What is a Runner? Guy Shows Up in Your Hospital Room Unannounced !!!

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Do you know what a runner is? Do you know why they are illegal in the state of New York?
And I’m not talking about jogging and marathons. I’m talking about relating to signing up
new cases here in the state of New York. Come join me for a moment as I share with you this What is a Runner? Guy Shows Up in Your Hospital Room Unannounced !!! incredible story about something that happened to me early on in my career that’s going
to be eye opening. Hi. I’m Gerry Oginski. I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal
injury trial lawyer practicing law here in the state of New York. So now this is very
early in my career and I had heard that there were people called runners who’d actually
try and go and sign people up at a hospital. Now how did that work? Well, from what I heard
they would actually walk into somebody’s room who they thought was involved in a car
accident, hand them a business card from an attorney and say “Listen, I know you were
business card company just involved in an accident. Call this lawyer, he can help you.” Now, you don’t know
who this person is. You don’t know who this attorney is. You didn’t ask for this attorney.
That’s known as solicitation and in New York that is
So now, early on in my career, my boss tells me “Listen, there’s an attorney in our
building who wants to refer a case to us. Please go downstairs and get the information
and then call the client.” Terrific. I go downstairs and I find that the injured victim
is actually sitting in the attorney’s office. Terrific. Now it gives me an opportunity to
sit down, starting asking questions. So now while I’m in the attorney’s office asking
this person questions, I notice that they came with someone to the attorney’s office
and I didn’t think anything of it. They’re just sitting there. I thought they just accompanied
this person to the office. So now we’re having a great chat, I’m learning more about
what they believe was done wrong. And I tell them “Listen, in order to fully evaluate
your particular case I have to go ahead and get the medical records.” Now for the very
first time the person who accompanied this injured victim pipes up and now tells me “Hey.
That’s not necessary.” I said what do you mean that’s not necessary? We have to
go through a whole process. They have to sign an authorization, I now have to send it into
the hospital. I then have to wait for the medical records department to tell me how
much it’s going to cost to get copies of the records and then I have to send in a check
to pay for the records and then I can get the records and begin reviewing them. So this
person pipes up and says “Hey. That’s not necessary.” I said why not? He said
“because I have the records here with me.” I said wait a second. You’re telling me
this happened only a few days ago and you have copies of the records? And you know what
he says? He says “I don’t have copies. I have the original records.” I said what?
You have the original hospital records? I said who are you? He said “Oh, I’m a friend
of the injured victim.” Yeah. And what’s your relation to the hospital? “I work there.”
You work there? Where do you work? “I work in the medical records department.” Wait
a second. You work in the medical records department of a hospital. You are now in an
attorney’s office with the original hospital chart in your hand. Something is wrong here.
I said here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to take your original hospital
records, you’re going to put them back in your briefcase. You’re going to take your
injured victim and you’re going to leave this office immediately because that’s exactly
what I’m doing. And I turned around walked out of the office, went back to my boss and
said “Listen, there’s something really, really wrong with what just happened.” I
walked out of this office and I began to tell them what happened. And that was clearly an
instance where somebody within the hospital was trying to refer a case to an attorney
in order to generate some type of fee for themselves. And that in New York is
and you can better be sure I literally ran out of that office and told my boss don’t
ever, ever send me down to that attorney again because I will never walk into that office.
So why do I share this story with you? I share it with you because if you’re in the hospital
and now you’re recuperating as a result of an accident or you believe a doctor was
careless and somebody comes to you and says “Hey, by the way, take this attorney’s
card, give them a call” when you didn’t ask for it? You should know that that is
improper. And what you should do with that? Throw it right in the garbage. You know, I
realize you’re watching this because you have questions or concerns about your own
particular matter. Well if your matter did happen here in New York and you do have legal
questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer your
legal questions. You know, this is something that I do every single day and I’d love
to talk to you. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. That’s
it for today’s quick video. I’m Gerry Oginski, have a great day! *** ***