Arverne is a dense part of Queens known for its car accidents. You deserve to be compensated when someone injures you because they were careless behind the wheel.
In car accident cases, presenting relevant records, like police reports, hospital records, and income records, can improve victims’ chances of recovery. Our attorneys can help victims request all pertinent medical records detailing their injuries and required care. Photographic evidence can benefit many car accident claims, especially those that would benefit from accident reconstruction experts’ assistance. Victims should try to take pictures of relevant information at crash sites, like property damage, debris left on the road, and any visible physical injuries. Police officers and eyewitnesses may take photos of their own, and we can obtain those images, as well as possible footage from local surveillance systems, in the days following your accident.
Call (718) 841-0083 for a free case analysis from The Carrion Law Firm’s car accident lawyers.
Records and Documents to Gather for Arverne Car Accident Cases
Victims pursuing compensatory damages from negligent drivers typically need certain records and documents to support their recoveries, including police reports, hospital records, and income documentation.
Police Reports
The 100th precinct of the New York City Police Department has jurisdiction over Arverne, so officers from that precinct will likely arrive when you call 911 to report an accident. During the first 30 days following an accident, victims can obtain copies of crash reports from the precinct where the collision happened.
Accident reports are also available online using the Collision Report Retrieval Portal, typically seven business after a collision. To get copies of reports online, victims must provide the collision date, the borough of occurrence, their driver’s license number, and other personal details, like their date of birth and email address.
Police officers include important details in these reports, such as the likely primary cause of an accident, contributing causes, the victim’s visible injuries, property damage, and eyewitnesses’ names and contact information. We can refer to police reports when building the foundation of claims, particularly during accident reconstruction with experts.
Victims should report all auto accidents to law enforcement, regardless of their apparent severity. Involving the police can lead to crucial accident documentation and information our car accident lawyers can use when building compensation claims.
Hospital Records
Victims need proof of injury to show they can file a lawsuit despite the accident happening in New York, which is a no-fault state. Hospital records can confirm your injuries are considered serious according to I.S.C. Law § 5102(d) or that you have incurred a basic economic loss of $50,000, which would also enable you to file a claim for all damages from an accident.
Paramedics might arrive on the scene before you go to the hospital, especially if you tell the 911 operator you are hurt. Paramedics will generate medical records when they treat you at the crash site or during transport to the hospital, and doctors will continue to flush out your records when you reach the emergency room.
Even one hospital visit could come with many records, test results, and bills, so intentionally organizing this information from the get-go is important. We can help victims request records from hospitals and physicians, which can take time in and of itself.
If you stop seeking medical care, you will stop generating medical evidence to support your case. Letting gaps form in treatment is inadvisable and could weaken compensation claims, so focus on keeping all scheduled appointments with doctors and specialists and following their advice.
Income Records
You might have to take time away from work after an accident to recover from your injuries fully. This could result in lost income, which could cause further financial distress for victims. Victims must confirm their previous earning capacities when seeking compensation for lost wages, which we can do by offering income statements, pay stubs, and other information from victims’ employers. Doctors who have treated your injuries can offer statements confirming that you can no longer work or your earning capacity has been permanently diminished, aiding your recovery as well.
Getting Photographic Evidence to Use in an Arverne Car Accident Claim
Photographic and video evidence could come from several sources, including traffic cameras, surveillance systems, law enforcement, witnesses, and even victims themselves.
We can see if law enforcement took photos at the crash site when obtaining the accident report. Police officers can help victims take pictures of their injuries or property damage if they are too hurt, so do not hesitate to ask for assistance documenting the scene.
Witnesses who stop to offer aid after catastrophic collisions might also take photos or videos, which we can obtain during interviews to preserve their statements. We can also survey the crash site for nearby traffic cameras that might have taken useful images for your claim and contact the appropriate agencies to obtain pictures.
Video footage might also exist, and quickly preserving it is crucial to ensure it is not deleted. Businesses near the crash site in Arverne might have private surveillance systems that could show the negligent driver breaching their duty of care and acting negligently, hitting and hurting you. Owners of such footage might be unaware of its relevance to your case and could delete it with time, so contacting them as soon as possible is crucial.
As a general rule, victims should always take photos after car accidents, regardless of how severe property damage or injuries appear. If other photos do not exist, we can, at the very least, offer your pictures from the site to a crash reconstruction expert, who can analyze images to make various determinations, like the point of impact and both drivers’ speed and direction of travel.
