Petrillo & Goldberg Law
When employees are injured in the workplace they are often fearful of filing a workers compensation claim because they think the employer may retaliate by terminating their employment. However, it is illegal for employers to fire their employees because they filed such a claim. Nevertheless, employers may create other reasons for terminating the employment of…
Pursuant to a news article about expert witnesses in complex cases, parties may not enter into a settlement of a lawsuit until the issuance of reports or testimony by experts regarding knowledge held by an ordinary person and the expert. Expert testimony can be critical to the amount of damages a plaintiff in a personal…
Last year, a 20-year-old sprint car driver named Kevin Ward Jr. was hit and killed by a vehicle driven by NASCAR star Tony Stewart. Ward’s parents allege that Stewart lost his temper when he rammed into Ward, and they have filed a wrongful death claim against Stewart. The incident occurred in August 2014 at Canandaigua…
A Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania panel issued a ruling that a construction worker who was injured while performing a rescue is entitled to workers compensation. The court did not accept the contention put forth by Franklin Pound’s employer, who argued that Pound was not engaged in work at the time at which he tried to…
New Jersey’s Charitable Immunity Act generally protects charitable organizations from lawsuits, a fact that is important for an individual to keep in mind should he or she sustain an injury while at, say, the property of a nonprofit organization such as a church or school. However, there are circumstances in which an organization will claim…
Many cases involving premises liability bring up the question of whether a landowner has negligently allowed hazardous conditions to remain on his or her property that have caused injury to an individual who was legitimately on that property when the injury occurred. A recent case from Pennsylvania has come to light in which a zinc…
A man driving with a suspended license, driving while intoxicated and in possession of drug paraphernalia caused a fatal accident on July 12 in Rockaway, New Jersey, that killed two adults and a baby. The accident occurred at approximately 1:30 a.m. on Interstate 80 in Rockaway Township. According to authorities, a car and a sport…
A fatal collision occurred on February 19 when a woman crashed her sports utility vehicle into a Wendy’s, seriously injuring 89-year-old John Ruiu, who died two weeks later from his injuries. Ruiu’s daughter, Jody M. Ruiu-Geisert, who is also his estate executor, is filing a lawsuit against the driver, 78-year-old Elizabeth M. García. García was…
Whenever a motorist strikes a pedestrian, bicyclist or another motorist and is found during a court trial to have acted negligently in causing the victim’s injuries, a judgment will likely be entered against the defendant. However, if there are aggravating circumstances, such as a hit-and-run incident, the damages against the defendant are likely to be…
One often hears of the terms “good faith” or, conversely, “bad faith” in connection with business practices. The latter is certainly something that an insurance company never wants to be accused of during a personal injury lawsuit. But that is exactly what State Farm Insurance was facing in a recent case involving a 2012 motor…