Getting injured is never part of anyone’s plans for the day. No one thinks to themselves as they drive down Park Avenue that they are going to get badly hurt. Yet, people do get hurt and are left with enormous medical expenses and lengthy recovery periods. The worst part is that all of this could have been avoided if other parties had simply done what they were supposed to.
If you were hurt and want justice, call us. We know personal injury cases inside and out, so we have the skills, drive, professionalism, and experience to stick with your case from start to finish and fight hard for the financial compensation you deserve.
For a free analysis of your case from our team of personal injury attorneys, call The Carrion Law Firm at (718) 841-0083.
Recovering Damages in an Upper East Side Personal Injury Case
Recovering damages is no easy feat. You should get help from an experienced attorney who can identify and evaluate your damage so that you get the most financial compensation possible. Your damages may span a wide range of injuries, losses, costs, and personal experiences. Many damages may be evaluated based on their economic costs, but many others might not cost you money at all. Even so, all damages deserve fair financial compensation.
Medical Costs
Perhaps the most significant part of a plaintiff’s claim for damages comes from their medical expenses. In many personal injury cases, plaintiffs experience severe injuries and need extensive medical treatment. This might include an ambulance ride to the hospital, emergency surgery, X-rays, pain medication, scans, lab testing, and more. Since healthcare is notoriously costly, it makes sense that hospital bills after an accident can be extremely high.
In some cases, plaintiffs are so badly hurt that their medical treatment extends beyond the duration of their civil case. For example, you might still be going to the doctor for treatment long after the case is over, racking up more and more medical bills. In such cases, our personal injury attorneys can estimate the cost of reasonably anticipated future medical care and add it to your claims. This way, you can avoid going into medical debt in the future.
Non-Economic Damages
Not all damages come at a financial cost to plaintiffs. Non-economic damages tend to revolve around painful personal experiences. They are not connected to a monetary cost and may be very subjective. As such, we might not be able to prove non-economic damages through evidence of costs, like receipts or bills. Instead, we might rely on your own testimony and other evidence to prove how your life has been altered since the accident.
It is common for injured plaintiffs to claim non-economic damages related to physical pain. The pain of your injuries may last even if you receive immediate medical care. Some plaintiffs report feeling pain for a very long time. Serious injuries might lead to chronic pain, which can take a serious physical and psychological toll on injured plaintiffs. Your pain deserves fair compensation.
We should also think about how the accident affected your mental health. Traumatic accidents often leave psychological injuries that might not heal for years. Many people live with the trauma of a bad accident for the rest of their lives. Conditions like depression, anxiety, panic attacks, or PTSD are common.
Property Damages
While personal injury cases must involve some form of bodily harm, you may also claim damages for lost or damaged property. It is not unusual for people to lose property or personal belongings in certain kinds of accidents. The cost of repairs or replacements might be high, and they should be factored into your calculation for economic damages.
For example, after a car accident, which is a very common personal injury claim, you should add the cost of repairing or replacing your vehicle to your damages. Not only that, but if you lost personal belongings inside the vehicle during the accident, their costs should also be accounted for.
Income and Wages
Your injuries might get in the way of your ability to continue working. If you cannot work, you cannot earn a living, and paying for the numerous expenses of the accident might be even further out of reach. Talk to your attorney about how much work you have missed and might continue to miss. They can calculate your total lost wages, including wages you might continue to lose after the case is over, and add them to your total damages. Even just a few weeks of missed wages might represent a significant amount of income.
Types of Injuries We Can Help You with in The Upper East Side
Our personal injury lawyers have experience dealing with a wide variety of injury cases. This is because people get injured in lots of different ways, so our lawyers need to know how to address your unique situation so that we can start fighting for the compensation you are owed.
Car Accidents
Car accidents happen all the time. Whether you are traveling down 2nd Avenue or turning onto East 83rd Street, an accident can happen at any time. Car accidents often lead to serious injuries like broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, internal bleeding, and more.
In pretty much all car accident cases, you will want to sue the driver who injured you. However, circumstances may dictate that suing another party also makes sense. For example, if the car that hit you was a food truck on its way to its serving destination, you can probably also sue the driver’s employer for your injuries.
Bus Accidents
People take buses from Washington Heights and other places every day to get where they are going. Sadly, some of those buses are going to crash at some point. Bus accidents can be much more dangerous than accidents involving ordinary motor vehicles because buses are simply so much larger than something like a sedan or an SUV. There is also a higher likelihood that more people will get hurt at once in a bus crash because buses often carry many passengers.
Truck Accidents
Truck accidents are incredibly destructive. Much like buses, trucks are significantly larger than other kinds of motor vehicles, so the likelihood of serious injury to another motorist or a pedestrian is very high.
