August 5, 2008
City Claims Ferry Crash Victim Will Die Sooner, Deserves Less Money
Nearly five years after the Staten Island Ferry crash, victims are still fighting with the city over settlements. And in one case, the city claims James McMillan Jr., a 44-year-old who was paralyzed, will die in 16 years, not 30 years, so the settlement should only cover 16 years. He is under 24-hour-care and his lawyer said he'll live a long life with proper care, "The city paralyzed him, and now they're saying that he is going to die young because of the damage they caused. They're turning a personal-injury case into a wrongful-death case." A juries were recently selected for McMillan's case as well as the case of a crash victim who died.
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Lawyerspin. The city's position isn't that he "will die in 16 years." It's that people with his injury or condition have a statistically shortened life expectancy. It's a cold fact, but life expectancy statistics are what these kinds of cases hinge on.
His lawyers point that with proper care he could live longer than that isn't really relevant. Anyone could live longer or shorter than they'd statistically be expected to. Until it happens, stats representing how long other people have lived are all there is on which to base calculations.
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There's an easy solution if the city is so sure he'll die sooner. Offer him an annuity based on their prediction. So if they're right, he'll only get 16 years of money. But if they're wrong, then they should keep paying as long as he lives.
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To b a lawyer for the city is
not the best deal going either.
Goo Luck tot he victims family however
this case stated by the defense for NY
County is not unusual ,it has to do with
money ,the city spends 350 million dollars
a year ,(I think I read that right) on
lawsuits against it for accidents and
other violations.
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I cannot write on this liddle laptop
i am testing.8" screen.
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Part of suing is to punish the people who did you wrong. Is it not?
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It is sh!t like this that makes me sick that I live in this Country.
A man who is just heading home is paralyzed by a system that screwed up and now they don't want to pay the full amount because what they did to him is going to cause him to die faster???????
The lawyers who are arguing this case for the city and the ones who are actually pulling the strings should have a family member in the same situation!
The one thing that the terrorists have right about this Country is that the main thing important to It is $$$$.
Sickening as hell.....but unfortunately true.
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If you own the city money or any company they come after you so fast you don't know what hit you. When it comes to you getting money from the city or a company forget about it because it takes 10+ years.
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I don't mean to give short shrift to this, but what the City seeks to do is less a function of City evil than 200 years of jurisprudence. There's nothing novel about what's happening here.
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"what the City seeks to do is less a function of City evil than 200 years of jurisprudence. There's nothing novel about what's happening here."
And... "Healy worked as a lawyer for Kemper Insurance." Wonder how many times he's used actuarial charts of life expectancy at work to limit the amount to be paid out by his employer. You know, before those kinds of things became instruments of evil used only by the bad guys in court cases.