Accidents happen every day to people all across Brookhaven. Personal injuries occur in a variety of different situations, but every victim deserves to know how their circumstances could be helped through monetary recovery. This recovery will most likely be available to you through a personal injury lawsuit, depending on the circumstances of the accident.
Common reasons for personal injury lawsuits concern injuries sustained in slip and falls, car accidents, workplace mishaps, and because of defective products, to name a few. If some other person or entity was responsible for causing your injuries, you could obtain compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering, not to mention the possibility of punitive damages. These damages might come from a settlement negotiated out of court or an award given by a jury after finding the defendant liable for your injuries. If you are considering filing a personal injury lawsuit, you might not have long to wait, especially if the statute of limitations is fast-approaching, so do not hesitate to contact our lawyers.
For a free case assessment from The Carrion Law Firm, call our dedicated personal injury lawyers today at (631) 910-7493.
Types of Personal Injury Claims in Brookhaven, NY
Personal injuries come in a variety of ways. Regardless of how the injury was caused, it impacts the victim all the same. But for the purposes of your financial recovery, it is important that you identify how the injury happened– and who was responsible for causing it. Our lawyers will do this at the start of your case so that we can begin preparing your compensation claim.
Slip and Falls
Slip and fall injury lawsuits are a specific type of personal injury claim that falls under premises liability law. Under these laws, the person responsible for slip and fall accidents or other injuries that occur on a particular property because of hazardous conditions is generally the property owner. Property owners have a legal duty to make their property and premises safe for guests. Our personal injury lawyers can help you assess what legal duties you were owed and whether a property owner’s conduct could be grounds for a lawsuit.
Car Accidents
Car accidents are a leading cause of personal injury in Brookhaven and the rest of New York every year. Drivers and passengers involved are not the only potential injury victims in a traffic collision. Cars, buses, rideshare vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles, and pedestrians are also at the mercy of a negligent, reckless, or intentionally harmful motorist that causes a crash.
It is important to note that New York is a no-fault state, only allowing victims who have incurred a basic economic loss of $50,000 or suffered a “serious injury” to file lawsuits, according to I.S.C. Law § 5104. Injuries that automatically qualify regardless of a victim’s damages include significant disfigurement, dismemberment, fractures, and many permanent and some non-permanent injuries. We can immediately compare your diagnosed injuries to New York’s serious injury threshold to confirm if you can file a lawsuit against the at-fault driver.
Construction Accidents and Other Workplace Injuries
In most cases where someone is injured at a job in Brookhaven, Workers’ Compensation is designated by law as the exclusive source of monetary remedy. However, Workers’ Compensation does not always cover injuries and their consequences in their entirety, namely victims’ non-economic damages. You should always discuss the possibility that you can step outside the state’s exclusive remedy rule and file a lawsuit with the help of our personal injury lawyers. Victims who can file lawsuits do so against liable third parties, such as manufacturers of defective equipment used on construction sites or negligent drivers who run into roadside construction crews.
Product Liability
Product liability is an area of law that holds the makers and distributors of faulty and hazardous products responsible for the harm they cause. Any household item that is found to be defective could cause injury and create grounds for a lawsuit, from lawnmowers to microwaves. Defects could arise in the design of the product, its manufacturing, or the failure to include sufficient instructions on safe use or warnings about potential dangers.
Drowning Accidents
Swimming pool drownings frequently happen due to a lack of supervision. The owners and operators of swimming pools at private homes, resorts, hotels and motels, municipalities, water parks, and other facilities have an obligation to provide adequate supervision to prevent drowning accidents. They also must post signage about proper behavior and hazards in the area, such as where shallow areas prevent diving. When negligence in these areas causes critical injury, our personal injury lawyers will pursue compensation for victims and their families.
Dog Bites
New York is a “mixed” state, meaning that it has a dog bite statute that combines the one-bite rule with a limited degree of strict liability. The statute makes the owner or keeper of a previously adjudicated “dangerous dog” strictly liable only for the victim’s medical and veterinary costs. For other damages, New York requires a victim to prove that the dog had the dangerous tendency to bite people and that the dog owner knew so. After seeking medical attention for you or a loved one who suffered a dog bite, contact our Brookhaven personal injury attorneys immediately.