Since trucks are large and heavy, they may have difficulty navigating a narrow street like East 72nd Street. Therefore, truckers need to be trained to drive in these conditions so as not to cause an accident. If a trucking company fails to properly train its drivers and one of those drivers gets in a crash, you may be able to sue both the driver and the trucking company that employs them.
Premises Liability
Property owners have an obligation to keep their premises safe for people who may come onto those premises. When they do not meet this obligation, injured plaintiffs can sue these property owners for unsafe conditions. Depending on the relationship between the person entering a premises and the property owner, the owner may have different obligations, but, in all cases, they need to keep their premises safe from all known traps or be held liable for injuries their premises cause.
Products Liability
Product liability refers to the area of law that covers defective products. Dangerous products can hurt people, and plaintiffs can sue parties responsible for those defects in court. For example, suppose a company puts a hairdryer on the market with poorly designed spark plugs that are likely to cause fires. If the hairdryer causes a fire and burns a victim, that victim can sue for being sold a defective product.
How Long Do I Have to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit in The Upper West Side
Each state has a statute of limitations that sets how long plaintiffs have to file personal injury cases. In New York, plaintiffs have three years from when they get injured to file their claim pursuant to CVP Law § 214. Once those three years run out, courts will not hear your case, and you will not be able to collect any damages.
While three years may seem like a long time, keep in mind that your lawyers have to gather enough information to put together a case we can file, and you will have to spend time recovering from your injuries. Both of those things can take up a lot of time, and those three years will go by faster than you think. Accordingly, it is always good practice to speak to an attorney and get your claim filed as soon as you possibly can.
Evidence You Might Need to Prove Your Upper East Side Personal Injury Case
Your civil case cannot succeed without evidence. We must prove your claims by a preponderance of the evidence, which means we must prove that it is more likely than not that the defendant is responsible. This is a high burden of proof, and we need to gather as much strong evidence as we can as quickly as possible.
Testimony
Witness testimony is often incredibly important in personal injury cases and might form the backbone of your claim. The more people who can testify in court and back up your claims, the better. If you know of anyone present when you were injured in the Upper East Side, inform your lawyer right away. We must track down witnesses before they move away or memories of the accident start to fade.
Your testimony is also extremely important. In some cases, plaintiffs must testify because there are certain aspects of the case which only they can talk about. For example, you may need to testify about your injuries and how they have affected your life so we can establish your non-economic damages. Another possibility is that there are few or no other witnesses, and you are the only one. While this can be frustrating, your testimony may be more powerful than you realize.
Evidence From the Accident Scene
We may also gather evidence directly from the area where your accident occurred. Exactly how we accomplish this may depend on where and how you were injured. Accident scenes are often cleared away soon, and evidence might be lost. However, it is still worth revisiting the area if we can.
Physical objects might be important evidence if they played a role in the accident. For example, if you were injured when a power tool you recently purchased malfunctioned, we would need the defective power tool as physical evidence. Larger physical evidence like a damaged car after a crash may be photographed for evidence.
Speaking of photos, they may be an important part of our evidentiary plans. If you took photos of the accident scene or anything you believed was important, show them to your attorney right away. It is never a bad idea to snap some quick photos of your accident while you wait for help to arrive.
We should also check for videos of the accident. If there were security cameras nearby or someone had their own camera and recorded a portion of the accident, we need to see the footage.
Law Enforcement
Was there an investigation? It is not unusual for injured victims to call for police help after an accident. This is typical for things like car accidents but might also be important in cases where the defendant may have committed a crime or broken the law when they caused the accident.
Is there a police report? If so, we can review it to see if the police uncovered any evidence we do not yet know about. Police reports are typically inadmissible in court, but they may guide us to evidence that the police uncovered.
The Serious Injury Threshold in Upper West Side Car Accident Cases
New York has something called the “serious injury threshold” outlined in I.S.C. Law § 5104 that applies to vehicle accident cases. You can only get damages beyond “basic economic loss” if you are seriously injured. Otherwise, you may have to rely on your no-fault insurance that all New York drivers must have. Serious injury is itself defined in § 5102(d) as an injury that can result in death, disfigurement, dismemberment, permanent loss of bodily function, and a whole host of other unpleasantries. While the name “serious injury threshold” makes it appear as if this is a high bar to clear, the reality is that something like a broken bone will trigger this threshold, so more instances than you may think will allow for financial compensation beyond basic economic loss.
Contact Our Team of Upper West Side Personal Injury Attorneys Today
Call (718) 841-0083 and speak with The Carrion Law Firm’s personal injury attorneys in a free case assessment today.