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The Law in New York regarding dog bites has been relatively unchanged for many years. In order to be found at fault if your dog bites someone, the key issue is whether you knew, or should have known, of the dog’s “vicious propensities.” Vicious propensities include the tendency to do any act which might endanger the safety of persons or property in a given situation.

Examples of vicious propensities include a previous bite first and foremost, but would also include growling, chasing, lunging at, snapping, or baring of teeth. Although there is a widespread belief that owners are entitled to “one free bite”, by which they are not responsible until their dog has bitten someone on two occasions, this is not the law in New York. Simply put, a prior bite is not required to prove “vicious propensities.” Further, although a jury might be more inclined to believe this, there is no specific provision of the law by which dogs such as pit bulls or German Shepards are automatically considered more dangerous.

The key factor is the owner’s knowledge concerning the likelihood that his or her dog might harm another person.

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President Bush has announced plans to institute a “Z” Visa, which he has claimed would help illegal immigrants on a path to legal residency. Many illegal immigrants in New York feel betrayed by President Bush, who they considered as a possible ally because (unlike most Republicans in Congress), Bush has repeatedly said he favors giving many illegal immigrants the opportunity to obtain legal residency and ultimately citizenship.

The White House’s draft plan would allow illegal immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would be renewable indefinitely, although at a hefty $3,500 each time. Then to become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.

The “Z” Visa proposal has been sharply criticized by Hispanic advocacy groups, many Congressional Democrats, and unions that have large immigrant memberships. They argue that the cost of work permits and the green card application — which could total more than $20,000 — are prohibitive for low-wage earners.

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This past week, the Immigration Bureau of Customs Enforcement http://www.ice.gov/ conducted two raids of residential buildings in Mount Kisco, New York, apparently for the purpose of apprehending a fugitive who has multiple criminal convictions and is in the United States illegally.

These raids were performed in the early morning hours with the assistance of the Mount Kisco Police Department. The fugitive was not apprehended, but approximately twenty men were arrested and taken to a Manhattan ICE facility, charged with immigration law violations. Of the approximately 20 men arrested this past week, 11 were taken to an ICE detention facility in New Jersey and have been placed in removal (formerly known as deportation) proceedings. The others had green cards or other documentation that kept them from being detained.

Recent raids at day laborer sites in Connecticut and in New Bedford, Massachusetts have drawn media attention in recent weeks. The arrests at work sites and residences have led to a “Stop The Raids” campaign in Connecticut. Although ICE officials claim that they were looking for a sole fugitive in New York, questions have arisen due to the amount of officers and vans involved in the two operations.

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Let’s say you are at the supermarket, shopping mall, hardware store, or even walking on the sidewalk in New York. Despite walking carefully and in no hurry, you slip on ice, a foreign substance, or maybe you trip over an uneven portion of sidewalk. What are the general rules governing slip/trip and fall accidents?

If you slip and fall and there are people around, (even if you are in a lot of pain), try to get the names, phone numbers and addresses of any witnesses. They will be critical if you plan to pursue a claim, and too often, the identity of these witnesses (even if they have stopped to assist you) is lost once medical help arrives. Remember that insurance companies and the attorneys who defend their insureds are notoriously skeptical people, and always assume that the accident was your fault–i.e. not looking where you were going, in a hurry to get to an appointment, you’re unsteady on your feet, or perhaps you were wearing the wrong type of footwear for inclement conditions. In our firm’s experience, when we have a witness who can corroborate our client’s version of the accident (especially someone who never met the client before) cases tend to settle well before they ever reach trial and frequently in the early stages of the claim.

The next critical thing to remember is to take photographs of the scene of the accident, if at all possible. The ice will melt, the spilled cleaner will be removed, and even that defective section of sidewalk will very often be repaired by the time you walk into the lawyer’s office. Thus, if you have a camera phone, or if a friend or the witness has a camera, take photographs of the condition–We can’t emphasize this enough!

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has proposed to adjust fees for naturalization applications and petitions. The idea behind the increase is to improve customer service, allowing applications and petitions to be processed more quickly and close security gaps.

Emilio Gonzalez, the Director of USCIS, noted that: “As a fee-based agency, we must be able to recover the costs necessary to administer an efficient and secure immigration system that ultimately improves service delivery, prevents future backlogs, closes security gaps, and furthers our modernization efforts.” After a complete review of the present system, USCIS found that the current fee structure does not allow USCIS to recover the costs of providing services to adjudicate millions of applications and petitions.

