NYC Personal Injury Lawyers

If you were hurt in New York City and someone else is responsible, talking to an NYC personal injury lawyer is the most important thing you can do right now. Not tomorrow. Not after you see how you feel. Now. The decisions you make in the days right after an accident in New York can determine whether you recover full compensation or walk away with nothing.

New York gives most personal injury victims three years to file a lawsuit. That sounds like plenty of time. It isn't. Evidence disappears. Witnesses forget. Surveillance footage gets overwritten in 24 to 72 hours. And if your injury involves a city bus, a pothole, a subway platform, or any other New York City agency, you have just 90 days to file a notice of claim or you lose your right to sue the city entirely. Ninety days. That deadline does not pause for recovery time.

You have rights. Real ones. And you do not need money upfront to protect them.

Can I Sue Someone Who Hurt Me in New York City?

Yes. If someone else's negligence caused your injury, you can sue. Negligence means they failed to act with reasonable care, and that failure hurt you. New York follows a rule called pure comparative negligence. Even if you were partly at fault, you can still recover damages.

Our New York City personal injury lawyers have handled cases involving every kind of negligence this city produces. We know how defendants and insurance companies use comparative fault arguments to shrink settlements. Our NYC personal injury lawyers push back hard.

How Long Do I Have to File a Personal Injury Claim in New York City?

Three years from the date of the accident for most cases. Miss that deadline and your case is gone. No exceptions, no extensions, no second chances.

But that three-year window shrinks fast if a government entity is involved. Slipped on a broken sidewalk in Queens? Hurt on the A train between Jay Street and Fulton? Hit by an MTA bus on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn? You have 90 days from the date of injury to file a formal notice of claim against the city or the MTA. After that, your case is dead no matter how strong it is.

Wrongful death cases carry their own deadline: two years from the date of death. Medical malpractice cases in New York are generally two and a half years from the act of malpractice or from the end of continuous treatment.

What Is My NYC Personal Injury Case Actually Worth?

There is no honest answer to that without knowing your case. Anyone who gives you a number before reviewing your medical records, your lost wages, and the facts of the accident is guessing.

New York personal injury law allows you to recover two broad categories of damages. Economic damages cover your real financial losses. Non-economic damages cover the personal ones. Here is what each includes:

• Medical bills: Emergency room visits, surgeries, hospital stays, follow-up care, physical therapy, and any other treatment directly related to your injury
• Future medical costs: If your injuries require ongoing treatment, additional surgeries, or long-term care, those future expenses are part of your claim
• Lost wages: Income you could not earn while you were recovering, including missed shifts, lost freelance work, and used sick or vacation time
• Lost earning capacity: If your injuries permanently affect your ability to work, or limit the kind of work you can do, our personal injury lawyers in New York City pursue compensation for that long-term financial impact
• Pain and suffering: The physical pain caused by your injuries, both at the time of the accident and ongoing, is compensable under New York law
• Emotional distress: Anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other psychological injuries that result from a serious accident are recoverable damages
• Loss of enjoyment of life: If your injuries prevent you from doing things you did before, whether that is running in Central Park, playing with your kids, or simply getting through a day without pain, that loss has value
  Punitive damages: Rare, but available when a defendant acted with intentional malice or reckless disregard for human life, and can significantly increase a verdict when they apply

New York does not cap non-economic damages in most personal injury cases. That matters more than most people realize. Severe injuries produce larger cases, and our personal injury attorneys in New York City make sure every category of loss is documented and pursued.

Severe Injuries That Require a NYC Personal Injury Lawyer

When serious injuries happen in New York City, the stakes are too high to handle alone. Our personal injury lawyers in New York City represent clients suffering from the full range of catastrophic and life-altering injuries caused by someone else's negligence.

