pdaly@stark-stark.com
609.895.7389
Paul Daly is a Shareholder and member of Stark & Stark's Accident & Personal Injury Group where he concentrates his practice in the areas of catastrophic personal injury, products liability, insurance and contract litigation, and automobile and general negligence. Mr. Daly is certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Certified Civil Trial Attorney. In 2005 Mr. Daly was named as a New Jersey Super Lawyer by New Jersey Monthly Magazine.
In order to successfully file a claim after you have fallen at a commercial property requires proof that the liquid was present long enough for the property owner to find it and remove it. Proving this fact can be a difficult evidential issue.
However, a second legal theory allows proofs that the operators “mode of operation” probably caused the condition. For example, if dishes or glassware is routinely carried through a particular area of a restaurant, it’s assumed that spills are likely to occur in this location and it is no surprise for the owners that these areas need more frequent inspection and clean up.
Thus, the owner is “on notice” of the problem because his workers are creating it and he has to be attentive to keeping this problem at bay and the area safe and dry.
Paul Daly is a member of Stark & Stark’s Lawrenceville, New Jersey office, specializing in Accident & Personal Injury Law. For more information, please contact Mr. Daly.
New drivers need to know one of the more dangerous maneuvers in driving is the left turn. The jury charge on this type of accident says, “With respect to a left-hand turn, involving as it does a movement across the path of other traffic, the risk of harm is ordinarily increased beyond that which exists when a motor vehicle is proceeding along a direct course.” The increased danger requires an increased amount of care.
Most experienced lawyers who handle auto accident cases will routinely assess 90% responsibility for the happening of the accident on the operator making the left turn.
If a left turn is attempted from a driveway and involves crossing a lane of traffic and entering another it can be a very, very difficult maneuver, particularly on busy commercial stretches of road. I have told my children who are now drivers to not take any chances. Sometimes it is easier to make a right turn and stop for a left turn into a driveway, than a right turn out of the driveway to accomplish access to the lane of travel with less risk. This allows the driver to handle one lane of traffic for observations at a time instead of two, one from each direction.
Paul Daly is a member of Stark & Stark’s Lawrenceville, New Jersey office, specializing in Accident & Personal Injury Law. For more information, please contact Mr. Daly.
If you get hurt while working out because of the gym’s poor maintenance of equipment or some other condition, you may have no recourse against the gym owner. New Jersey Courts have upheld a waiver of the right to sue unless the gym was grossly negligent or reckless. This is a much more difficult standard. Gyms have placed such waiver terms in their membership agreements for years but public policy arguments against them carried the day in the Courts until a recent change when the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld such a term and ruled in favor of the gym.
So be aware of what you’re signing, because those small paragraphs may affect your future and while the contract probably won’t be negotiable, perhaps a better, safer, newer gym deserves a look.
Paul Daly is a member of Stark & Stark’s Lawrenceville, New Jersey office, specializing in Accident & Personal Injury Law. For more information, please contact Mr. Daly.
They are everywhere. So if you step in one and get hurt, or your car is damaged by one, or
hitting one precipitates a car accident can you do anything about it? The answer is: sometimes. What people don’t often appreciate is that responsibility for long standing problems such as potholes or dead trees overhanging roadways require notice to the public entity who owns the problem site. Many municipal entities maintain pothole lists and a phone call advising the municipality puts them on notice that a problem exists and should be addressed.
The second defense to a potential recovery is the inability of the municipal entity to address such matters and the prioritization of these problems by that municipality. The defense often is raised that there were insufficient funds to address particular issues which are relatively minor (pothole repair vs. snow removal) which all come out of the same budget.
Therefore, the solution to potential claims by vehicle operators or pedestrians regarding such issues begins with a call to the municipality or an inspection or some other means of showing that they knew of the problem but failed to address it in a timely manner when they were quite capable of doing so.
Of course, for private property owners, with much less territory to care for, these defenses often fail or are not available at all.
There are a multitude of types of evidence: statements by parties, evidence via experts in a particular field, and demonstrative evidence, among many others. Demonstrative evidence is often key to winning a particular case.
Demonstrative evidence is diagrams, objects or photographs. It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. In many, many cases, a photograph taken at the time of an incident or shortly thereafter is of immense importance. This is often key to showing a negligently maintained condition or property or the extent of damage to a car or bruising to an individual to demonstrate an injury to a particular area of the body. In any event, this is a particular area in which a client can do very much to assist themselves in a successful claim. Take a picture. Take several pictures from close up and a distance. Have a relative take a picture on or as soon after an accident as possible. Attorneys should visit a scene after an accident to determine any changes in condition and obtain those same photographs, potential witness availability, etc. that may be demonstrated by a visit to the scene. In the absence of evidence from a client this is often a crucial first step in pursuing a claim successfully. In summary, the best evidence to start many cases is a simple photograph taken by the client that preserves “evidentially” the key to winning a case years down the road and through the adversity of defense witnesses and lawyers.
There are a multitude of types of evidence: statements by parties, evidence via experts in a particular field, and demonstrative evidence, among many others. Demonstrative evidence is often key to winning a particular case.
Demonstrative evidence is diagrams, objects or photographs. It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. In many, many cases, a photograph taken at the time of an incident or shortly thereafter is of immense importance. This is often key to showing a negligently maintained condition or property or the extent of damage to a car or bruising to an individual to demonstrate an injury to a particular area of the body. In any event, this is a particular area in which a client can do very much to assist themselves in a successful claim. Take a picture. Take several pictures from close up and a distance. Have a relative take a picture on or as soon after an accident as possible. Attorneys should visit a scene after an accident to determine any changes in condition and obtain those same photographs, potential witness availability, etc. that may be demonstrated by a visit to the scene. In the absence of evidence from a client this is often a crucial first step in pursuing a claim successfully. In summary, the best evidence to start many cases is a simple photograph taken by the client that preserves “evidentially” the key to winning a case years down the road and through the adversity of defense witnesses and lawyers.
The following situation is an occurrence that happens all too often: after having been seriously injured as a result of someone else’s negligence, someone walks into our office to discuss their legal options; yet, unbeknownst to them, their legal options are non-existent, and any potential case they may have had has already been foreclosed due to the fact that they had expressly given up their right to sue. Usually this comes in the form of a ‘waiver’ of some sort, though such a document can take on various other labels, such as ‘exculpatory agreement,’ ‘release,’ ‘hold-harmless agreement,’ or ‘assumption of risk,’ just to name a few.
Yet it has become clear that most people do not give much thought to the waivers they sign, if they are even aware in the first place that what they are signing is actually a waiver. Unfortunately, despite the fact that most other states have determined that such waivers are unenforceable as being inherently unfair, and although these waivers are ‘disfavored’ for obvious public policy reasons, they are still legal in New Jersey. In fact, the validity of contractual provisions limiting one’s right to sue has recently been affirmed by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Stelluti v Powerhouse Gym, 203 N.J. 286 (2010). In that case, a new fitness club member specifically informed the instructor that she was inexperienced and would require assistance, yet when she was injured during a spin class when the handlebars of her bike became dislodged, the Court held that one is presumed to understand the terms of an exculpatory agreement and therefore the injured person was precluded from suing the gym for its negligence.
As a result, waivers now permeate virtually any activity where liability is potentially involved, ranging from somewhat abnormal endeavors such as eating extremely spicy foods, to more normal everyday activities like going to a gym or getting your ears pierced. Thus, given their prevalence in today’s society, it is especially important to carefully read the language in anything to which you affix your signature so that you are aware of the consequences of signing a document.
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