NEW YORK MUNICIPAL LIABILITY LAWYERS

NEW YORK MUNICIPAL LIABILITY LAWYERS

The State of New York or one of its counties, cities, towns, or villages may be held responsible for the death of someone you loved, or your brain damage or other personal injuries. If death or injury results from negligence on the part of the government, including acts performed by the government’s employees, not maintaining highways, sidewalks, buildings, streets or bridges, or medical malpractice, we will be able to help you get proper and just compensation.

Applicable procedures and time frames

Lawsuits against New York State or any of its agencies must be brought in the New York Court of Claims. A Notice of Intention to File a Claim, or a Claim, must be filed and served within 90 days after the accident occurring. The Court of Claims Act specifies circumstances under which this time period can be extended. It can however not be extended by more than 2 years after the accident occurred, unless the injured party has been declared incompetent by a Court, or is a child. Your lawsuit could be dismissed if you don’t file a Notice of Intention or a Claim timely.

The General Municipal Law governs lawsuits against other governmental bodies, including towns, counties and cities, and specifies that a Notice of Claim should be served within 90 days after the accident has occurred. This time period may however be extended if the injured party is able to show that the government body was aware of the claim’s facts within the 90 days. A lawsuit must be filed within one year and 90 days after the accident, unless the injured party is an incompetent or a child.

If the government is negligent, it can be held liable

Thousands of individuals are hurt each year as a result of government negligence. Potential hazards include broken sidewalks, substandard streets, and improperly maintained and poorly designed roadways. Some are injured because of medical malpractice at State, County, or City hospitals, or due to police misconduct. Government employees may also cause injury by being negligent while operating trains, buses, or cars. Municipal liability law is applicable and the government is responsible in each of those cases. An experienced attorney can help you hold New York State, New York City, or any Town, Village, County, or City responsible for being negligent.

The lawyers at Rozhik Law Firm, PLLC in New York recognize that the government’s negligence may have caused your injuries and can help you prove that your brain damage, spine injury or fractures was as a direct result of this negligence.

Hire an attorney as soon as possible

Personal injury lawyers are aware that as per municipal liability laws, you have to file a Notice of Claim as soon as possible after the accident, as special rules restrict and limit your rights to lodge lawsuits against the government or people it employs. Once the filing of the special notice has been done, you must still take further action within a short period to start the suit. You will no longer have the right to sue if both these steps have not been done properly and timely. This is different than bringing a suit against people outside of government or companies.

We have represented our clients in lawsuits for medical malpractice and accidents resulting in personal injury, including brain trauma, against the State of NY, New York City, the NYC Transit Authority, Long Island Railroad, the Health and Hospital Corporation, Metro North, the Port Authorities, and various villages, towns and counties for years. We are aware of the time and notice requirements and are ready to act to defend your rights immediately!

We have represented clients successfully when they sustained physical injuries and traumatic brain injuries in many different scenarios caused by government negligence.

Understanding the Impact of Government Negligence

We have for many years investigated and prosecuted serious accidents on our highways, bridges and streets successfully. One case involved a passenger being injured while being in a car when someone cut the driver off on a highway, causing him to lose control as the car was flung across the median where it was struck by oncoming traffic. Our client suffered a brain injury and significant physical injuries in this accident. Carefully reviewing the highway showed that the roadway’s median was missing a guardrail. A lawsuit was brought against New York State for bad highway design and this resulted in a sizeable verdict against the New York State for negligence when designing the highway.

In another case, an unsuitable shoulder drop off and poor drainage resulted in a car leaving the road. We managed to prove that our client’s injuries resulted from poor highway maintenance and poor government planning.

Unsafe, Broken Streets and Sidewalk Defects

The proper maintenance and upkeep of highways, streets and sidewalks is the responsibility of NYC and the villages and towns in the State of New York. If there are any accidents caused by cracked or broken sidewalks, pot holes, improper street openings, faulty repairs and flooding conditions, we have represented accident victims’ rights successfully in terms of municipal liability law.

We have also managed to bring successful lawsuits for injuries sustained due to a sidewalk being cracked and not being repaired for a long time in spite of legal notices of the dangerous conditions. In one of the municipal liability cases, a person fractured an ankle when they stumbled over metal protruding from the sidewalk after street signs had been removed. We also represented a car driver losing control and being flung into a tree due to the road being flooded as a drain was not cleaned properly. In every one of those cases, government liability was proven after consultations with our experts and a thorough inspection of the accident scene.