• Traumatic brain injuries: A TBI caused by a car accident, a fall, or a construction site incident can affect every part of your life, and our personal injury attorneys in New York City work with medical experts to document the full long-term impact on your claim
• Spinal cord injuries and paralysis: Partial or complete paralysis changes everything, and our NYC personal injury lawyers pursue maximum compensation to cover lifetime care costs, lost earning capacity, and pain and suffering
• Broken bones and fractures: Serious fractures, especially those requiring surgery or causing permanent limitation, go far beyond what no-fault insurance covers, and our personal injury lawyers in New York City make sure you are not settling for less than your case is worth
• Burn injuries: Severe burns from fires, chemical exposure, or electrical accidents often require multiple surgeries and long-term rehabilitation, and our personal injury attorneys in New York City pursue compensation that reflects that reality
• Amputations and crush injuries: Losing a limb or suffering a crush injury in a construction accident or vehicle collision has permanent financial and personal consequences that our NYC personal injury lawyers are prepared to pursue aggressively
• Internal organ damage: Injuries to internal organs are not always visible after an accident, but they can be life-threatening, and our personal injury lawyers in New York City know how to build the medical evidence needed to support these claims
• Wrongful death: When a loved one is killed due to someone else's negligence in New York City, our personal injury attorneys pursue compensation for surviving family members including lost financial support, funeral expenses, and the loss of companionship

Severe injuries demand serious legal representation. If you or someone you love suffered a catastrophic injury anywhere in New York City, contact our personal injury lawyers today to understand what your case may be worth.

What Kinds of Personal Injury Cases Do Our Personal Injury Lawyers in New York City Handle?

Our personal injury lawyers in New York City represent clients injured across the full range of accident types that happen in this city every day:

• Car accidents: Collisions on the West Side Highway, the BQE, the Grand Central Parkway, and city streets across all five boroughs involving negligent drivers, distracted driving, speeding, and failure to yield
• Truck and commercial vehicle accidents: Crashes involving delivery trucks, 18-wheelers, and commercial fleets that frequently travel routes like the Cross Bronx Expressway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
• Motorcycle accidents: Injuries to riders on city streets where car doors, potholes, and inattentive drivers create constant hazards
• Pedestrian accidents: Victims struck in crosswalks, on sidewalks, and in parking lots throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island
• Bicycle accidents: Riders hit by cars and trucks in protected lanes and on city streets, including in areas like the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway and the Queensboro Bridge approaches
• Slip-and-fall accidents: Falls on wet floors, broken sidewalks, unlit stairwells, icy entrances, and deteriorating public property
• Construction accidents: Injuries at job sites involving falls from height, scaffold collapses, falling objects, and equipment failures under New York's Labor Law
• Subway and bus accidents: Claims against the MTA and the City of New York for injuries on platforms, trains, buses, and at transit facilities
• Dog bites: Attacks by dogs whose owners knew or should have known the animal had vicious tendencies
• Wrongful death: Cases where a family member was killed due to someone else's negligence, seeking compensation for surviving family members

If your injury type is not listed here, call us anyway. The categories above are common, not exhaustive.

What If I Was Hurt on the Subway or a City Bus in New York City?

You can still sue. People bring successful claims against the MTA and the City of New York every year.

But the process is different, and the deadlines are brutal. If you were hurt on a subway platform at Union Square, on a bus on Fordham Road in the Bronx, or on a commuter train at Penn Station, you are dealing with a government entity. You must file a notice of claim within 90 days of your injury. This is a formal legal document that puts the MTA or the city on notice that you intend to sue. It is not the lawsuit itself, but missing it ends your case before it starts.

After the notice of claim, there is typically a hearing called a 50-h examination where the city or MTA gets to question you under oath. Our personal injury attorneys in New York City prepare every client for that room before they walk into it.

The MTA has lawyers. The city has lawyers. They handle these cases every single day and they are counting on you not knowing the process. Our personal injury lawyers in New York City know it.

What If the Other Driver Had No Insurance or I Was in a Hit-and-Run in NYC?

You still have options. New York requires all drivers to carry uninsured motorist coverage, which means your own insurance policy may cover your injuries even when the at-fault driver had no insurance or fled the scene.

New York is also a no-fault insurance state. Regardless of who caused the accident, your own auto insurance pays your initial medical bills and a portion of lost wages through personal injury protection, or PIP. But no-fault coverage has limits. If your injuries are serious, defined under New York law as significant disfigurement, fracture, permanent limitation of a body organ or member, or a medically determined injury that prevents you from performing substantially all of your daily activities for at least 90 out of the 180 days following the accident, you can step outside no-fault and sue the at-fault driver directly.

What If My Injury Happened at a Job Site or While I Was Working in New York City?

Workers' compensation is usually your first source of benefits if you were hurt on the job in New York. But workers' comp has strict limits. It does not compensate you for pain and suffering. Full stop.

