Rochester Personal Injury Law Blog

The recent alleged suicide of Jeffrey Epstein raised eyebrows in New York. Many people believe that his death was no suicide, but rather, an act of silencing. Regardless of whether or not this is true, one thing is certain. Americans die in jails under mysterious and suspicious circumstances every year.

According to the New York Times, the death of a young woman in a small-town Texas jail is one such example. The recording on the young woman’s phone of the incident at the time of her arrest showed her refusal to cooperate with a trooper. This followed his alleged threat to use force following a traffic stop related to her failure to signal. The officer was indicted on perjury charges due to his untruthful report of what took place.

New York is a dangerous state to be a construction worker, due in part to construction work in the Big Apple. According to NBC New York, at one point, 30 people died due to construction-related accidents during a two-year period in New York City. One of the reasons that safety continues to be a problem is the sale of black market safety cards.

When construction workers take on big projects, they are required to complete 10 hours of safety training. A card certifies that they completed this training. One result of buying fake cards is that many of the deaths and injuries in New York result from preventable actions workers would have learned about in training.

New Yorkers who have tried to board a loved one at a nursing home before may be familiar with “no sue” agreements. These require family members, the future resident or both parties to formally agree not to sue in the event of nursing home abuse, neglect or other allegations of mistreatment. People who refuse to sign are then turned away from the facilities.

Forbes notes that in 2016, the Obama administration put an end to this practice for nursing homes that relied on Medicare or Medicaid. Facilities that received funds from these sources were banned from presenting families with “no sue” agreements.

When seeking reparations for catastrophic injuries and wrongful death, victims are often surprised by the red tape in New York. This red tape comes not only from state laws, but companies that learn to game these laws to protect themselves. The primary way companies do this is by outsourcing some functions to independent contractors who then take the fall when accidents occur.

One company that NBC Bay Area outed for doing this is Federal Express. FedEx uses third-party contractors rather than employees to deliver goods all across the United States. While the company claims to use software to ensure all independent contractors operate legally, some reporters question whether or not they act on findings. One company that slipped through the cracks led to a six-car pileup that killed two parents and a toddler and injured seven other people. The driver did not even have a valid driver’s license. FedEx’s defense? Not their employee, not their problem.