New City in Rockland County, NY is home to thousands of residents and families who all deserve legal help if they suffer injuries at someone else’s hands. Our lawyers help file lawsuits and insurance claims to get you the payments you need after an accident.
In many cases, lawsuits are the best way to get compensation, especially if the insurance company gives you the runaround or undervalues your claim. Our lawyers can negotiate for better settlements. If they refuse to pay for your medical bills, lost earnings, and pain and suffering, we will take them to court.
For your free case evaluation, call The Martello Law Firm’s personal injury attorneys at (914) 685-6950.
What Constitutes a Personal Injury Case?
Personal injury cases are built on a claim of negligence or intentional injury.
Negligence
Most cases involve negligence, where you claim that you were injured by accident or through carelessness. This requires proving that the defendant owed you a legal duty but breached it, thus causing your injuries.
Intentional Injuries
If you sue for an intentional injury, you have to show that they either assaulted you by putting you in fear of injury or battered you by actually causing injury. You sue for both in most cases.
Examples of Personal Injury Cases
Most injury cases fall under the category of negligence, including these common claims:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Slip and falls
- Premises liability accidents
- Dangerous and defective product claims
- Medical malpractice
- Work injuries
- Wrongful death.
Can You Sue for Injuries in New City, Rockland County?
Most injury cases allow lawsuits if you meet all of the elements discussed above. Generally, you can file a claim for all of the damages resulting from the accident if there was a breach of a legal duty that caused your injuries. However, there are some limited situations where you cannot sue.
First, you cannot sue if you were at fault. This may confuse people who think they “hurt themselves” by slipping and falling, using a defective product, or crashing a defective vehicle, for example, because a lawsuit is still allowed in those cases. The accident might have actually been caused by someone else even though you were the only one around when it happened, allowing you to still sue.
Second, car accident claims cannot be filed as lawsuits unless you have “serious injuries.” Our personal injury lawyers can analyze your case and see if your injuries qualify, then file an insurance claim or lawsuit to recover pain and suffering and other damages in full.
Third, work injury claims need additional requirements. You cannot sue an employer for work injuries unless they committed certain types of regulatory violations to cause the accident. Otherwise, you can still sue outside parties.
There may be other special circumstances and exceptions, so always talk to a lawyer.
Can I Settle My Case?
Injury cases settle 98-99% of the time. However, you should review your settlement with a lawyer first.
Insurance companies may try to settle a claim for a low value, and their initial offer might not even take into account your specific damages. Our attorneys need to first negotiate a fair settlement, and then you can settle.
If you settle – or even accept money without realizing it is a settlement – then you are barred from getting more money or going to court after the settlement.
Do I Have to Go to Court for an Injury Case in New City?
As mentioned, 98-99% of injury cases ultimately settle. However, many do so after the victim goes to court.
A claim can be handled entirely through insurance or negotiations with the defendant, but that is not always going to work. We start claims this way because it is less hassle if the defendant does pay up without a fight. Insurance companies rarely do, which leaves us with the only other option: filing a lawsuit.
Once we file a lawsuit, your case is “in court,” but it can still settle. In fact, most judges try to push the parties into mediation or settlement negotiations, only scheduling cases for trial if it is clear the two sides cannot come together on a fair settlement.
Only then will your case actually go on to trial, where you will be able to testify and our lawyers can present witnesses and evidence in your favor.
What Happens in a Personal Injury Case?
Personal injury cases usually begin with an insurance claim or a demand letter sent to the defendant asking them to pay for your damages. If they refuse, their lawyers might contact our lawyers and try to come to some kind of settlement or arrangement.
Negotiations
We can collect evidence to show them how strong our case is and try to convince them to settle for a fair value, but we can go to court if they refuse.
Waiting
Honestly, much of the time is spent waiting on reply briefs, decisions from the judge, and scheduling opportunities. Our personal injury lawyers will handle court filings, motions about evidence and issues in the case, and evidence exchanges with the defense.
You may be asked to attend hearings and depositions, and you will likely need to sit for a deposition yourself, but patience is important between case updates.
Settlement Offers
Once we have settlement offers, we need to send them to you for final decisions about accepting or pressing forward. With our advice and counsel available, you can choose to settle the case or go to trial.
If you reject one offer, you can still accept any subsequent offers, but they might not keep offering. If that happens, the only option left is trial.
Trial
If we take the case to trial, it will usually last 1-2 days or up to 2-3 weeks in very complex cases. There, we present opening statements, introduce witnesses and evidence, and argue to the jury in closing statements to try to win your case.
