Rockland County Personal Injury Law Blog

A group of Tufts students including Gary Graifman's son Michael, helped bring electricity to a village in northern Haiti. Supported by the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL), the members of Sustainable Energy Access for Haiti (SEAH) recently completed the installation of an off-grid solar energy system in the rural community of Balan, Haiti.

The panels electrify three rooms and illuminate community space. According to senior Michael Graifman, one of SEAH's leaders, the school of over 300 students is located in a neighborhood that had no publicly illuminated areas.

Graifman's team communicated with a local group of community leaders and identified lighting as an important need in the town. The fluorescent lights increase the amount of time available per day for commercial activities, and also provide the students at the local school with a space to study their lessons.

Graifman & three other SEAH members and executive director of the Haitian Coalition of Somerville travelled to Haiti & installed the solar panels at the site. KGG was a financial sponsor. According to Graifman, these simple electrical improvements will allow the school to increase its capacity by 90 students.

Companies are scouring the world looking for the lowest price on the manufacture of everything from toys to construction parts. One construction company found out that the lowest price bid from an international company unfortunately lead to a deadly New York construction site accident.

A construction firm sought estimates to build a crane turntable, but the American firms were very expensive and would take too long. The company started to look for a cheaper and faster alternative and turned to a Chinese company on the Internet. This decision would later prove tragic.

Faulty Weld Resulted in Fatal Accident

In May 2008, during a project on the Upper East Side, the large bearing on the turntable assembly that the Chinese company supplied snapped. In turn, the boom, operator's cab and operator fell 20 stories to the street below. The accident killed the operator and a ground worker.

When the parts were delivered, the second of the two welds was found to be faulty. The first of the welds was not inspected because that part was already in use.

According to a 2005 survey - Sleep in America - by the National Sleep Foundation 60 percent of adult drivers polled said they had driven drowsy within the past year. An astonishing 37 percent of drivers reported actually falling asleep while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that drowsy driving resulted in approximately 5,000 car accident fatalities between 2005 and 2009.

To help combat drowsy driving and improve safety on the road, automobile manufacturers are beginning to introduce new technologies. One of these technologies detects when a driver is drowsy and will keep the vehicle traveling safely in its lane, preventing New York and New Jersey car accidents.

Separation agreements and Judgments of divorce can be hard fought. They often provide for future benefits like a distribution of pension or retirement accounts, rights in the other party's estate or life insurance benefits upon liquidation or death.

Retirement Accounts

Some of these rights can be addressed almost immediately following a divorce, like the creation of Qualified (or) Domestic Relations Order (QDRO or DRO). These court orders divide the pensions, IRA's or other retirement accounts, often without immediate tax ramifications. Once the documents are executed by a judge, filed with the pension administrator and approved, you can relax to some extent. But failure to make sure the order is filed and approved can result in the elimination of your hard earned benefit. A spouse may retire, die or close an account without you receiving your share. A properly filed QDRO prevents this tragedy.