Aggressive Representation & Personal Service – “A Courtroom Bulldog Who Won’t be Leashed”

Settlement of $3,450,000.00:

In a motor vehicle case involving a Guttenberg woman who was a driver involved in a head-on collision with a motor vehicle negligently operated by a car dealership's employee resulting in catastrophic injuries. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $8,125,000:

In a motor vehicle case involving a New York man who was a passenger involved in a head-on collision in Cochecton, New York, causing him to sustain fractures and head injuries. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $5,120,000:

After successfully obtaining a jury verdict of $7,400,000 in a case involving a Hackensack cardiologist who sustained catastrophic injuries after being forcefully knocked down as a pedestrian by a motor vehicle. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $3,000,000:

In a case involving an infant who sustained blindness after she bent down to pick up a toy and her left eye contacted a sharp protruding bar from a display rack. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Jury Verdict of $1,600,000:

In a case involving a man who sustained catastrophic injuries when a vehicle in front of him negligently ran over a tire, propelling it and knocking him off his motorcycle. Read More

Settlement of $1,500,000:

In a case involving a Teaneck woman who was injured when, as a pedestrian, she was struck by a vehicle causing her to become pinned between two vehicles. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $1,800,000 :

in a case involving a Staten Island teenager who sustained injuries after having been shot in his eye with a BB-Gun pellet. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $1,200,000:

In a case involving an East Rutherford woman who was injured when she was struck as a pedestrian lawfully crossing a crosswalk in Hackensack, New Jersey. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $965,000:

In a case involving a Rochelle Park man who sustained injuries while he was working as a forklift operator when the forklift flipped over and pinned him underneath the roll cage. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Jury Verdict of $750,000:

In compensatory damages plus $10,000 in medical expenses in a case involving a Middlesex County woman who was sexually assaulted by two on-duty uniformed police officers employed by New Jersey Transit Police Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $1,300,000:

for four employees of the Township of Howell claiming discrimination and a hostile work environment against the township, the township municipal court, and Court Administrator. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Settlement of $4,000,000:

In cash and benefits for her client in a lawsuit filed against Bergen County, New Jersey for allowing their employee to force Arnold’s client to perform fellatio on him. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

Confidential 7 figure settlement:

In a suit brought on a behalf of the brother of world renowned playwright Leonard Melfi whose dead body was desiccated and buried in a mass grave. Read More

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

NEEDLE-LADEN SANDWICH INJURED DINER, SUIT SAYS

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Copyright 2005 Bergen Record Corporation
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

Needle-laden sandwich injured diner, suit says; Woman seeks damages from McDonald’s
By KIBRET MARKOS, STAFF WRITER

On her 38th birthday, Beatriz Bermeo went to a McDonald’s restaurant in West New York, ordered a crispy chicken sandwich, and took a bite.

The sandwich bit back, she said.

Bermeo said she felt a stinging pain in her throat and began frantically pointing into her mouth when her voice failed her.

Thinking she was choking, her husband, Beethoven, tried the Heimlich maneuver on her. But she was still in distress, court papers say, so he opened her mouth, found two, inch-long sewing needles inside, and pulled them out. Doctors later removed three more needles from the woman’s stomach, the couple’s lawyer said.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in state Superior Court in Hackensack, the Bermeos are seeking an unspecified amount from McDonald’s in compensatory and punitive damages.

“I have seen hair in food. I have seen worms in spaghetti sauce,” said the Bermeos’ lawyer, Rosemarie Arnold. “I have never seen sewing needles in a chicken sandwich.”

Jossiel Rodriguez, general manager of the McDonald’s on Bergenline Avenue, declined to comment Wednesday. He referred all questions to his superiors, who did not return two telephone calls.

Along with her sister, her husband, and her 2-year-old son, Fernando, Beatriz Bermeo had gone to a Mass to commemorate the first anniversary of her mother’s death on Dec. 29, the same day as her birthday, she said.

The family then went to a McDonald’s so that Fernando could play in the restaurant’s indoor playground, her husband said. But the playground was closed, and the family sat down for a meal.

Halfway into her sandwich, she found out that there was more than just chicken in her meal, Beethoven Bermeo said.

“She was crying,” he said of his wife. “I started screaming, ‘Help! Call police!'”

West New York police came to the scene and took Beatriz Bermeo to Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, according to a Dec. 29 police report.

She stayed there for three days as doctors suctioned her stomach and removed more needles.

“I still have pain in my throat and chest,” Beatriz Bermeo said. “I am very afraid.”

Similar to product liability, selling food that is adulterated or otherwise harmful results in strict sanctions under state law. Unlike in most other liability cases, plaintiffs in such lawsuits need not prove negligence to show that the food-server is liable.

Arnold, however, argues in the lawsuit that McDonald’s employees served the needle-laden sandwich purposely and intentionally.

“It seems to me that sewing needles don’t get into sandwiches accidentally,” she said. “Common sense would dictate that the needles were placed intentionally in the product.”