Albany, New York Personal Injury Law Blog

With more than nine million users around the world, Depo Provera is one of the most popular contraceptives among women. It's longer-lasting than pill-based contraceptives and requires women to receive only a single shot every three months. However, despite the positives, there may be one fairly serious negative side to Depo Provera.

Swiss researchers at University Hospital Basel recently found evidence that would suggest Depo Provera leads to a greater risk of broken bones and fractures among the women using it. While researchers have cautioned that the implications of the study are not completely clear, they echo a warning added to the drug's label in 2004 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Pfizer.

"Use of Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection may cause you to lose stored calcium in your bones. The longer you use Depo-Provera Contraceptive Injection the more calcium you are likely to lose ... loss of calcium may cause weak, porous bones (osteoporosis) that could increase the risk that your bones might break."

Last December, Terrence Roker and his four-year-old daughter Taite were strolling through their Riverdale neighborhood looking at Christmas lights, when both were attacked by a Pit Bull that had escaped from a neighbor's yard. The three-year-old dog, going by the name "Snoop," tore into Roker's leg and bit at his daughter's feet.

The dog attack, by all accounts, was unprecedented and unprovoked. The dog was confiscated and taken to the Animal Care & Control shelter in Brooklyn where it would stay until it was put down.

That was the plan.

Instead, eight months later, Snoop is out and headed back home.

Last Monday, the New York Department of Transportation released a report detailing the dangers facing the thousands of pedestrians traversing the city's streets every day. As for the most dangerous of dangerous drivers, men, specifically those making left turns, took first.

Other findings, according to The New York Times, taxi drivers are less dangerous than thought and jaywalking pedestrians are not a major cause of traffic accidents, though they are more likely to be seriously injured or killed.

In New York, you're more likely to be hit in a crosswalk, even if you wait for the light. This, it would seem, is where many of the city's dangerous, left-turning male drivers come into play.

When Mets second baseman Luis Castillo cracked a fly ball in the seventh inning against the Atlanta Braves, James Falzon turned, along with thousands of other fans, to watch the ball. Moments later, Falzon's face was literally smashed in by the splintered shards of Castillo's bat.

With his face bleeding profusely, Falzon was rushed to the hospital. Once doctors were able to clean the blood away, they discovered that Falzon had suffered a broken nose, as well as a shattered eye socket.

To this day, he has the scars to show for it, as well as permanent metal pins and plates that were attached the damaged bones.

That happened in August of 2007, and earlier this month, Falzon filed a personal injury lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court.

New York's "Leandra's Law" made it an automatic felony to drive drunk with a child or children in the car. It doesn't matter if the violation is a first or the fifth. Conviction results in a one-to-five-year prison sentence, up to $5,000 in fines and mandatory ignition interlock installation. If a car accident results in injury or fatality, then the penalties are increased.

On Tuesday, the woman who made Leandra's Law a tragic reality pled guilty to 16 counts, including manslaughter and drunken driving.

Leandra Rosado was on her way to a slumber party at Carmen Huertas' house with six friends, including Huertas' own daughter. Huertas had been drinking before she picked the kids up; "cognac," she admitted in court last week. 

She flipped her station wagon on the Henry Hudson Freeway, while traveling at 20 miles above the speed limit.

In New York, more than a few nursing homes have been penalized by the state for providing residents with a "substandard quality of care" or exposing them to "immediate jeopardy." These two citations are among the most serious categorizations of resident harm designated by the state.

They are far from the beginning or end of New York's nursing home woes.

In Queensbury, NY, the Westmount Health Facility has faced thousands upon thousands of dollars in fines over the last two years. An inspection in May 2009 revealed that county officials inappropriately hired nursing home employees with a history of abuse, neglect and/or mistreatment of elder residents.

The county also failed to report or investigate incidents of abuse, neglect and mistreatment in nursing homes.

A ban on Pit Bulls and Rottweilers was repealed last week in Rockville Center on Long Island. As Brad Shear, Executive Director, Mohawk & Hudson River Humane Society, pointed out, the law was already more or less unenforceable. New York State's Agriculture and Markets Law currently prohibits bans on notoriously dangerous dog breeds.

Do dog bans fix problems stemming from vicious dogs and prevent dog attacks?

More to the point, maybe - is there even a problem that needs fixing?

Shear looks to Denver, Colorado, which has one of the longest running dog bans in the country. Even the friendliest Pit Bull in the world could be impounded there and, potentially, be put down.

"Denver Colorado enacted a ban on Pit Bulls in 1989 and today the Mayor and Director of Animal Control both, while supporting the ban, say there is no evidence that it actually works to make the city safer."

A seven-year-old boy was struck and killed by an MTA truck in New York as he crossed the Triboro Bridge ramp, in East Harlem. The boy was crossing with his mother, who is also pregnant, when they became separated. The yellow tow truck struck them both, running over the boy's legs and leaving him lying face down in the road.

The driver did stop immediately following the truck accident and waited until police arrived on the scene. Officers quickly determined that the driver was not intoxicated or exhibiting any other signs of personal negligence, though witnesses say he remained in his truck and appeared to be in shock.