Welcome to New York's “judicial hell.”
Outdated, insane, or plaintiff-friendly Empire State laws that cost taxpayers and businesses an estimated $89 billion a year also make life a living hell for everyday New Yorkers.
Among them are two sisters in Suffolk County who were forced to pay $780,000 in a lawsuit filed under a decades-old law that claimed the construction company was at fault for its own negligence. Dairy Queens' business dreams were threatened when workers were forced to pay for injuries sustained.
Lawyers also appear to be taking advantage of the bloated legal system, including a Long Island lawyer who was recently admonished by a Florida judge.
Here are three cases that have descended into judicial hell.
Dairy Queen's Nightmare
Running a Dairy Queen should have been easy for sisters Michelle Roby and Patricia DeMint of Suffolk County.
“This was literally a dream come true for my sister,” Roby told the Post Thursday. “When we opened, we had sweatshirts that said, 'Dreams do come true.'”
But all that disappeared when the company was hit with a multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit alleging it violated an outdated state law requiring manual workers to be paid weekly.
The lawsuit arose after a court ruled that construction companies must pay 100% of wages over a six-year period, even though they were actually paid.
Roby and DeMint, like most business owners, knew nothing about the obscure law when they opened DQ in Medford and started paying their employees every two weeks.
They later learned the hard way how this law would affect their soft services business.
Troubled employees filed suit over overtime pay, which quickly escalated into a $6 million class action lawsuit, accusing the company of violating long-established outdated weekly wage laws.
“It doesn’t make sense to us that this could actually happen, because the worst thing about this is that not only can these employees now file a private lawsuit, which is fine, but…they can’t do this. “Late payment'' is 100% of late payment,'' Roby said. “Essentially, they're treating their employees as if they haven't received their second week's pay at all.”
Facing financial ruin, the sisters settled for $750,000.
Roby said the actual maximum payout was $450,000, of which $250,000 went to the lawyers who brought the lawsuit.
The remaining $200,000 was distributed to more than 200 employees in a class action lawsuit, she said.
scaffolding fraud
Experts say New York's execution laws give lawyers plenty of opportunity to file frivolous or fraudulent lawsuits.
Construction industry leaders are frustrated that they are grappling with the law's requirement that employers pay workers maximum compensation for work-related injuries, even if the injured party is at fault. There is.
And it has become a full-blown racket, according to a recent lawsuit in Manhattan federal court.
Four New York construction companies are suing dozens of lawyers, alleging the lawyers coordinated runners to stage accidents and carried out a sophisticated scheme to pursue fraudulent claims with high payouts. I woke you up.
“Their scheme is part of a grand, systematic and illegal overall scheme to defraud insurance companies and take advantage of New York's liberal labor law worker protections,” the Civil Assembly alleges. .
In the RICO lawsuit, the group ties one family, the Orellana family, to numerous scaffolding complaints.
Andriana Vanvakas, president of Andromeda Advantage, a group representing exterior restoration businesses, said she has seen a five-fold jump in scaffolding law claims since the coronavirus pandemic began.
She said it's not difficult to spot some of the suspicious incidents, and some have witnesses who believe someone intentionally hurt themselves.
After the initial reports, others appear to have gotten astronomically worse, she said.
“Another example is when someone has a minor injury, like a broken finger, and before they know it, they've had five surgeries,” VanVakas said. “So each of these surgeries is worth $1 million.”
Experts say it's not uncommon for workers to file fraudulent claims in the hopes that the company will settle instead of prolonging lengthy and costly legal battles.
They argue that the situation is further exacerbated by a largely unregulated litigation lending cottage industry that funds bogus claims for these workers.
fraudulent fruit cup
He is a food label chaser.
Spencer Sheehan, a Long Island-based attorney, said: be sanctioned in a Florida court This summer, after a federal judge in the Sunshine State accused him of making hundreds of mostly false claims about food labels.
Mr. Sheehan also frequents New York's bloated courts, where he frequently files dubious cases related to food package labels.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Sheehan claims that the supermarket chain Wyeth Markets misleadingly claimed that the packaging of its generic brand fruit cups contained “100% fruit juice.” I represented a client who claimed I was wrong.
A search for cases Sheehan represents in New York civil court turns up more than 100 cases filed in the past 10 years. His opponents in court include a number of familiar mom-and-pop businesses, including Walmart, Aldi, Stop & Shop, Hershey Company, and Target.
He did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.
But he's not the only one with a food-focused declaration.
Lawyers will file 187 food and beverage class action lawsuits nationwide in 2023, with about a quarter of those filed in New York, according to the American Tort Reform Association's recent “Judicial Hell” report. That's what it means.
The group suggests that vague language in New York's consumer protection law, which does not require plaintiffs to prove that a company is intentionally misleading customers, is to blame.
— with post wire
