” Sprinkel said.

When the IRC looked at PIP claims filed in New York state outside of the New York City metropolitan area, elements of fraud were found in only 4 percent of closed claims. In addition, signs of claim buildup were found in just 4 percent of all upstate PIP claims.

Other key downstate/upstate discrepancies documented in the IRC report include the following:

• In 2010, the typical PIP claims payout for claimants in the New York City area was nearly two times the payout for claimants in the rest of the state.
• 44 percent of New York City area PIP claimants visited four or more health care providers in 2010, whereas only 14 percent of claimants elsewhere in the state did the same.
• In 2010, New York City area claimants were much more likely to seek treatment from chiropractors, physical therapists, and acupuncturists than their upstate counterparts.
• For the majority of claimants, health care providers charged auto insurers far more than the state’s established fee schedule for their services.
• Compared to claimants in the rest of the state, New York City area claimants were significantly more likely to have their health care providers represented by attorneys.

“The preliminary findings from this study confirm that the New York City area is a hotbed for auto insurance fraud and that the problem has grown worse in recent years,” Sprinkel said. “We hope these findings will help policymakers understand the specific behaviors that are driving auto insurance costs so that they canbegin to fashion effective responses to the issue.”