Suing New York City for personal injury is such a safe bet that a whole industry has grown to exploit it — and capture the lion’s share of settlements for lawyers, rather than alleged victims.
Will lawmakers just ignore The Post’s exposés on LawCash and other “advance settlement” outfits?
Brooklyn-based LawCash is one of several firms that cost taxpayers millions a year by encouraging questionable lawsuits against the city by handing out quick cash advances to potential plaintiffs.
The price for the up-front money: Firms eat much of the eventual settlement with predatory payback rates and other fees.
So plaintiffs whose cases would do well in any court — 9/11 first-responders; brain-injured ex-NFL pros — can wind up with pennies on the dollar. And the public shells out to settle cases that likely never would have been brought — some by career criminals — without the industry’s “good work.”
The late Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz (D-Queens) tried to rein in the exploitation with a bill to license and regulate the industry. But while a companion measure passed the state Senate unanimously in 2016, Speaker Carl Heastie’s Assembly buried it.
Let’s hope the new sponsor, William Magnarelli (D-Syracuse), has better luck.
The industry’s less-unsavory players have a trade group, The American Legal Finance Association, which notes that similar regulations in states as diverse as Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma and Vermont have weeded out bad apples.
But that’s not the only fix that’s needed. Because trial lawyers have a potent Albany lobby, New York law makes it too safe to sue, with city plaintiffs winning 84 percent of the time and no real penalty for lawyers who routinely file frivolous suits.
Then, too, Mayor de Blasio and city Comptroller Scott Stringer invite suits by routinely settling cases against cops and correction officers, rather than fighting them in court.
Until elected officials start standing up to the legal sharks, they’ll keep bleeding the public while pretending to do good.