The Town of Huntington has thousands of residents who could be injured in many different types of accidents. If you are injured, you may need help getting compensation to pay for things like medical expenses, lost wages, and other damages. For help getting these damages, consider taking your case to our Huntington personal injury lawyers.
An attorney can help you collect damages from the at-fault parties by filing insurance claims and lawsuits when necessary. With the help of a legal professional, you can rest knowing that your attorney has your best interests in mind, has taken steps to collect strong evidence, and will fight to get you what you deserve from the lawsuit.
For help with your injury case, call our Huntington, NY personal injury attorneys today at (631) 910-7493. At The Carrion Law Firm, we offer free case evaluations.
When to Call a Personal Injury Lawyer in Huntington, NY
Any time you are injured in an accident, you could potentially qualify for damages from the responsible parties. If you spent any time in a hospital because of your injuries or had to miss any work, you have damages that a lawsuit or insurance claim could compensate for, and you should consider speaking with a Huntington personal injury lawyer.
In most accident cases, there is someone you can hold responsible for the injuries. In some cases, such as home accidents, you might not have another party you can file a claim against. However, injuries caused by defective or dangerous household products, injuries on someone else’s property, car accident cases, medical malpractice cases, or even car accident cases should all be taken to a personal injury lawyer for help.
As for when in the process you should speak with a lawyer, it is never too early. There are important steps to take early on in the legal process to report accidents, get medical treatment, and collect evidence. Waiting too long can mean losing this opportunity, so you should speak with your Huntington personal injury lawyer as soon as you can.
Cases that Our Personal Injury Attorneys Commonly Handle in Huntington, NY
Negligence can take many forms, but if it results in injuries, victims can file a lawsuit. However, some types of accidents are more common than others. Our team regularly helps victims recover compensation after car accidents, including representing injured pedestrians and bicyclists. We can also explain the different rules involved when injured by a commercial truck or rideshare driver. Regardless of how you were negligently injured, do not hesitate to contact our attorneys for help.
Car Accidents
Car accidents occur frequently in Huntington, with many resulting in personal injuries. These accidents can vary from minor collisions involving a couple of cars to major crashes where several vehicles are wrecked, and drivers sustain serious injuries.
Car accident claims can be difficult because of the state’s no-fault insurance structure. Often, victims of accidents cannot initiate their cases through litigation and must instead rely on their own insurance for coverage. Your “personal injury protection” (PIP) can compensate you for necessary medical costs and up to 80% of your lost wages while you cannot work. Additionally, you can receive PIP benefits without demonstrating the other driver’s negligence.
The major drawback to no-fault insurance is that victims cannot file a lawsuit for non-economic damages. These damages represent your “pain and suffering,” but PIP insurance does not provide this compensation. However, this prohibition does not apply to car accident victims who suffered serious injuries, as defined by I.S.C. Law § 5102(d). This list includes injuries like broken bones, permanent loss of a body organ’s use, significant disfigurement, dismemberment, miscarriage, and death. You can also meet the “serious injury” threshold if you sustained a non-permanent injury that still prevents you from performing substantially all of the material acts that make up your customary and usual daily activities for at least 90 during the 180 days following the accident.
To overcome this limitation on lawsuits, we will need to gather, organize, and file medical evidence with your lawsuit. It is not enough to claim serious injuries; you must substantiate it with reports from your healthcare providers. Thus, getting medical care immediately after your car accident and following your treatment plan are critical. If you wait too long to get care or only attend some of your appointments, the court might not consider your injuries serious.
Commercial Vehicle Accidents
The same no-fault rules discussed above also apply to commercial vehicle accidents. You can go through your PIP insurance for medical expenses and lost wages, and you must have sustained serious injuries to file a lawsuit. However, additional compensation might be available in the form of commercial driver insurance. Our team can help you file a claim with the at-fault driver’s commercial insurance and negotiate for all your damages in a settlement. We will also usually file a lawsuit at the time if you have serious injuries since we will need to go to trial if the insurance company refuses to settle your claim for what we demand.
