According to the New York State Department of Health, almost 2 million New Yorkers visit emergency rooms every year because of accident-related injuries. Negligence by others causes some of those accidents and injuries. These injuries can cause medical expenses, time and wages lost from work, mental and emotional trauma, and even death.
Accident victims often don’t know where to turn for help with their situations, and that’s where we come in to help. Sattler Law Group is a top-rated personal injury law firm with over 50 years of combined experience that we will put to work for you. As your New York personal injury attorneys, we will immediately assess your situation and begin to build your case.
What Steps Should You Take After an Accident?
Many types of accidents can cause injuries and damage, but these rules apply to every situation. Accident victims should:
- Immediately call 911 and alert supervisors if the accident happened at work.
- Try to assist others injured in the accident if you are able.
- Document evidence using your smartphone’s camera and voice recording functions.
- Speak to witnesses to get their statements.
- Record the circumstances leading up to the accident in your own words while the details are still fresh on your mind.
- Obtain medical assessments and treatment.
- Note any surveillance video cameras in the area that captured the accident as it happened so that you can obtain copies of the recordings.
- Contact a personal injury lawyer in New York.
- If your injuries are severe and you cannot do these things yourself, ask someone to do them for you.
But some things you might do can damage your case.
DO NOT:
- Say that the accident was your fault.
- Share anything on any of your social media accounts.
- Lie to police, investigating officials, medical professionals, or your lawyer about the case.
- Sign any documents before your personal injury attorney reviews them.
- Obscure evidence by hiding or destroying it.
Do You Know How To Find a Good NYC Personal Injury Attorney?
Although most attorneys can handle a personal injury claim or case, not all of them do so routinely. Personal injury law is complex and encompasses many statutes and case law interpretations. Lawyers unfamiliar with these statutes may not obtain maximum compensation for you.
Accident victims are often overwhelmed with the aftermath. You not only need to find an attorney, but you also need to find the right personal injury lawyer for you. Research multiple attorneys and make a list of lawyers you want to contact. Several resources are available to help you in your search.
Don’t just accept other people’s opinions of the lawyers on your list. You should contact each law firm and set up a consultation with an attorney to evaluate each one personally.
Lawyers You Know
You may know an attorney personally or because they represented you in a previous case. If this lawyer focuses on personal injury cases, you might choose to hire them again. However, not all lawyers are intimately familiar with personal injury law and rules. If this attorney has little experience with handling personal injury claims, ask them to refer you to another attorney who is experienced.
Family and Friends
People you know often recommend attorneys because of past experiences with them or personal acquaintances. Ask your family, friends, and coworkers if they can suggest a good personal injury attorney.
Law Firm Websites
Every law firm has a website. You can find lots of information about the firm, its attorneys, areas they focus on and client reviews.
What Questions Should You Ask in Your Initial Consultation?
You need to have confidence that the lawyer you hire is knowledgeable, experienced and determined to recover the maximum amount of compensation for you. However, if this is your first time dealing with an attorney, you might not know what you can or should ask during your consultation appointment.
The following questions are essential:
- Have you handled cases similar to mine? If so, how did you proceed with the case, and what were the outcomes?
- Do you and others in your firm spend most of your time working on personal injury cases?
- Who will work on my case? If not you, may I meet that person?
- How do you handle fees, and what expenses will I face?
- How quickly do you or others in your office respond to emails or calls?
- What are my options, and what does each option entail?
- How long do you think my case will take before you resolve it?
- What do you recommend I do?
During your consultation, make a note of the comfort level you feel with the people who will work on your case. Personality and compatibility is important when you hire your lawyer, and you must hire an attorney that you feel comfortable working with on the case.
Why Should You Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer in New York?
Although you can certainly attempt to deal with stingy insurance companies on your own, hiring an attorney has several benefits.
- Insurance companies are less likely to use strong-arm tactics with an attorney representing your interests.
- We have resources that you don’t, including a team of investigators who will diligently gather evidence for your case.
- We are thoroughly familiar with all relevant laws.
- We know what paperwork you need to file, how to prepare it properly, and when to submit it.
- Our firm boasts experienced negotiators with proven strategies and tactics to obtain maximum compensation for your injuries and damages.
- We will handle correlating civil suits in addition to insurance claims if necessary.
What Is Negligence?
Negligence is the root of personal injury claims.
