Jury trial restart a win for personal injury lawyers

A woman tripped on a piece of wood and broke her wrist outside Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town on Sept. 1, 2020. She filed a lawsuit, but her attorney says the defendant’s insurer has no incentive to negotiate or settle without the threat of a jury trial. Image courtesy of Matt Haicken

By David Brand 

An elderly woman was walking along a closed access road outside Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town last fall when she tripped on a piece of wood, fell to the concrete and broke her wrist. 

The wood was left near a median by a construction crew, according to the woman’s attorney, Matt Haicken. High-definition surveillance video shows her stumble on the protruding plank and drop hard on her arm. She’s suing to cover the costs of the surgery she needed to insert a plate and screws into her wrist.

But six months later, Haicken said he has yet to make anyway headway in negotiations with the contractor or its insurance company.

“Something like, if it’s on video, they usually make some effort to settle early,” said attorney Matt Haicken. “But they’re not returning my calls. They took their website down. Their phone number doesn’t work.” 

One problem, he said, is they have no incentive to talk or to settle with the plaintiff. The resumption of jury trials will give plaintiffs leverage when it comes to fighting for compensation, Haicken said. 

“We haven’t been able to get real money on cases in the past year because the trial is like the sword of Damocles,” he said. “It’s our weapon.”

Haicken said he and other personal injury lawyers find Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s decision to move ahead with civil jury trials “fantastic.” Jurors will begin reporting to civil courthouses across New York City on March 22. 

“I think it’s going to even the playing field and force big corporations and insurance companies to settle or go to trial,” Haicken said.

There have been just two civil jury trials in Queens since March 2020 after COVID-19 restrictions shutdown in-person court operations for most of the past 12 months. Two trials were held during a brief window last November.

Others in the legal community are far less enthused than Haicken. 

In a letter to DiFiore earlier this month, Queens County Bar Association President Clifford Welden said the persistent threat of COVID-19 means “returning to in-person jury trials now on any wide scale plan risks the lives of litigants and attorneys as well as those called to jury duty and those at-risk family members who they may reside with at home.”

He urged DiFiore to wait until more New Yorkers are vaccinated — including jurors, attorneys and judges.

Non-judicial staff are currently eligible for the COVID vaccine, but the rules are vague when it comes to judges. The rules do not explicitly allow judges to get vaccinated, unless they are eligible for other reasons like their age or underlying health conditions.

Some judges, however, say they have received the vaccine by qualifying as “public-facing essential workers.” 

The Office of Court Administration said they are working with the Department of Citywide Administration Services to ensure courthouses are safe and that social distancing is enforced when jurors return in a week.

Less than 20 percent of Queens adults have received their first dose of the vaccine, Queens Post reported.

One judge told the Eagle that restarting jury trials with just a fraction of people vaccinated was “absolutely reckless.” 

“It shows the court system’s concern more with statistics than with the people needed to make it function,” the judge said.