How to File a Lawsuit for a Car Accident in Arverne, NY
In some states, car accident victims can file a lawsuit without having to go through any intermediate steps before doing so. In Arverne, or anywhere else a car crash occurs in New York, things are not so simple. That is because no-fault insurance rules govern car accident claims.
Understanding these rules can be challenging, especially since they can prevent you from filing a lawsuit in certain situations. Our car accident lawyers can explain your no-fault coverage in detail and if you meet the threshold to file a lawsuit. If you are able to file a lawsuit, we can help you determine how long you have to file it.
No-Fault Insurance Rules
Under the no-fault system, you will file with your own insurance company for compensation. This is in contrast to “at fault” states, where car crash victims must recover compensation from the other driver’s insurance provider. In those claims, the victim still needs to prove the other person was negligent before recovering compensation. With your Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance, you do not need to prove fault before getting coverage for your damages. Hence, the name “no-fault.”
The purpose of this system is to cover victims’ economic losses as quickly as possible. It also acts as a way of unburdening a legal system with too many lawsuits already since no-fault insurance prevents claims from being filed in some cases.
Your PIP insurance will primarily cover your healthcare costs and lost income up to a maximum of $50,000 per person. Besides barring certain lawsuits, the other major drawback is that it will only cover reasonably related medical expenses and 80% of your lost wages. It also will not cover property damage to your car. As such, you could still be left with damages after exhausting your PIP coverage.
Further, PIP insurance will not compensate you for non-economic damages, like your pain and suffering. According to I.S.C. Law § 5104(a), you cannot file a lawsuit for non-economic losses unless you suffered serious injuries or high economic loss.
The Serious Injury Threshold and Basic Economic Loss
The only way to file a lawsuit for a car accident in Arverne is to either prove you sustained serious injuries or your economic losses went beyond the legal threshold. According to § 5102(a), “basic economic loss” refers to economic damages that went beyond the $50,000 in basic PIP coverage. If you exhausted the first $50,000 in your policy, you could file a lawsuit for the remaining economic losses, as well as non-economic damages.
The other way to file a lawsuit is by overcoming the “serious injury” threshold. § 5102(d) lists several injuries that will qualify, including broken bones, significant disfigurement, loss of a pregnancy, and dismemberment. Your injuries will also be considered serious if they result in a permanent or significant limitation of a body part, organ, system, or function. Medically determined injuries that are non-permanent in nature but will substantially limit you from participating in your typical daily activities are also serious.
Your medical records can be submitted with your lawsuit to justify your claims of serious injury. If the threshold is met, you will have a right to sue even if you did not have more than the basic economic losses.
The Statute of Limitations
Determining whether you suffered serious injuries or significant economic damages is just one step to filing your lawsuit. The other is figuring out how much time to file it before the deadline passes. This deadline is known more commonly as the “statute of limitations.” For car accident claims, C.V.P. Law § 214(5) allows victims to commence the action within only three years of the accident’s date.
This is not nearly as much time as it might seem. The statute of limitations can come up faster than most people expect since you will need evidence to overcome one of the thresholds mentioned above. Worse, if your lawsuit is not filed within the statute of limitations, you will lose out on any compensation beyond your PIP benefits.
Thus, the sooner you contact our firm, the better. This will help preserve evidence in your case, and witnesses’ memories of the incident will be fresher. You might not be able to prove certain elements of your claim if you file a year or two after the accident, as you and other witnesses might not recall important details. By filing sooner, you will also have time to refile your lawsuit in the event the court does not agree with your basis for filing and dismisses it.
How Fault is Determined in an Arverne, NY Car Accident Lawsuit
As mentioned, fault is not an issue if you are only recovering compensation through your PIP insurance. If you were permitted to file a lawsuit, though, you can be sure that the defendant will try any excuse to get out of paying damages. The most common way of doing this is by claiming that your negligence also contributed to the accident. Fortunately, sharing fault will not prevent you from recovering compensation.
New York uses a “pure comparative negligence” rule to determine fault when the defendant presents evidence of your own carelessness. According to C.V.P. § 1411, you can still recover damages even if the defendant establishes your assumption of the risk or contributory negligence. However, the amount of compensation you ultimately recover will be reduced in proportion to the percentage of fault you were found by the court to share.
While some states will bar recovery if your share of negligence is higher than the defendant’s, this rule allows you to recover whatever percentage of damages you were not responsible for. For example, if you were 60% at fault and the defendant 40%, you would still get 40% of your claimed damages.
Our Arverne Car Accident Lawyers Can Help
Call (718) 841-0083 to discuss your case for free with the car accident lawyers of The Carrion Law Firm.