If a negligent truck driver injured you and we can file a lawsuit, we will likely be able to add their employer as a defendant. A legal rule known as “vicarious liability” allows employers to be held liable for the negligent acts of their employees as long as the accident occurred while they were working. If they were on their own time or doing something criminal, this rule would not apply, but this is rare. This will give you a much better chance of recovering the compensation you need since trucking companies and other businesses typically have deeper pockets than individual defendants.
Unfortunately, vicarious liability cannot be used against rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft when one of their drivers causes a crash. Rideshare drivers are considered independent contractors, so they technically do not work for the rideshare company. Still, Uber and Lyft offer sizeable insurance coverage when a driver injures a passenger or another driver in an accident.
How much compensation might be available will depend on whether the driver was working or not at the time. If they were on their way to pick up a passenger when they hit you, or you were the injured passenger, Uber or Lyft insurance might provide coverage for damages up to $1,000,000. If the driver was off-duty or on standby, we can file your claim against their commercial driver insurance and determine if filing a lawsuit is an option.
Pedestrian Accidents
Unfortunately, drivers do not always look out for pedestrians or yield to their right-of-way when crossing the street. It might seem odd, but your car insurance will come into play if you were hit while out walking. No-fault insurance rules apply to most vehicle accidents, including ones involving pedestrians. As such, you must file for PIP benefits to cover your economic losses and show serious injuries to file a lawsuit for non-economic damages.
If you do not have car insurance, you must still use a household family member’s insurance, if available. Fortunately, we can file a lawsuit if it is your only method to recover compensation, whether or not you sustained serious injuries.
Statute of Limitations on Injury Cases in Huntington, NY
Another timing consideration is the statute of limitations for personal injury cases in New York. In Huntington and throughout the state, injury cases must be filed in court within three years of the date of injury.
While you have up to 3 years to file your case in court, you should typically contact a lawyer earlier. As mentioned above, concerns about medical treatment and evidence, among others, should be dealt with early on in your case. Additionally, there may be earlier deadlines if your case involves insurance companies or a government entity.
Determining Fault in a Personal Injury Case in Huntington, NY
When you are injured in an accident, it can feel like it is all your fault. However, many injuries and accidents are actually caused by other parties that you can hold responsible for their actions. In some cases, victims might share responsibility, but that should not bar them from getting compensation under New York personal injury laws.
Who is at Fault?
Finding the at-fault party is often straightforward in some types of injury cases. For example, in medical malpractice cases, the doctor is often liable (though the hospital might share liability); in car accident cases, the other driver is often liable. In some cases, tracking down the specific parties to blame is harder, such as in defective product or pharmaceutical injury cases where multiple companies might have developed, manufactured, transported, and sold the product.
Ultimately, for a party to be responsible for an accident or injury, you must be able to show that they had a legal duty and that the breach of duty caused your injuries. Duties are usually based on some relationship between the parties, such as the duties a property owner owes a guest or the duties a medical care provider owes a patient.
In many cases, you can actually hold people who were not present at the accident responsible for the injuries. In cases involving commercial vehicle accidents (e.g., taxi accidents, bus accidents, or truck accidents), the company that hired the driver can often be held responsible. Additionally, landlords or property owners who are not present are still responsible for dangers on their property, and negligent product manufacturers are rarely present when the defective product is purchased or used.
Talk to your Huntington personal injury lawyer for help determining who, specifically, is at fault in your injury case.
Shared Responsibility
When multiple parties share responsibility for causing an accident, the courts can assign partial fault to each party. In cases involving multiple defendants, this can mean each party pays some percentage of the damages you faced (e.g., a 50/50 split between two drivers who both caused your crash). In other cases, one defendant might be responsible for the other defendant’s damages, such as in cases where the victim sues a business and its employee; the business will often be liable for its employee’s negligence.
In cases where the court finds that you are partly responsible for your own injuries, they can assign you a percentage of the damages as well. Under NY law, there is no upper limit where your ability to file a claim is cut off. That means you can seek compensation for even a low percentage of fault caused by another party. However, your own percentage of fault is not compensated, and you are essentially responsible for your own share of damages out of pocket.
For Help, Call Our Huntington, NY Personal Injury Lawyers Today
To get a free case evaluation on your injury claim, call us today at (631) 910-7493. The Huntington, NY personal injury attorneys at The Carrion Law Firm are ready to take your call.