Personal Injury Lawyers in New York

Ask an out-of-state adjuster what makes New York claims difficult and you will not hear about the three-year statute of limitations. You will hear about everything layered on top of it. New York is one of the few states that combines a long filing window, no damage caps, and a fault rule that never bars recovery outright — and then wraps the whole thing in a no-fault insurance system with its own deadlines and its own gatekeeping test. Understanding the layers is the difference between a claim that gets paid and one that quietly expires.

The deadlines that actually matter

Most negligence claims in New York must be filed within three years of the date of injury under CPLR § 214. That covers car crashes, slip and falls, dog bites, defective products and most construction injuries. It is longer than the two-year window used by roughly half the country, and it tempts people into waiting.

Waiting is the mistake, because the three-year rule is the exception in a state full of shorter clocks:

• Wrongful death: two years from the date of death, not the date of the underlying incident.
• Medical malpractice: two years and six months, with a discovery extension for foreign objects left in the body.
• Claims against a public entity: a written notice of claim within 90 days of the incident, then suit within one year and 90 days. This applies to New York City, the MTA and its subsidiaries, transit authorities, school districts and county governments.
• No-fault benefits: the application to your own auto insurer is due within 30 days of the crash, and medical bills must be submitted within 45 days of treatment.

The 90-day notice rule is the one that ends the most otherwise-strong cases. A city bus clips a pedestrian, the injured person spends two months in physical therapy assuming there is plenty of time, and by the time anyone calls a lawyer the notice window is closing. Late notice can sometimes be excused by court order, but it is a motion you would rather never have to file.

Pure comparative negligence: no one is disqualified

Under CPLR § 1411, New York applies pure comparative negligence. A jury assigns percentages to everyone involved, and the plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by their own share. There is no 50% or 51% cutoff. A pedestrian who crossed mid-block and was found 70% responsible still collects 30% of the damages.

In practice this changes how cases are negotiated rather than whether they are brought. Insurers cannot use partial fault to refuse payment outright, so they use it to argue the number down. Ten percentage points of comparative fault on a $400,000 case is a $40,000 argument, and adjusters treat it that way. Good case preparation — scene photographs, signal-timing data, surveillance footage pulled before it is overwritten — is largely a fight over those percentage points.

The no-fault system and the serious injury threshold

Every New York auto policy includes basic no-fault coverage, also called personal injury protection. It pays up to $50,000 in medical expenses, 80% of lost earnings up to $2,000 per month, and incidental costs — regardless of who caused the crash. That coverage is fast, and it is why New York crash victims often get medical care paid before fault is ever decided.

The trade-off is that you cannot sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering unless your injury clears the serious injury definition in Insurance Law § 5102(d). The statute lists categories including death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, a bone fracture, permanent loss of use of a body organ or member, significant limitation of use of a body function or system, and a medically determined injury that prevents you from performing substantially all of your usual daily activities for 90 of the 180 days following the accident.

That last category — the 90/180 rule — is where most contested cases live, and it is decided on paper. Gaps in treatment, missed appointments, and the absence of objective findings such as MRI results or range-of-motion measurements are exactly what defense attorneys use to move for summary judgment. Continuous, documented care is not about running up bills; it is the evidence that the threshold is met.

No caps, and the Labor Law advantage

New York places no statutory limit on compensatory damages in ordinary injury cases. Medical expenses, lost earning capacity, pain and suffering and loss of consortium are all decided by the jury. Appellate courts retain the power to reduce awards that deviate materially from reasonable compensation, which means verdict history in comparable cases functions as an informal reference range — but there is no legislative number capping what a badly injured person can recover.

Construction workers have an additional advantage found nowhere else in the country. Labor Law § 240, the so-called scaffold law, imposes near-absolute liability on property owners and general contractors for gravity-related injuries — falls from height and objects falling from above — when proper safety devices were not provided. Labor Law § 241(6) extends similar protection for violations of specific Industrial Code regulations. Because workers’ compensation ordinarily bars suing your employer, these third-party claims against owners and general contractors are often the only route to full damages for an injured construction worker.

Where New York injury cases are heard

Trial-level civil litigation happens in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, which despite its name is the entry point rather than the top court. Cases are filed by county — Kings, Queens, Bronx, New York, Richmond, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Erie, Monroe and the rest — and venue matters, because verdict patterns vary substantially between an urban borough and a suburban or upstate county. Claims against the State of New York itself go to the Court of Claims, which has its own procedural rules and a 90-day notice requirement of its own.

Choosing an attorney and what it costs

The Lawyer Atlas is a directory, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. What we can tell you is what the intake process normally looks like in New York. Consultations for injury cases are almost always free. Representation is on contingency — the firm is paid a percentage of the recovery, commonly one-third, and collects nothing if the case does not resolve in your favor. Litigation costs such as filing fees, deposition transcripts and expert witnesses are typically advanced by the firm and reimbursed out of the settlement. Ask, in writing, whether the percentage is calculated before or after those costs are deducted, because the answer changes what lands in your pocket.

Beyond fees, ask about specific experience: no-fault arbitration, threshold motion practice, Labor Law claims if you were hurt on a jobsite, and whether the attorney you meet is the one who will actually try the case. New York’s deadlines reward early calls. Three years sounds like room to think, but the 90-day and 30-day clocks start the moment the accident does.