Louis G. Adolfsen Attorney

First Admitted: 1975, New York

Professional Webpage: http://www.melitoadolfsen.com/attorneys/louis-g-adolfsen/

Bar/Professional Activity:

New York State Bar Association
District of Columbia
United States District Courts for the Northern District of New York
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
State of New York
United States District Courts for the Eastern District of New York
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
American Bar Association
United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Verdicts/Settlements (Case Results):

Settlements of of personal injury cases ranging from $100,000 to $100,000,000. Summary Judgments in Personal Injury Cases. Asylum grants. Plea bargins in criminal cases involving conspiracy.

Representative Clients:

CHUBB
MMIP
Sedgwick
The Hartford
GEICO

Pro bono/Community Service:

We handle all manner of pro bono matters on an individual basis

Honors/Awards:

New York Metro Super Lawyers (Personal Injury - General)

Educational Background:

State University of New York at Stony Brook, B.A.

White Papers:

Anyone who hires someone to do construction should ask the contractor to name them as an additional insured on the contractor's policy. The contractor may agree to provide the coverage but then may fail to follow the rules in the policy for providing additional insured coverage. You may not learn about the mistake until you are sued and find you are not covered., You May Think You Are Insured as an Additional Insured But You May Find You Are Not Covered, Real Estate, Insurance,, 2019
Anyone injured in an accident allegedly caused by the negligence of another can sue for pain caused by the injury. The increasing number of surgeries from accidents is now a major focus of defendants and the insurance industry. Some defendants and insurance companies have sued the doctors and the attorneys for the plaintiffs. , Accidents, pain, lawsuits, doctors and lawyers. Is the pain real? The Nail Gun Story., Insurance, Medical Care, Legal Profession, Ethics, 2024
Parties should be mindful of these distinctions. First, medical malpractice is a deviation from accepted standards of medical care. Second, negligence is a breach of the duty of care. Third, a cause of action under the New York Public Health Law requires showing that a defendant nursing home violated applicable federal and state regulations and deprived a resident of the rights granted thereunder. It is not necessary in the Public Health Law claim to show either medical malpractice or negligence-simply violating a statute is enough. These distinctions, while perhaps easy to plead, require careful analysis in every case where these three causes of action are alleged., Understanding What Needs to be Proved to Show Medical Malpractice, Negligence, or Violation of The Public Health Law in a Nursing Home Case, Insurance And Nursing Homes
On May 13, 2015, The SPEAK FREE ACT of 2015, H.R. 2034, was introduced in the House of Representatives. The SPEAK FREE ACT is intended “to create a special motion to dismiss strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP suits).” This Bill was introduced in Congress less than a month after the Court in Abbas v. Foreign Policy Grp., LLC, 783 F.3d 1328 (D.C. Cir. 2015), ruled that the D.C. Anti–SLAPP Act, a statute designed to make it more difficult (some would argue impossible) to go to trial against a powerful media defendant in a defamation case, cannot be applied in Federal Court. This decision was a significant blow to the powerful media interests in the U.S.—what could be called “Big Media.” Every major media defendant in the country (27 in all) banded together to file as amici curiae in support of the media defendants against Mr. Abbas’s position that he should be entitled to his day in court under the federal rules of civil procedure. The decision created a conflict in the Circuits that one would have expected Big Media to take to the Supreme Court. Instead, the Media, which we dub "Big Media," shifted its efforts to supporting The SPEAK FREE ACT hoping to accomplish through federal legislation what a Supreme Court decision could not—namely, giving it the same protections in every state in the Union that were intended for average Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Big Media has important protections under the First Amendment and the many cases strengthening and broadening the scope of its protection. The values embodied in that protection and others in the Constitution are diminished by statutes that permit the pre-answer dismissal of defamation actions and the award of substantial attorneys’ fees against those who sue to assert their right to be protected against defamation. The U.S. federal courts have traditionally protected important rights that state courts sometimes were not able to protect., Proposed Federal Anti-SLAPP Legislation -- Is “Big” Media Trying to Repress the Rights of Everyone to Sue for Defamation by Seeking Nationwide Legislation that Purports to Protect Ordinary People but is really for Big Media?

Scholarly Lectures/Writings:

Research Editor, Brooklyn Law Review, 1973-1974, Brooklyn Law School
The defamation cases brought by Johnny Depp and Amber Heard against each other, entertaining as they were to many Americans, involved complex issues of law as applied to the facts alleged by the parties. For the jury to reach the verdicts it reached, the Trial Judge in Virginia required a special verdict sheet containing 43 questions. Special verdict sheets are based on the Model Jury Instructions used in civil cases in Virginia, see, e.g., Va. Model Jury Instruction, No. 37 000. Without the answer to the questions on the special verdict sheet, it would not have been possible for a court to uphold the verdicts. Without these answers, a court could not properly review the verdicts. As observed by the Virginia Supreme Court in another defamation case: The jury was thus permitted to find the last three statements to be defamatory; and in the absence here of a special verdict, there is no way to determine whether the jury based any or all of its defamation verdict on one or more of these last three statements. We therefore agree with Handberg that it was reversible error for the trial court to have so instructed the jury. Handberg v. Goldberg, 297 Va. 660, 671, 831 S.E.2d 700, 708 (2019)., author, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Show the Importance of Special Verdicts or Answers to Written Questions in Jury Verdicts, Trial Attorneys, 2022
Parties should be mindful of these distinctions. First, medical malpractice is a deviation from accepted standards of medical care. Second, negligence is a breach of the duty of care. Third, a cause of action under the New York Public Health Law requires showing that a defendant nursing home violated applicable federal and state regulations and deprived a resident of the rights granted thereunder. It is not necessary in the Public Health Law claim to show either medical malpractice or negligence-simply violating a statute is enough. These distinctions, while perhaps easy to plead, require careful analysis in every case where these three causes of action are alleged., Understanding What Needs to be Proved to Show Medical Malpractice, Negligence, or Violation of The Public Health Law in a Nursing Home Case, Nursing Hoes, Insurance, 2019

Other Outstanding Achievements:

Article: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Show the Importance of Special Verdicts or Answers to Written Questions in Jury Verdicts , 2022

Firm News (Newsletters):

A jury convicted the physician of manslaughter and reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to a term of 10 to 20 years. Despite the doctor's arguments that he could not be criminally responsible for the death of his patients, his conviction was affirmed. On appeal, the doctor argued that the manslaughter convictions should be reversed because, as a matter of law, the sale of a controlled substance can never support a homicide charge in the absence of express legislative authorization. The Appellate Division rejected this argument: "all that was needed for the manslaughter charge to be sustained was ... to satisfy its elements..., that defendant was "aware of and consciously disregard[ed] a substantial and unjustifiable risk that [death] [would] occur ... The risk [being] of such nature and degree that disregard thereof constitute[d] a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation" , Doctors may be Convicted of Manslaughter for Prescribing Opioids, Medical Professionals, Criminal Justice

Industry Groups:

Criminal Defendants
foreign corporations and non-resident aliens
Health Care
Insurance
Nursing Homes

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