Mirman, Markovits & Landau, P.C.: Powerful Advocacy For Your Legal Success

Personal injury cases arise when something called a “tort” is committed. A tort is a civil wrong that infringes on someone else’s rights or harms them in some way.

So, it’s a type of legal dispute involving two parties – a plaintiff and a defendant. Very simply, the plaintiff claims that they’ve been injured in some way because of something the defendant did. Through the personal injury case, the defendant is being asked to take responsibility and compensate the plaintiff for their injuries.

Personal injury cases can be private disputes between the two parties (e.g., insurance claim for benefits) or navigate the civil court system in New York (e.g., personal injury lawsuit).

After you get hurt, you might not know whether or not you have a legitimate claim for damages. The only way to find out is to discuss the circumstances surrounding your injury with an experienced personal injury lawyer. Like most personal injury law firms in NYC, Mirman, Markovits & Landau, P.C. offers a free consultation. This gives you an opportunity to learn about your legal rights and get some preliminary legal advice and assistance.

When you sit down for a free initial case evaluation, our attorneys will ask you to recount the details of what happened. Our team will probably ask a lot of different questions to get a better understanding of what might have happened. If you have evidence, bring that to the consultation with you. Your lawyer can review what you have, assess the situation, and identify what, if any, legal options for recovery might be available to you.

After an accident, anyone who is personally harmed can potentially file an injury claim and request damages. There are times, however, when someone who wasn’t personally involved in an accident can potentially file an injury claim.

This would be the case if the accident victim did not survive the extent of their injuries. When an accident is fatal, the right to file an injury claim isn’t lost. Rather, it’s transferred to the victim’s family. More specifically, the personal representative of the victim’s estate assumes the right to file a wrongful death claim and seek compensation on the family’s behalf.

In New York, plaintiffs in a personal injury case can pursue two types of compensatory damages – economic and non-economic. Economic damages are paid to make up for the verifiable financial costs of an accident. So, things like medical bills or lost wages. Calculating these is fairly straightforward. You might have bills, receipts, or pay stubs to prove your losses.

Non-economic damages are paid to compensate for subjective injuries and losses. This includes things like pain and suffering, which can vary significantly from one person to another. Many times, non-economic damages are calculated using a multiplier. Once an economic award is determined, it’s simply multiplied by a factor between 1 and 5, depending on the seriousness of the accident and extent of the injuries. The more serious the consequences, the higher the multiplier.

It’s important to note that there is another type of award that is sometimes available in personal injury cases – punitive damages. Punitive damages are awarded to punish the defendant. They’re issued on top of any compensatory (economic and non-economic damages) awards. Since these are intended as a punishment, they’re reserved for only the most serious and egregious of situations.