Police Negligence and Misconduct

Although the police’s job is to serve and to protect, there are unfortunately always some individuals that will abuse their power and authority, and inflict injury on innocent individuals. We have been involved in cases where police did not follow the correct procedures and cases where our clients had been arrested and imprisoned wrongfully due to police misconduct. We have also represented cases where unnecessary and unreasonable physical force resulted in clients suffering injuries, including serious brain trauma. NYC’s regulations for police departments were violated in these cases. We retain police professionals for these municipal liability cases and they review and examine the police departments’ conduct and the officers involved, and help us in ensuring that justice is carried out.

Medical Negligence and Hospital Liability

Hospitals that are run by the State of New York, counties and New York City’s Hospital and Health Corporation sometimes don’t provide their patients with proper care. The employees at these hospitals, including residents, interns and doctors, are all employed by the government and a lawsuit can therefore be brought for medical negligence and medical malpractice perpetuated by the employees at those facilities.

We have represented cases against hospitals run by New York City’s Hospital and Health Corporation for neurosurgical malpractice, anesthesia errors, orthopedic mishaps, as well as failure in obstetrical delivery and care. In every one of these medical malpractice cases against New York City, we managed to hold the hospital liable for the acts or omissions of the nurses, residents, interns, and doctors who work there.

Injuries Caused by New York State and NYC Vehicles

Like any other driver, municipal or city vehicle drivers such as drivers of sanitation trucks, police officers and fire engine operators are responsible for operating them safely. Government vehicles are obliged to follow the normal traffic rules, as well as other special regulations. Where careless and unsafe driving has resulted in injuries, we have on behalf of clients filed personal injury lawsuits successfully due to negligence by the government.
Our personal injury attorneys at the Rozhik Law Firm PLLC proved successfully that a police car running a red light caused brain trauma to a taxi cab’s occupant when the taxi was struck. When a city vehicle struck a pedestrian while crossing the street, we proved the cause was driver inattention. We’ve also shown that a sanitation truck hitting a car in an adjacent traffic lane was due to an improper turn being made.

Negligence at School Districts: Unsafe Playgrounds and Schools

The NYC Board of Education and school districts are responsible under municipal liability law for injuries that occurred in school buildings or in school yards due to faulty and defective equipment and school grounds that have not been maintained properly. A school is also responsible if teachers exploit students by inflicting sexual or physical abuse. We have represented students who have been hurt in a classroom due to buildings being maintained poorly, or in a school yard due to broken equipment, or who have been victims of teachers’ abuse.

Negligence by the NYC Housing Authority

When a town or city operates or owns an apartment building or a housing project, it is treated the same as all other landlords. The housing authority must maintain the outside and the inside of the housing properly and also perform repairs inside the apartments. When there is an injury due to them failing to act responsibly, we have taken legal action on behalf of the injured party.

We Only Charge if The Case is Successful

If you select us to represent you against the government in a municipal liability lawsuit, we will do so on a no recovery, no fee basis. That means that you will not have to pay us any fees until the case has been concluded. The fee will be based on the recovery we receive for the personal injury or brain trauma. If we don’t manage to make a recovery, you won’t owe us anything.

We will represent victims throughout New York State and in New York City, including cases in Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Manhattan, as well as the adjacent counties of Suffolk, Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland. We’ll also take on cases in other New York areas, including Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse and Rochester.

We are able to represent individuals for medical malpractice cases caused by the New York Hospital and Health Corporation’s hospitals, including Coney Island, Bellevue, Jacobi, Elmhurst General, Lincoln, Kings County, Queens General and North Central Bronx Hospitals. We can also help you with medical malpractice cases in State hospitals such as Stony Brook Medical Center and Hospital, Downstate Medical Center, and Syracuse Medical Center and Hospital. We can also assist you in cases against the County Medical Centers in Nassau and Westchester.

We also take on cases against New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Transit Authority, Housing Authority, Port Authority, the New York State’s Thruway Authority and the Tri-Borough Tunnel and Bridge Authority.

To get an obligation free legal consultation for a lawsuit against the government, contact a personal injury attorney at Rozhik Law Firm PLLC in New York by calling us at (917)567-1963.