There are four steps to proving that someone is negligent:
- Duty of care — This basically means that people are legally required to consider the safety of others in their actions. For example, the law requires Joe to operate his vehicle safely.
- Failure to meet that duty of care — People don’t do what is necessary to ensure the safety of others. Joe was texting rather than watching traffic conditions and caused an accident.
- An accident caused your injury or damages — You suffered injuries because another car hit you.
- The defendant’s failure to meet their duty of care directly caused the injuries and damages you sustained in that accident — Joe was texting while driving, causing the accident where you received injuries and damage to your vehicle.
As you can see, legally proving negligence is often complicated. Proving negligence applies to all types of personal injury cases, not just auto accidents. Your attorney knows you need to focus on getting better and don’t have the time or resources to gather solid evidence to prove someone else’s negligence. Our office can do it for you.
What Kinds of Compensation Can You Receive?
Personal injury cases involve both economic and non-economic damages. Your personal injury lawyer will assess your case and tell you what damages may apply to your case.
Economic Damages
This category covers actual expenses or losses you face resulting from your accident. These expenses include:
- Medical bills, including transportation, prescriptions, necessary medical equipment and at-home or rehabilitation care
- Projected medical expenses in the future
- Lost wages
- Certain daily out-of-pocket expenses
- Property damage
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are intangible, but they can affect you as severely as economic damages. Non-economic damages include:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Permanent disfigurement
- Permanent disability
- Inability to enjoy life
- Loss of affection
- Punitive damages
- Inconvenience
What Kinds of Personal Injury Cases Are There?
At Sattler Law Group, we focus on several types of personal injury claims. We know the complicated laws governing these cases, and we will put our knowledge to work for you.
Auto Accidents
Motor vehicle collisions cause a significant number of injuries every day. Often distracted, drunk, or reckless drivers bring about these crashes. You should focus on the road and other traffic when you get behind the wheel, but unfortunately, many people do not.
Determining who is at fault is sometimes tricky in an auto accident personal injury case, especially one involving multiple vehicles. Chain reaction crashes are incredibly complicated because several individual collisions occur as part of the whole. Almost every individual crash involves at least one at-fault driver, so you may qualify to receive damages from multiple drivers.
New York is a no-fault state, in addition to using pure comparative negligence and joint and several liability rules. This means that we need to prove that you were not at fault in the car accident in order to obtain the maximum recovery. These laws govern who must pay compensation for damages and how much they must pay. You don’t need to frantically research what all these things mean, however. Experienced personal injury lawyers can explain them to you, and more importantly, how they affect your case.
New York personal injury lawyers at Sattler Law Group know how to navigate the sometimes-complex issues surrounding a car crash where injuries occur. If necessary, we will obtain video surveillance footage of the motor vehicle accident scene, drivers’ cell phone records, insurance company investigation results, witness statements, and more to use as evidence in your claim. We will also use our knowledge and experience to navigate the complicated auto accident laws so you don’t have to worry about them.
Slip, Trip, and Fall
New York state premises liability laws require businesses and property owners to provide safe conditions for customers and invited guests. People slip and fall for different reasons, and if the business or property owner was negligent, thereby causing your accident and resulting injuries, you may qualify for compensation.
Common causes of slip-and-fall accidents are:
- Spills in a store, whether from leaking water or broken merchandise
- Objects left in walkways
- Damaged or broken walkways, including sidewalks and parking lots
- Dim lighting
- No handrails on stairs or broken stairs
- Poorly maintained fixtures or equipment
- Ice or snow left indefinitely in outside areas
Proving negligence in these circumstances can be challenging. The business or property owner must have known or should have known about the hazardous condition. The law requires that businesses and property owners correct dangerous situations as soon as possible and that they place appropriate warning signs or barriers at the hazard site until they fix it.
Let’s say that you walk down the freezer aisle of your local supermarket and slip and fall on water accumulated on the floor. You must prove that the store employees knew or should have known that the freezer was leaking but failed to fix the leak and didn’t block the area off or post a sign or place warning cones to let customers know that a hazard was present.
The negligence must have caused your slip, trip, and fall to qualify for compensation and you must have sustained injuries as a direct result of that fall.
Don’t worry about how to prove these things. Let your experienced personal injury attorney from Sattler Law Group do it for you.
