In a place as busy and bustling as Manhattan, accidents lurk around every corner. People in the Upper West Side are injured in some kind of accident almost every day. While some are lucky enough to recover quickly, others are not so fortunate. An attorney can help you initiate legal action to get you fair financial compensation for your injuries and other damages.
You should seek help from a lawyer as soon as possible because personal injury plaintiffs in New York only have 3 years to file civil claims, barring special circumstances. Our team has handled cases involving faulty products, wrongful deaths, and vehicle accidents, among many others. Your damages may vary, but damages for things like medical bills, property damage, distress, and pain are common. Before you are awarded any damages, we must prove them in court. Photos of the accident, witness testimony, and details from the police report (if there is one) may be helpful. The time it takes to complete your case will depend on many unique factors and may be hard to predict, but your attorney will stay by your side through everything.
Get a private, free case evaluation from our personal injury attorneys with The Carrion Law Firm by calling (718) 841-0083.
Your Time to Prepare and File an Upper West Side Personal Injury Case
The time after a bad accident can feel like an overwhelming whirlwind. You might need emergency medical care. You might have to take a leave of absence from work while you recover. All the while, you might want to take legal action but have no idea how to begin. Your best bet is to contact an experienced attorney and ask for help. The trick is contacting them at the right time.
The statute of limitations for personal injury cases in New York is described under C.V.P. Law § 214. The law gives you only 3 years to file your case. Typically, the limitation period starts on the same day as the accident, so time might already be slipping away from us. While 3 years might sound like more than enough time to get your case ready, it is surprisingly short. Many plaintiffs work with a lawyer for months or more before their cases are filed. Talk to a lawyer as soon as possible to maximize the amount of time you have to prepare.
If time is running out, explore tolling options with your attorney. Under very specific conditions, our personal injury attorneys may have the statute of limitations tolled, and the limitation period may be paused for a while, thereby extending your time to file the case.
Under § 207, we may have the statute tolled for the absence of the defendant. If the defendant is outside of the state when the accident happens or leaves the state shortly after the accident, we may pause the clock for the time they are outside New York’s jurisdiction. Typically, the defendant must be beyond the reach of long-arm statutes that might otherwise bring them back within the state’s jurisdiction. This is not unusual in car accident cases where the other driver might flee the scene or drive home to another state.
How to Start a Personal Injury Case in the Upper West Side
Beginning a personal injury case is never clear, especially when you have just endured a serious and traumatic accident. To get started, your first step is to contact an experienced lawyer for help. While it is reasonable to need some time to think about your options, you should contact a lawyer sooner rather than later, as you have a limited amount of time in which to file your legal claims, as described above.
Once you have hired an attorney with the skills and experience to help you, you should begin gathering the necessary information to start your case. This includes information about the accident itself. We should have solid details on the who, what, when, where, and how of your accident. This might require some investigation, especially if the defendant is not forthcoming with details about themselves. We also need information about your damages. We must evaluate your injuries and determine what compensation they are worth at the very beginning. If damages are unaccounted for, it might be difficult or even impossible to claim them later.
Once we have the information we need to start the case, we must compile everything in a formal legal complaint. The complaint is the document that starts the case once it is filed with the court. We must make sure all the information we have is clearly described. The complaint might be a lengthy document, depending on the complexity of your case. When we file the case, we must also serve notice of the case to the defendant right away. If notice is not served, the defendant cannot know about the case, and they cannot respond.
Examples of Personal Injury Cases in the Upper West Side Handled by Our Team
Personal injuries might involve a wide spectrum of accidents and injuries. Personal injury claims are so diverse that there may be unique sets of laws, statutes, and case law that deal with different claims and legal issues. As such, you need a lawyer with experience working on cases similar to yours. Our team has handled a variety of personal injury claims, including the following.
Defective Products
Many people are injured by a good, product, or item they recently purchased and used for the first time. We often rely on consumer goods to be safe and ready to be used, but this is not always the case. If the manufacturer produced goods using an unsafe or faulty design, all the products might be dangerous and should be recalled. In other cases, only a few products are damaged during the manufacturing process and may be unsafe to use. Many people who are injured this way are completely surprised, as the fault products usually look completely safe. The manufacturer of the products and others within the chain of sale may be held responsible.
Wrongful Death
Some accident victims are so badly hurt that they do not survive their injuries. If someone in your family recently passed away, you, with the help of a lawyer, can file a wrongful death case against the person responsible. Damages in wrongful death cases can be very high. There is no way to truly compensate someone for the loss of a loved one, so courts are often more willing to award greater damages awards. You may also file a survival action to claim damages for the personal injuries your loved one sustained before they succumbed to their injuries.
