Injury cases in Jamaica, Queens can be filed against individuals, property owners, companies, and even the government, depending on who was responsible. However, navigating insurance claims and lawsuits can be difficult without a lawyer.
Our attorneys understand the laws surrounding your claims and can work to maximize damages. We can also negotiate with insurance companies and defendants to try to get a full settlement before we have to take the case to court. But if it goes to trial, we can be prepared to put on your case and demand full damages from the jury.
For your free case evaluation, call The Martello Law Firm’s personal injury lawyers right away at (914) 685-6950.
What Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Do?
Our personal injury attorneys help injured victims and their families get full compensation from the people who hurt them. Whether that means filing an insurance claim against a property owner or taking a huge, multinational company to court, we are prepared to handle your claim.
This often involves the following tasks and services:
- Collecting evidence
- Taking depositions and witness statements
- Investigating records
- Filing insurance claims and lawsuits
- Negotiating claims with insurance companies and defendants to get a fair settlement
- Reviewing settlements and advising you on whether to accept them or go to court
- Advising you on how to structure settlements based on your financial situation
- Subpoenaing evidence through the courts, demanding records, etc.
- Seeking expert opinions on specialized issues
- Calculating damages
- Fighting your case before a judge and jury.
We handle all sorts of personal injury claims, especially
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- MTA injury claims
- Slip and falls
- Other property injury cases
- Medical malpractice
- Product defects
- Workplace injuries
- Wrongful death.
What is My Case Worth?
As part of our review of your case, we can start to assess the damages you could be entitled to. Every case is different, and victims are entitled to all of the damages they personally suffered, such as
- Medical bills
- Therapy bills
- Vehicle repair bills
- Hospital transportation
- Childcare
- Lost wages
- Lost earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Mental anguish.
These damages are often broken down into two major categories:
- Economic damages cover things like medical bills and lost wages, and they pay for the monetary harms the injury causes you.
- Non-economic damages cover things like pain and suffering, and they pay for the intangible harms you have no monetary records of.
Calculating Economic Damages
Calculating economic damages might seem simple, but it is important to have lawyers review your claims and settlement offers to make sure that the defense is not miscalculating or leaving out areas of compensation.
We can add up all expensive from bills and receipts, plus project any future costs (e.g., medical care needs, lost earnings).
Calculating Non-Economic Damages
On top of that, insurance companies often leave out or reduce pain and suffering damages, meaning your compensation is too low.
We can use tried and true calculation methods that show our work and justify how much we are demanding for pain and suffering, emotional distress, etc.
What Does Insurance Cover?
When you file an injury claim, what the insurance company covers depends on a few issues.
Is There Insurance?
First, the case needs to be covered under an insurance policy. Homeowners and renters often have homeowners or renters insurance to cover accidents on their property. Businesses also have similar insurance policies to cover property accidents, plus other insurance to cover other liabilities (e.g., defective products).
However, coverage is not always required (e.g., for renters), and so whether a policy exists or not will vary from case to case.
Is the Accident Covered?
Insurance only covers certain types of injuries, so you need to also check that the defendant’s insurance policy actually covers what happened. For example, intentional injuries might not be covered under policies designed to cover accidents.
Special Car Insurance Rules
Most insurance policies cover all of the harms the defendant caused, but car insurance is special. Instead, we use a no-fault system where each driver carries insurance to cover their own injuries.
This means that your insurance, not the defendant’s, is your first stop for coverage. However, pain and suffering damages are blocked unless you meet certain requirements and file a claim against the defendant’s insurance or sue them in court.
Property damage, however, is always an at-fault system, and you file against the defendant’s insurance for those damages. No-fault auto insurance is only for injuries, but you might have additional coverages on your policy to help you out.
FAQs for Injury Cases in Jamaica, Queens
How Long Do I Have to Sue?
Most injury cases in New York give you 3 years to file. However, there are special rules for certain types of claims, such as claims against the government, wrongful death, and medical malpractice claims.
How Do I Know Who to Sue?
Identifying the at-fault party can be difficult when it comes to identifying who owns a piece of property or whether you sue the tenant or the landlord. In many cases, you can also sue companies for what their employees did to injure you, which can be confusing when employees are contractors/gig workers or when there are multiple layers of parent companies involved.
In any case, our lawyers can research who was at fault, identify the proper parties to sue, and determine how fault is shared among multiple potential defendants.
Can You Sue Multiple Parties?
Yes, you can file injury cases against multiple parties.
This is common in car accidents, but it can also happen when suing for product injuries against manufacturers and sellers, when suing employers and employees, and when suing tenants and landlords for injuries on someone’s property.
How is Fault Divided?
Courts can assign a percentage of blame to each party involved in an injury case. This can mean something like 50/50 fault between multiple defendants, but it can also mean putting partial blame on the victim.
If you are partially at fault for your own injuries, NY law reduces your damages by your share of fault but does not block you from suing.
Call Our Personal Injury Lawyers in Jamaica, NY Today
For help with your injury case, call the personal injury attorneys at The Martello Law Firm right away at (914) 685-6950.