Motorcycle Accidents
We are bike owners and riders, and we want to help our fellow bikers. Motorcycle accident victims often receive severe injuries. Bikes don’t have seatbelts or otherwise enclose the rider.
Many drivers don’t pay as much attention to motorcycles as they do to other types of motor vehicles. Prejudice against bikers sometimes causes other drivers to disregard motorcyclists’ rights, prompting them to follow too closely behind bikes or refuse to yield the right-of-way.
We will fight against possible prejudice to obtain maximum compensation for you.
Pedestrian Accidents
Pedestrians are totally unprotected if hit by a moving vehicle. Drivers sometimes notice other cars but not people on sidewalks or crosswalks. Unfortunately, cars can hit walkers or joggers and cause serious injuries or even death.
Cars traveling at lower speeds can hit and injure or kill pedestrians. RoadWise states that pedestrians hit by cars at 30 mph face a 20% chance of fatal injuries, and at 40 mph, the chance of deadly injuries rises to 90%.
Speeding and distracted drivers often cause accidents involving pedestrians. We will fight for your right to obtain compensation and justice.
Truck Accidents
Motor vehicle accidents involving big trucks are often catastrophic. Trucks are huge compared to other types of automobiles, both in actual dimensions and weight. The weight of these trucks presents difficulties in maneuvering and stopping quickly; the occupants of other vehicles involved in a truck accident are often severely injured or killed as a result.
Driver fatigue is often a factor in truck accidents. Although laws strictly govern the number of hours a truck driver can work consecutively, drivers sometimes stay on the road longer than they should. We can obtain records to show how long a truck driver was active and how long he rested before hitting the road again.
Bicycle Accidents
Like pedestrians, motor vehicle drivers often overlook bicyclists. According to BikeHike, bicyclists hit by a car going 20 mph have a 95% survival rate. 30 mph reduces that rate to 55%, and bicycle riders only have a 5% chance of surviving a crash with a car going 40mph or more.
With those statistics, you can see why bicycle accident victims and their families turn to Sattler Law Group for assistance. Medical expenses are often astronomical, and the physical pain and mental trauma is quite severe. We won’t let negligent drivers get away with their actions without compensating you fully.
Wrongful Death
The shock of suddenly losing a loved one due to the negligence of others is incredibly traumatic. Wrongful death occurs for many reasons, and we will hold the responsible parties accountable.
Some common causes of wrongful death include:
- Auto and truck accidents
- Motorcycle, pedestrian and bicycle accidents
- Medical malpractice
- Nursing home neglect
- Birth injuries
- Slip and fall accidents
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
We at Sattler Law Group thoroughly understand the grief and demand for justice that survivors face. Our caring attorneys will use our knowledge of applicable laws to help you get the compensation and justice you deserve.
Will Your Case Go to Trial?
According to The Law Dictionary, 95% to 96% of US personal injury cases settle without a trial. Insurance companies don’t want to go to trial because they don’t want the time and expense needed for a trial. Knowing that fact, we can use strategic negotiating tactics to obtain maximum settlement offers without the need for a trial.
However, we will gladly challenge insurance companies in court if a trial is necessary. We often use expert witnesses to show the jury the full extent of your injuries and damages and that the defendant negligently caused them.
Our expert witnesses include:
- Trauma doctors, surgeons, physiatrists and neurologists
- Accident reconstruction analysts
- Mechanics
- Forensic engineers
Will You Let Us Help You?
Sattler Law Group wants to help you get the maximum amount of damages available to you. We are a five-star rated personal injury law firm dedicated to seeing our clients compensated for their losses. We will aggressively negotiate a favorable settlement for you or take your case to trial if necessary. Call today for a free consultation.
We have two offices, located in New Rochelle and New York City to better serve our clients. We proudly represent clients from across Metropolitan New York, including New Jersey, and Long Island.
To schedule your free case evaluation with an experienced personal injury lawyer, call us at (914) 239-4900 or (212) 766-4484, take advantage of our live chat option, or submit our online form. Let us start fighting for your rights today.
Sources:
https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/prevention/injury_prevention/
https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/personal-injury/how-find-right-lawyer.html
https://www.kryderlaw.com/blog/slip-and-fall-case-guide/case-examples/
https://www.roadwise.co.uk/using-the-road/speeding/the-chance-of-a-pedestrian-surviving/
