{"id":376843,"date":"2026-10-19T13:34:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376843\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T13:34:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:34:27","slug":"nyc-sues-personal-injury-law-firm-accused-of-bogus-trip-and-fall-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376843\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC sues personal injury law firm accused of bogus trip-and-fall claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Queens man sought $1 million in a 2020 lawsuit claiming he tripped on an uneven metal plate on a Bed-Stuy sidewalk and busted his hand, shoulder and lower lip.<\/p>\n

But city attorneys say the real cause of his injuries was a fight on Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

The alleged fraud perpetrated by Dwight Marshall, 57, was one of 15 lawsuits filed over the last decade by the Lower Manhattan personal injury law firm, Asher & Associates. Now, the city\u2019s law department is pushing back. City lawyers filed a landmark federal lawsuit earlier this month claiming Asher routinely files bogus slip-and-fall cases as part of a concerted effort to cheat taxpayers out of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Each of the 15 allegedly fraudulent suits sought damages for accidents people claimed were caused by cracked sidewalks, potholes and other defects. The city\u2019s lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, alleges that medical records reveal all the plaintiffs actually suffered their injuries through other incidents that had nothing to do with city property.<\/p>\n

Matthew Laroche, a lawyer representing Asher & Associates, called the city\u2019s claims baseless.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor over 40 years, Asher & Associates, P.C. and its attorneys have been tremendously successful in representing injured New Yorkers and in holding wrongdoing parties accountable to the rule of law,\u201d defense attorney Matthew Laroche said in a statement. \u201cThis lawsuit is a clear attempt to chill that work by recasting ordinary, contested personal injury litigation as racketeering, and by grossly mischaracterizing the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City is filled with law practices that have turned personal injury lawsuits into a cottage industry. The firms, which buy massive amounts of advertising space on highway billboards and subway posters, are often referred to as \u201cambulance chasers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city pays billions of dollars a year in claims. Data from the city comptroller\u2019s office shows City Hall spent more than $2 billion<\/a> on settlements and judgements in the last fiscal year, and about $1.9 billion the year before.<\/p>\n

Public officials argue that rooting out fraudulent claims could save the city money. Earlier this year Gov. Kathy Hochul pushed through changes to the state\u2019s auto insurance regulations in hopes of cracking down on staged car accidents<\/a> and bringing down insurance premiums.<\/p>\n

The new civil lawsuit accuses Asher & Associates of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act \u2014 better known to “Sopranos” fans as RICO, a law passed in 1970 to crack down on organized crime. The case marks the first time the city has attempted to use the federal racketeering statutes to combat staged accidents and personal injuries, according to a law department spokesperson.<\/p>\n

City attorneys say they hope the suit serves as a warning to other law firms that file phony or frivolous claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonal injury laws exist to protect actual victims of trauma, not to line the pockets of people looking to make a quick buck off City taxpayers,\u201d Corporation Counsel Steven Banks said in a statement.<\/p>\n

In Marshall\u2019s case, Kings County Medical Center records show he told doctors his injuries weren\u2019t caused by a fall \u2014 they were caused by someone wielding a lead pipe on Thanksgiving Day in 2018.<\/p>\n

Marshall could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Advocates and legal experts are closely watching the case for its potential impact on the personal injury industry. \u201c\u200aThis is a landmark case that really exposes the level of fraud that’s been happening in our court system for quite some time,\u201d said \u200aTom Stebbins, head of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York.<\/p>\n

The suit alleges that Asher & Associates employed runners to find people with \u201clegally weak\u201d or \u201cnon-compensable injuries,\u201d sometimes in emergency rooms. They would then connect them to attorneys who would file false narratives against the city, lawyers wrote, like tripping on uneven sidewalks or hitting a pothole on an e-bike or scooter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn moving from emergency room to courtroom the Asher Defendants\u2019 clients\u2019 narratives undergo a remarkable metamorphosis,\u201d the lawsuit states. \u201cA punch in the jaw, a blow from a lead pipe, an opened car door, or an encounter with a hit-and-run driver is transformed into that \u2018defective, cracked, misleveled, broken, warped, elevated, depressed, or uneven\u2019 roadway owned or controlled by the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts who study federal racketeering law said the city is pursuing a creative but reasonable use of the statute.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIt’s the first time I’ve seen a municipality use RICO in this way,\u201d said Jeff Grell, an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University and author of the book \u201cGrell on RICO: A Practical Guide to the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.\u201d He said the city will have to clear procedural hurdles in moving the claims from state to federal court.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThere’s no such thing as an easy RICO claim,\u201d he said. \u201cThey’re all very complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Columbia Law Professor Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney\u2019s office for the Southern District of New York who tried criminal RICO cases, said the lawsuit had merit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe framework of RICO really does lend itself to pursuing a broad pattern of misconduct,\u201d he said. \u201cAs long as the facts support it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queens man sought $1 million in a 2020 lawsuit claiming he tripped on an uneven metal plate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-376843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}