If a third party caused your workplace injury, meaning someone other than your employer or a coworker, you may be able to bring a separate personal injury lawsuit alongside your workers' comp claim. A delivery driver who caused a crash. A property owner where you were working. A contractor whose equipment failed. These third-party claims can produce significantly higher recoveries than workers' comp alone.

Construction accidents in New York are their own category entirely. Labor Law sections 200, 240, and 241 impose strict duties on property owners and general contractors that go well beyond ordinary negligence. A worker who falls from scaffolding at a job site in Midtown or gets struck by falling debris in Long Island City may have a Labor Law case that a standard personal injury framework does not fully capture. Our personal injury lawyers in New York City handle construction accident claims under all three sections.

Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Personal Injury in New York City?

More people than you think.

In a car accident, the at-fault driver is the obvious defendant. But their employer may be liable if they were working at the time. The vehicle's owner may be liable under New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law even if they were not in the car. A municipality may be liable if a defective road condition contributed to the crash.

Slip-and-fall cases work differently. The property owner carries primary responsibility, but a building management company, a maintenance contractor, or a tenant may share liability depending on who controlled the dangerous condition. A fall on a broken sidewalk in front of a commercial property in Carroll Gardens is different from a fall on a residential sidewalk in the West Village, where the city's responsibility is greater.

Product liability cases can reach manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. If a defective product hurt you, multiple parties in the supply chain may owe you compensation. Our personal injury attorneys in New York City investigate each case to identify all responsible parties. Leaving a defendant off the lawsuit means leaving money off the table.

Where Our Personal Injury Lawyers Serve Clients

Our personal injury lawyers in New York City represent injured clients throughout all five boroughs, and we know the local courts, rules, and defendants in each of them.

• Manhattan: Pedestrian accidents in Midtown, taxi and rideshare collisions near Penn Station and Grand Central, and slip-and-falls in commercial buildings throughout the Financial District and Upper West Side
• Brooklyn: Car accidents along Atlantic Avenue and the BQE corridor, construction injuries in Williamsburg and Bushwick, and transit claims involving the G, J, and L trains
• Queens: Intersection accidents near JFK, pedestrian injuries along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, and truck accidents on the Van Wyck Expressway in one of the most congested boroughs in the city
• The Bronx: Construction site injuries, car accidents on the Cross Bronx Expressway, and cases involving dangerous property conditions in residential buildings throughout the borough
• Staten Island: Car accidents on the Staten Island Expressway and the West Shore Expressway, where high speeds and heavy truck traffic make serious collisions common

The borough where your accident happened affects which courts handle your case, which local rules apply, and sometimes which insurance carriers are involved. Our personal injury attorneys in New York City know those differences, and we know how to position your case.

How Our Personal Injury Attorneys in New York City Can Help You

Here is the reality. The moment you were hurt, the other side started building a defense. Insurance adjusters are trained to pay as little as possible. They record statements, look for inconsistencies, and wait to see if you will settle cheap before you understand what your case is worth. The MTA has its own legal department. Large corporations have teams of defense lawyers who do only this work, all day, every day. They count on you not knowing the system.

• Investigation and evidence preservation: Our personal injury attorneys in New York City move quickly to secure surveillance footage, accident reports, witness contact information, and physical evidence before it disappears
• Medical documentation: Our NYC personal injury lawyer work with your treating physicians and, where necessary, independent medical experts to document the full extent of your injuries and your future care needs
• Insurance negotiations: Our personal injury lawyers in New York City handle every communication with the insurance company so you are not pressured into a settlement that does not cover what you have lost
• Notice of claim filing: For cases involving the MTA, the City of New York, or any other government entity, we file the required notice of claim before the 90-day deadline closes your case
• Litigation: If the insurance company will not pay what your case is worth, our personal injury attorneys in New York City take it to court

You pay nothing upfront. Our personal injury lawyers in New York City work on contingency, which means we only get paid if we win your case. Our fee comes from the settlement or verdict. If we do not recover for you, you owe us nothing.

Talk to Kelner and Kelner About Your Personal Injury Case in New York City

You were hurt. Someone is responsible. And the clock is already running. Contact Kelner and Kelner today to speak with a New York City personal injury lawyer about your case. The consultation is free, and there is no obligation.