USCIS projects that the revenue from a new fee structure will enable a 20 percent reduction in average application processing times by the end of fiscal year 2009, and will cut processing times by the end of fiscal year 2008 for four types of applications. These applications are the I-90 (Renew / Replace Permanent Resident Card), I-140 (Immigration Petition for Alien Worker) and I-485 (Adjust of Status to Permanent Resident), which will improve to four months from its present six months processing time, and the N-400 (Naturalization), which will improve to five months from the present seven months processing time.

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The deposition is the most important pre-trial procedure in accident cases. Thus, it is critical that the client is well prepared for the extensive and rigorous questioning they are likely to undergo by defense counsel.

We recommend strongly that you prepare the client for their deposition the day before, although the norm is for preparation 1-2 hours before the deposition. This method takes into account the fact that your client is likely to be nervous and will be able to retain more information knowing that they have as much time as necessary to prepare.

Remember that whatever documents the client reviewed in preparing to testify must be exchanged with opposing counsel–thus, make sure that the client has not reviewed documents without informing you. Further, don’t allow your client to write down information that you discussed–there are numerous accounts of lawyers preparing instructions for their clients which then become discoverable at the deposition.

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In New York personal injury cases, the videotape is a frequently used tool of defense lawyers, and can be very damaging at trial if the video contradicts the client’s deposition testimony concerning their physical limitations as the result of an accident.

In order to properly prepare clients for the likelihood of the surveillance video, we recommend the following:

1. Advise the client to warn neighbors that they expect videographers to come by, seeking information as to their daily schedules and activities, and that the videographer will often claim that they are working for the client or need to speak with them about the accident;

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When clients are injured in various types of accidents in New York, including motor vehicle, slip/trip and falls, and other accidents due to unsafe conditions, they are invariably required to attend examinations known in the legal community as “IME’S.” Simply put, defense attorneys and insurance companies retain doctors who are well known in the community as virtually never finding any permanent injury, disability or medical condition. Armed with reports by these so called “independent” medical examiners, who are more than happy to charge several thousand dollars to testify to their findings at trial, insurance carriers are emboldened to hold firm with either “no pay” or minimal offers of settlement, in the hope that plaintiff attorneys will not want to expend the time and money to litigate cases through trial–thus, cases settle cheaply.

Our firm has a list of instructions that we provide to our clients prior to these examinations, which we have found to be invaluable in cross examining insurance company doctors at trial. First, in many instances, the insurance company doctor’s staff will request that the client fill out a complete questionnaire, as if your client was a patient. We instruct our clients that other than basic information such as name, age, and medical complaints, they should refuse to complete these questionnaires, which often are used by the insurance company doctors to attempt to obtain inconsistent facts or information not relevant to the case.

Also of great importance, these doctors frequently attempt to conduct a mini-deposition, with such questions as “Where were you looking just before the light changed?” or “Did you see the ice before you fell?”. These deposition type questions have nothing to do with the medical examinations, and are clearly asked by the doctors for the sole purpose of assisting the defense attorney in litigating the case. Clients must be strongly cautioned that the only proper inquiry by the doctor during the history portion of the visit is as to the injuries, treatment, medications, pain, disability, and prior medical history.

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Several insurance companies, and in particular, Allstate Insurance Company (“The Good Hands People”) and State Farm Insurance Company (“The Good Neighbors”) use a computer system known as “Colossus” to evaluate their personal injury claims. If Colossus decides that your case has little or no merit, no claims adjuster with the benefit of a police report, medical records, and hospital records can overrule or modify that decision.

Instead, Colossus considers a number of preliminary matters before looking at your individual case and injuries, including performing a “calculation” to attribute “severity points” to claims. As described by Ron Miller at marylandinjurylawyerblog.com, Colossus assigns a base severity rating, which is the starting point in the personal injury claim evaluation. Additionally, Colossus will evaluate the experience of the attorneys involved in the case and the venue of the action, After consideration of these factors, the system counts up the points and converts them to a dollar value.

By using Colossus, insurance companies try to reduce the value of your case, and won’t take into consideration factors such as the pain of an individual injury, loss of enjoyment of life, the effect on marital or family relationships, or the inability to perform activities of daily living.

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