Motor Vehicle Injury — $2,000,000 Settlement
Goidel & Siegel won a 2 million-dollar settlement for an 8 year-old boy struck by a van. The incident occurred on a path in Red Hook Park, Brooklyn. The boy sustained a fracture of the distal portion of one leg’s femur. He underwent the insertion of percutaneous pins, surgical removal of the pins and the application of an external fixation device. He also underwent about one year of physical therapy.
His mother sued the van’s driver and the van’s owner, the City of New York. The boy and his mother alleged the driver was negligent in the operation of his vehicle and that the city was vicariously liable for the driver’s actions.
Fall-Down Injury — $1,000,000 Settlement
Goidel & Siegel won a million-dollar settlement for a 35 year-old female physiatrist who slipped on a puddle of grease or oil while walking down a ramp in a parking garage in Manhattan, New York City. The ramp was excessively steep, lacked handrails, lacked a non-skid surface, and did not have an intermediate landing.
The fall resulted in a fractured patella (knee), which required multiple surgeries.
Assault — $175,000 Verdict
Goidel & Siegel won an award of damages in the amount of $175,000 for a 43 year-old man who was mugged in the lobby of his apartment building on Staten Island. There had been no locks on the lobby doors in the five years prior to the incident, and there was a history of criminal activity around the building, including shootings, mugging, and drug-dealing.
Assailants struck the plaintiff on the head from behind as he entered the building. The assault resulted in a fractured zygomatic arch (cheek bone) of the right eye, and surgery was required to repair the bone. The fracture had not healed properly and the plaintiff had a visible depression that will require surgery in the future.
‘Lawyer Claims Police Brutality’
(New York Post, July 18, 2006)
BY IKIMULISA LIVINGSTON
A graphic video released yesterday shows undercover cops in the violent arrest of an alleged Queens drug dealer — wrestling him to the ground and kneeling on his body to cuff him.
A lawyer for Oscar Arzeno, 22, a college student majoring in criminal justice, claimed his client was attacked in a vicious case of police brutality.
The view of the confrontation is at times blocked by a door frame and the blur of bodies.
But the lawyer said the tape shows Arzeno was struck and kicked in the head.
“There comes a point in the tape, regardless of what he’s charged with, when he’s already subdued, lying prone and one officer stomps on his head twice with the full weight of his body,” said the lawyer, Jonathan Goidel.
“We believe it to be police brutality.”
According to Goidel, Arzeno was surrounded by cops last Tuesday near his girlfriend’s apartment building in Flushing.
The lawyer claimed Arzeno became frightened by the encounter — and darted into the building to flee what he believed were civilian attackers.
“The videotape shows him trying to gain access to his girlfriend’s apartment building,” he said.
“You then see him brought down, eventually assaulted in the vestibule by cops.”
After a nearly three-minute struggle, Arzeno’s hands are cuffed behind him and he is picked up and dragged out the entrance.
Police claim Arzeno was dealing drugs — and ultimately resisted arrest.
Goidel said the violence unfolded near the apartment when Arzeno was surrounded by the plain-clothes officers.
“He did not know they were cops,” Goidel said. “And they didn’t identify themselves as cops. He broke free and ran to his girlfriend’s building. He then gets pummeled.”
Goidel claims Arzeno suffered a fractured skull, a fractured jaw and cuts.
The lawyer said Arzeno had no drugs or weapons on him when he was taken into custody.
But a spokesman for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Arzeno and a co-defendant, Jeffrey Jackson, had sold two Ziploc bags of cocaine to undercover officers at the intersection of Franklin Avenue and Colden Street.
Arzeno was charged with drug dealing near a school and resisting arrest, and arraigned July 14.
The DA’s spokesman said the matter now “is under investigation.”
Fall-Down Injury — $100,000 Settlement
Goidel & Siegel won an award of damages in the amount of $100,000 for a 64 year-old home care attendant who tripped and fell over an uneven slab of a public sidewalk. The plaintiff claimed that the roots of a bush pushing up the slab caused the unsafe condition. The defendant was the owner of the property adjacent to the sidewalk.
The fall resulted in the fracture of a finger, requiring the placement of a pin.
‘Gift of Free Leg for Injured Teen’
(New York Daily News, March 1, 2006)
BY TONY SCLAFANI
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU
An artificial limb company pledged yesterday to help a Queens teen who lost a leg in a chain reaction crash outside his high school, as the youth was being prepped for crucial surgery today.
Andrew Tsai, 19, lost his right leg in the Monday morning smashup in front of Francis Lewis High School. The critically injured senior was set to undergo surgery today in a bid to save his partially severed left leg.
As Tsai remained under heavy sedation at Bellevue Hospital, Stuart Weiner, the director of Hazlet, N.J.-based Nouveau Prosthetics and Orthotics, said he wanted to help the teen.
“I would like to be able to get Andrew walking again,” Weiner said. “When I heard about this particular child, I felt strongly that I wanted to help out.”
Relatives were keeping a vigil at the hospital, praying today’s operation is a success.
“He doesn’t know what’s going on yet,” said Tsai’s aunt, Yuki Tsai, 51.
“We just pray that the doctors can save the leg. Maybe in the future, he can still walk.”
Tsai, a senior, was outside Francis Lewis High at 9 a.m. when a car rear-ended an air-conditioning van, pushing the vehicle onto the sidewalk and pinning him underneath, cops said.
The driver whose car triggered the accident, Zongling Zhu, was in stable condition yesterday at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens.
Zhu, 48, of Fresh Meadows, who allegedly ran a red light while racing from an earlier wreck nearby, was charged with felony assault and other offenses, cops said.
“We are so mad at the driver,” said Yuki Tsai.