A landlord was hit with a bogus lawsuit filed by a man who was filmed pretending to be injured after falling on the sidewalk in front of his building.
The building’s anonymous owner released surveillance footage Thursday of the apparent fall in the Bronx, which did not appear to be serious.
Two men on a scooter can be seen destroying the section of sidewalk in question, after which another man walks past and witnesses the spectacle of a fall.
He drags his back foot and falls in the exact same spot where the two men crushed him. He is now suing the building owner, claiming he injured his back and knees in the process.
He also said he suffered psychological injuries from the fall and was unable to work as a result. The alleged victim has not been identified.
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A landlord says he has been served with a bogus lawsuit by a man who allegedly suffered injuries after falling onto a stretch of sidewalk outside his building. The fall in question, seen here outside an unnamed building in the Bronx
“It’s 100 percent fraud,” attorney Marc Sloane said. ABC7 Thursday, when New York radio station On Your Side took aim at these and other potentially false accident claims.
“You know this doesn’t make any sense,” said another building owner, this time in Brooklyn, as the station’s investigative team looked into another suspected scam.
“I feel like this is some kind of trap that we have no control over,” he said, while footage of the fall showed another man falling to the ground, giving a dubious impression.
According to him, New York is rife with similar slip-and-fall claims, with these two examples being some of the most recent, dubious examples.
Statistics from the local auditor’s office show that the five boroughs spent about $53.5 million in fiscal year 2023 to address the problems. Brooklyn’s in particular has recently come into question.
“It’s not legit,” Sloane snapped as she spoke to the local newspaper. “It’s a fraud.”
‘What are the coincidences that one person – two people or so – just stops, gets off their bike and starts breaking up a sidewalk, and then ‘X’ number of hours later someone just happens to trip and fall over a defect that wasn’t there before?’
He called that nonsense.
Another building owner, this one in Brooklyn, said this man also faked a fall and slip outside his property. Footage suggests the fall was not serious and was likely faked
Shortly thereafter, On Your Side investigators contacted the law firm representing the suspected fraudster, but received no response.
However, immediately afterward, the company filed a notice in Bronx Supreme Court indicating that it was withdrawing from the lawsuit.
The reason? Because they also suspected the man was full, ABC 7 discovered.
The station then went on to review court documents on the case, which raised further doubts, revealing that the two men captured on camera causing the crack were part of the legal team for the man who fell.
They discovered this by analyzing footage of the pair taking measurements and photographs of the crack after they had broken up the sidewalk.
They reached that conclusion after determining that the photos the man’s legal team submitted to the court were identical to the photos the two men allegedly took, the station said.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn landlord representing Sloane says he continues to receive bills from his home insurance company asking him to pay a $10,000 deductible to investigate the clearly false claim.
New York is a hotbed for similar slip-and-fall claims, with these two serving as some of the most recent, dubious examples. Another dubious case can be seen here
“It doesn’t matter whether the claim is true or not,” he explained, while also attempting to debunk the claim with surveillance footage showing the man falling out of nowhere.
‘You have to pay the deductible anyway.’
Meanwhile, New York remains the city with the most questionable slip and fall claims in the U.S., driving up premiums. for building owners who then pass on the responsibility to tenants in the form of higher rents.
“It comes down to the renter, the homeowner,” Mark Browne, chair of the faculty at St. John’s University’s Greenberg School of Risk Management and Insurance, told ABC of how the scams are slowly but surely affecting consumers and their cost of living.
“It’s stealing from other people. It’s fraudulent, it’s criminal, it’s wrong.”