Auto Accidents
Vehicle accidents are arguably some of the most common personal injury claims. If New York City is known for anything, it is traffic. Getting compensation for auto accidents is not always easy, as you might also need to navigate insurance claims.
According to I.S.C. Law § 5104(a), drivers in New York are required to carry no-fault insurance that covers them in the event of a crash without the need to prove fault. Even drivers who are partially responsible for their accidents may be covered by their no-fault insurance. Additionally, the law prohibits drivers from pursuing civil action for damages unless they sustained a “serious injury.”
A serious injury is legally defined under § 5102(d). It includes dismemberment, broken bones, the loss of a pregnancy, death, loss or permanent limitation of bodily systems or functions, and significant disfigurement. Other injuries may be considered serious if they are medically diagnosed, non-permanent injuries that inhibit you from doing normal daily tasks for at least 90 days during the 180 days after the accident.
Claiming Personal Injury Damages in an Upper West Side Case
Your damages will be unique to your accident and injuries, and our personal injury attorneys must review all your damages thoroughly to make sure you get all the fair compensation to which you are entitled. In many cases, damages fall into one of two broad categories: economic or non-economic damages.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are often unrelated to money. They may constitute serious physical and psychological injuries, but might not take a financial toll on the plaintiff. Even so, non-economic damages might be worth significant compensation.
Some very common non-economic damages revolve around pain and suffering. You may claim damages for the physical pain you endured because of your injuries, which might be severe. The longer the pain persists, and the more it interferes with your life, the greater your damages may be. Psychological distress and emotional turmoil might also warrant major compensation. Accidents and injuries can be traumatic, and people often spend many years mentally recovering from what happened to them. If your injuries are permanent or leave you with serious scarring or disfigurements, these damages might be very high.
Economic Damages
Your economic damages come from the things about the accident that cost you money. For many, this includes medical bills, property damage, lost income, and more. You should have gone to the hospital after becoming injured, and the bills from your visit might be very high. If your injuries are more severe, you might need long-term care that might cost you a lot of money over a longer period of time.
We should also think about any property or personal belongings you lost in the accident. In a car accident case, you might claim the cost of vehicle repairs. If you were struck by a car while riding your bike in the Upper West Side, you can claim the cost of a new bicycle. If you lost personal belongings, like a phone, jewelry, or other items, you may claim those, too.
Common Forms of Evidence in Upper West Side Personal Injury Cases
Your evidence will depend on where, when, and how the accident occurred. As mentioned before, it is crucial that we start gathering evidence as soon as possible to prevent it from becoming lost. If you are unsure where to begin, we can start by checking available police reports.
If the police were involved in your accident, there is likely an official report. The report might contain details collected by the police, information about witnesses, and information about evidence found at the scene. While police reports are typically not admissible in court on their own, they may be used as a guide so we can find admissible evidence.
Were other people at the accident scene with you? Maybe someone stopped to help or someone else called 911 for you. These people and others might have first-hand knowledge about the accident. They might have seen something or otherwise know information that can help us prove your claims. The more witnesses we can find to back you up, the better.
Some evidence can be collected immediately after the accident. So many of us have a phone with a camera right in our pockets. If you are able, take out your phone and snap some photos of the accident, your injuries, other people at the scene, and anything that appears important. Your photos might preserve evidence that is lost shortly after you leave the scene for medical care.
The Upper West Side is a crowded place and is no stranger to security cameras. There are probably several cameras on every street and corner of the area. There is a good chance that security camera footage of your accident is out there, we just need to find it before it is deleted. Video footage can be extremely powerful, especially if it clearly depicts the defendant behaving negligently.
How Long Does a Personal Injury Case Take in the Upper West Side?
The time it takes to finish a personal injury case is hard to predict. Some cases are open-and-shut, and plaintiffs might receive compensation for their damages rather quickly. Other cases drag on for months or even years in some cases. If you are concerned about entering a possibly protracted legal battle, ask your lawyer for help.
Cases tend to move faster when plaintiffs have stronger evidence and time to prepare. Again, this comes back to how quickly you hire a lawyer and begin working on the case. The sooner you get started, the more likely you will find evidence before it is lost, and the stronger and faster your case might be.
Get Legal Help Now From Our Upper West Side Personal Injury Attorneys
Get a private, free case evaluation from our personal injury attorneys with The Carrion Law Firm by calling (718) 841-0083.