At trial, the judge decides the legal issues and the jury decides, ultimately, who was at fault and how much they owe you.
How Should I Deal with the Insurance Company?
Many homeowners, business owners, and drivers have insurance, so most injury cases will be paid through their insurance policy. That means that victims and their lawyers need to go through the insurance company to get the money they need.
Avoid Talking to Insurance
Avoid dealing with insurance directly if you can. When filing an initial claim, insurance companies will ask for a recorded statement and try to use anything you say against you. It is vital to talk to a lawyer about what to say, how to explain your story, and what hot-button words to avoid.
Tips
Here are some important tips for dealing with the insurance company:
- Never admit fault
- Only give the facts, not your opinions
- Keep your story consistent – they can use inconsistencies to hurt you later
- Do not lie or exaggerate
- Never talk to insurance without your lawyer’s permission – or, ideally, without having them present.
Leave Insurance Companies to Us
However, it is better if you leave the insurance company to us. Once you are represented by counsel, your lawyers handle all interactions with the other side for you. You can be involved in settlement meetings, court hearings, and other stages of the case when appropriate, but you can rely on us to field questions and communications with the insurance company on your behalf.
Who is at Fault for My Accident?
Most personal injury cases involve a person who was present at the scene or was otherwise the obvious person to sue. For example, a car crash will likely be caused by the other driver, or an accident from dangerous property will be caused by the property owner.
However, facts might be more complex. Maybe the other driver’s car was malfunctioning or maybe the property owner rents the property to a tenant who is responsible for daily upkeep. Because of issues like this, it is important to always run your case by a lawyer.
We can examine who owed you a legal duty and what they did wrong to cause your accident so that we ID the right party. Then, we can analyze how that breach caused your injuries.
In some cases, there are multiple at-fault parties. We can include all of them. Sometimes – such as in accidents in a store or crashes with commercial drivers – we can also sue the defendant’s employer. This often opens access to additional funds to pay for your injuries that one individual might not have been able to afford.
How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer?
Everyone deserves legal representation, which is why our attorneys typically work on a contingency fee basis. This means that we get paid out of the winnings in your case.
Usually, this will be set as a percentage of the total winnings, meaning how much we get paid depends on how much you win. At the end of the day, we only get paid if you win, so it will be our top priority to win your case and maximize your winnings.
What Are My Chances of Winning My Case?
Most areas of New York are relatively friendly to plaintiffs, especially when you are suing a company or business. Jurors can put themselves in your shoes and see how the injury could have happened to them or someone in their family, making them potentially more likely to side with you.
However, that only matters if your case has enough evidence and if it actually goes to trial.
If you have weak evidence or no corroborating evidence, the jury has to rely solely on your story. Anything we can get to back up your claim – security camera footage, doctor’s records, police reports – will help.
If the case settles before trial, it is often because we have shown the defense that they are likely to lose at trial.
We can never make promises about what your chances of success look like or how strong your case is, but we can take the potential chance of success into account when analyzing your case. We can tell you what damages you should be able to claim, what your case should be worth in a settlement, and what the estimated likelihood of success is in a free case evaluation.
What Damages Can I Get in My New City Injury Case?
Rockland County residents in and around New City can typically claim three major areas of “compensatory damages.” These are the damages that pay you back for the harm you faced. On top of this, “punitive damages” are sometimes available.
Medical Bills
The cost of any care related to your accident should be paid in full. This means covering hospital stays as well as follow-up appointments, physical therapy, and even mental health therapy related to the accident.
Lost Wages
If you missed work because of the injuries, while you were healing, or because you were left disabled, you can claim compensation for all lost wages. This includes the ongoing wages you will miss, whether you can return to partial work or remain totally disabled.
You can also claim other “economic” damages aside from medical bills and lost wages, but these are the two most common areas of damages.
Pain and Suffering
Along with emotional distress and other effects, pain and suffering constitute “non-economic damages.” These pay you back for the harms that have no bills or values, giving you monetary damages to make up for how severe the injuries and their effects were.
We can advise you on how much these damages should be worth by applying various calculation methods, given that we have no receipts or bills to look at for non-economic damages.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are not available in every case and usually require strong evidence of recklessness or intentional actions. However, they can often be claimed against companies that repeatedly cause similar injuries or against serious wrongdoers.
Call Our New City Personal Injury Attorneys Today
If you were hurt in an accident, call (914) 685-6950 for a free case evaluation with The Martello Law Firm’s personal injury lawyers today.
