The Small Business Administration gave Nash Connors, P.C. an award last month for being one of the SBA's "businesses of the year."  We are quite proud to receive such an honor from the government!  You can find more info on the award here (hint: Dan and Jim are in the far left-hand corner of the photo).

Jim Nash concluded his three-year term as an elected Director of the Bar Association of Erie County.  During that time, Jim was able to help balance the budget and institute new programming for the 4,000-member organization.

TOTALLY TUBULAR: Plaintiff, while snow tubing at an adventure park, was tandem-tied with her two daughters' tubes. They slid out of the tubing lane and collided with a metal pole. Defendants moved for summary judgment asserting primary assumption of risk, upon a showing that plaintiff had snow tubed in the past, had made several runs on that day, and that the plaintiff had consented to the tube being spun by the attendant. However, plaintiff raised an issue of fact with proof that the tubing lanes froze up that particular day, which in the past had led to tubers leaving the lane when spun. Further, the park's policy was to prohibit tandem riders under icy conditions, so plaintiff successfully raised a triable issue of fact such that summary judgment was denied ( Thompson vs Windham Mountain Partners, LLC).

MUNICIPAL LIABILITY:  Plaintiffs were walking their dog when defendant drove his vehicle up a paved driveway connecting the street to a paved pathway and caused an accident. Plaintiffs alleged the City was negligent in "creating driveway access" to the pathway without installing any type of barricade.  The appellate court held that a municipality's operation of a park is a quasi-private or corporate function, and not a governmental function.  As a result, the municipality may not ignore the foreseeable dangers it created by failing to install barricades ( Brady vs City of N. Tonawanda).

EXCITED UTTERANCE:  Defendant was convicted in a shooting incident based in part upon a statement overheard on the 911 call by an unknown person who identified the defendant as being the shooter.  The trial court allowed the statement to be introduced at trial under the "excited utterance" exception to the hearsay rule, a decision that was affirmed by the appellate court.  The Court of Appeals reversed, reasoning that for the excited utterance exception to apply, the State had to establish that the person making the utterance personally observed the incident in question, which the State was unable to do ( People vs Cummings).

NO FAULT S.O.L.:  A plaintiff was injured in an accident while a passenger on a bus owned by the New York City Transit Authority.  She sought chiropractic care and assigned her rights to recovery of no-fault medical expenses to the chiropractor, who immediately submitted the proper No-Fault forms and invoices to the transit authority, as it was self-insured and had no No-Fault coverage.  Almost 6 years later, the chiropractor sued for the unpaid invoices and the transit authority moved to dismiss based upon the statute of limitations.  In applying the 3 year limitations period and dismissing plaintiff's case, the Court of Appeals held that a 3 year statute of limitations applies to actions to recover for a liability created by statute, and this action arose out of the No-Fault statute ( Contact Chiropractic vs New York Transit Authority).