Law firm seeks to walk away from hundreds of lawsuits after Eyewitness News investigation
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A large personal injury law firm in New York is seeking to withdraw from hundreds of its cases after an Eyewitness News investigation.
Subin Associates is requesting to withdraw from 200 to 300 cases because of ethical concerns it has with a referral source, the firm recently told a judge. The referral source is the person who brought the allegedly injured people to the law firm, so they could file lawsuits.
They're primarily lawsuits in which Subin was representing people who claimed they were injured while working on local construction sites. The plaintiffs were suing the construction companies, the insurance companies and the property owners for their alleged injuries.
The stunning move by the law firm came after an Eyewitness News investigation into a claim by Queens resident Carlos Ramirez-Naranjo that Subin misused his identity to file a construction site injury lawsuit.
The law firm filed a lawsuit against a Brooklyn work site's property owners and developers using Naranjo's name. The lawsuit said Naranjo was left severely disabled when he tripped and fell on the job site on August 17, 2022 suffering "internal and external injuries" and was "confined to his bed and home."
Naranjo said he never worked at the job site and Eyewitness News confirmed that with the construction company.
Eyewitness News also uncovered that someone posed as Naranjo at a doctor's office in Elmhurst to get physical therapy for injuries related to the allegedly fraudulent worker's compensation claim and lawsuit.
Naranjo thinks his identity was stolen after he signed documents which he was told and believed were for a job application. Naranjo said a friend he knew from work had brought him the papers, which were primarily in English.
Naranjo is now taking legal action against Subin for misusing his name and identity to file the lawsuit.
While several judges across the city have allowed Subin to withdraw from the lawsuits saying the firm should have a right to do so if it has ethical concerns, others have not. Some have said Subin has not provided "good and sufficient reasons for withdrawing."
"There's something bigger here that one firm would withdraw from 300 plus cases," attorney Alex Malino said. "That is a lot of money, millions and millions and millions of dollars."
Malino represents several construction companies sued by Subin. Judges have allowed Subin to walk away from the lawsuits they filed against his clients.
"How a judge could just allow somebody, when there's an allegation of fraud, to walk away, to allow another attorney just to take that over, is crazy," he said.
Subin said in a statement to Eyewitness News, "Subin Associates LLP has an eight decade record in matters involving serious personal injury. The firm takes its ethical responsibility obligations seriously."
Insurance company Tradesman recently added attorneys Herbert Subin and Eric Subin to a federal lawsuit against local doctors and lawyers claiming they helped construction workers stage or fake construction site accidents and get unnecessary medical treatment and procedures in order to cash in on workers' compensation settlements.
A spokesperson for Subin told us the federal lawsuit is frivolous.
"We intend to move to dismiss and seek sanctions against Tradesman," the spokesperson said.
Eyewitness News investigative reporter Kristin Thorne has spent the last year investigating concerns that fake construction site accidents and sidewalk slip and fall claims are leading to rising rents and home prices in New York.
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