Strengthening Personal Injury Cases in Brookhaven, NY
There are many ways to strengthen personal injury cases, and our lawyers can begin by stressing the importance of preserving and collecting evidence. We can identify experts whose testimony may aid your recovery while also filing a timely suit so you do not miss the statute of limitations. Avoiding letting gaps form in your medical records is also important, as a lack of medical documentation of your injuries and treatment could weaken your case.
Prioritizing Evidence Preservation and Collection
While victims may preserve some evidence by photographing it, like property damage to vehicles after car accidents, for example, other proof is obtainable by our attorneys after incidents. While you focus on healing from physical injuries, our lawyers can begin getting police reports, talking to eyewitnesses, pooling photographic evidence, and potentially obtaining video footage from nearby or onsite security cameras or other devices. Some evidence, like eyewitnesses’ memories or camera footage at risk of being deleted, is somewhat fleeting, so intentionally preserving it as soon as possible is paramount, and our lawyers can handle this on plaintiffs’ behalves.
Enlisting Expert Witnesses to Support Cases
Our lawyers can further strengthen cases by enlisting experts who can help. For example, when hit by a reckless driver, involving an accident reconstruction expert in your case can allow us to confirm the sequence of events as you remember them. Using complex calculations and equations, reading accident reports, and reviewing eyewitness statements and photos from the scene, experts can confirm certain facts, such as the at-fault driver’s speed.
When victims suffer especially bad injuries, involving medical experts to explain the severity of the injury and its anticipated effects on the victim’s life moving forward can help clarify whether they will need compensation for future medical damages not yet incurred. Along that same vein, therapists and mental health experts who have spent time with victims after they are injured may speak to victims’ pain and suffering, helping strengthen recoveries of intangible damages.
Filing Timely Lawsuits
When you file your lawsuit could also affect your case. Missing the likely three-year statute of limitations would bar you from recovery, but even delaying your claim while still filing within the allotted window could cause some issues. For example, the longer you wait to initiate your case and an investigation with our lawyers, the more difficult it may be to obtain evidence that supports it.
Avoiding Gaps in Medical Records
Prioritizing your physical health and recovery can ultimately strengthen your personal injury lawsuit. The medical records you generate by going to the hospital and attending follow-up appointments help prove your injuries exist. They also help us create a timeline of your treatment plan and its total cost. Gaps might form in victims’ medical records when they put off important procedures necessary to their healing or routinely miss scheduled appointments with physicians related to their injury. This could also cause victims’ injuries to worsen, and defendants might contest compensating victims for damages due to their missing medical appointments after an accident, so avoiding gaps in medical records is vital.
Damages Available in a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Brookhaven, NY
If you are considering acting on your legal right to pursue compensation through a lawsuit, you should have an idea of what you stand to recover. Each case is different, so it is difficult to predict what a given case could be worth without careful and specific assessment from our experienced personal injury attorneys, who will evaluate the economic and non-economic damages you have incurred and gauge the chances of you potentially getting punitive damages at trial.
Economic Damages
Courts use a few different theories when considering an award of damages. You may be aware that compensation will typically include the cost of all necessary medical expenses related to the injuries, as well as any loss of income sustained as a result of missed time at work. Any other expenses you incur, including property damage costs or in-home medical assistance, will also be compensable, and we will work to identify all economic damages, no matter how small.
Non-Economic Damages
But damages also include non-economic harms, which are based on a victim’s personal pain and suffering. Issues like chronic pain, harm to personal relationships, and limited ability to engage in pastimes and recreational activities are all compensable under this theory.
Because these damages are highly subjective, it often benefits victims to give personal statements and testimony during the course of their lawsuits. Expressing their pain and suffering to jurors at trial can provide clarity, leading to additional compensation for victims’ intangible harms. Underestimating your non-economic damages could result in you agreeing to an unfair out-of-court settlement that requires too many concessions on your behalf, which we will help avoid.
Punitive Damages
In certain cases, a Brookhaven court may also decide to award punitive damages. These are an additional source of monetary compensation that is used not to remedy the victim’s harms but to punish the defendant’s particularly heinous or reckless behavior that caused the accident. It is worth discussing the potential for punitive damages, which may be substantial, with our lawyers, as we can explain what damages could be available if you go to court rather than settle based on the defendant’s conduct.
Our Brookhaven, NY Personal Injury Attorneys Can Help You File Your Lawsuit
Call the seasoned personal injury lawyers of The Carrion Law Firm today at (631) 910-7493 to receive your first-time case evaluation for free.