A plain-language guide to New York injury claims from Goldberg Sager & Associates in Brooklyn.
Written by Marcel A. Sager, Partner, Goldberg Sager & Associates. Legally reviewed by Karen Goldberg Sager, Partner and head of the firm’s personal injury practice.
Last updated October 3, 2026.
Attorney Advertising. This guide is general information about New York law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not make us your lawyers. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. For advice about your own injury, speak with an attorney licensed in New York.
If you were hurt in Brooklyn and want to ask whether we can review your matter, call 718-645-6677. There is no charge for the initial consultation.
A personal injury claim in New York is a claim that someone else’s carelessness hurt you and that the law requires them to pay for it. In Brooklyn, three facts decide most cases before anyone discusses the injury: who the defendant is, which deadline applies, and whether the lawsuit is filed before or after May 26, 2026.
This guide is for a Brooklyn resident who has been hurt, or whose family member has been hurt, and who wants to understand the rules before deciding what to do. It covers the questions people ask most often at our office on Kings Highway: how long you have, who you can sue, what no-fault pays, what a case is worth and how long it takes.
It is not a substitute for talking to a lawyer about your own facts. The rules below are stated as they stand on October 3, 2026. Deadlines in particular depend on details a guide cannot know, such as whether a public agency owned the street where you fell or whether the driver who hit you was insured. Where two deadlines might apply, assume the shorter one.
In New York, the identity of the defendant sets the deadline, the proof required and, sometimes, whether a claim exists at all. The injury determines what a case is worth. The defendant determines whether there is a case to value.
That follows from how New York has divided liability by statute. A claim against a private driver, store or landlord is an ordinary negligence claim with a three-year deadline under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214(5). A claim against the City or another public corporation requires a notice of claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law section 50-e, then a lawsuit within one year and 90 days under section 50-i. A claim against New York State itself belongs in the Court of Claims under Court of Claims Act section 10, not in Supreme Court, Kings County. Each is a different procedure with different filing requirements.
Brooklyn shows the point more clearly than most places. According to the New York City Comptroller’s annual claims report, Brooklyn accounted for 5,254 of the personal injury and property damage claims filed against the City in its 2023 fiscal year, and 2,350 claims citywide involved sidewalks alone. Many of those sidewalk claims turn on one provision, New York City Administrative Code section 7-210. It shifts responsibility for sidewalk defects from the City to the owner of the adjoining property, except for one-, two- and three-family homes that are owner-occupied and used only as residences. In a borough of row houses and brownstones, the same crack in the pavement can make the City the defendant in front of one house and a private owner the defendant in front of the next. The 90-day notice applies to the first case and not the second. Nothing about the injury tells you which case you have. The address does.
This is why the first questions at an intake are not about the injury. They are about the location, the owner and the date. Our Brooklyn personal injury lawyers draw on more than 70 years of combined legal experience, and the cases we see lost early are lost on those three facts, not on the medicine.
If you were hurt in a motor vehicle crash and your lawsuit is filed on or after May 26, 2026, a narrower set of rules applies than the one most people, and many websites, still describe.
The change comes from Part EE of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, which the New York State Department of Financial Services summarized in Insurance Circular Letter No. 3 of 2026. The amendments apply to actions commenced on or after May 26, 2026. Three changes matter most to an injured person. First, the definition of “serious injury” in Insurance Law section 5102(d) no longer includes a non-permanent injury that kept a person from substantially all usual daily activities for 90 of the first 180 days. Eight categories remain. Second, Insurance Law section 5104(a) now requires the jury to decide fault before it decides whether an injury is serious. Third, a new Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(b) bars recovery in a motor vehicle case if the injured person’s fault is greater than the combined fault of the people being sued.
The filing date controls, not the accident date. A person hurt in 2024 who files in late 2026 faces the new rules, even though the old rules were in effect on the day of the crash. The three-year statute of limitations has not changed. The law applied inside that window has.
Brooklyn feels this directly. The New York City Department of Transportation reported 205 traffic deaths citywide in 2025, the fewest since record-keeping began in 1910, and 63 of those deaths were in Brooklyn. Behind each death are many more injuries, and every one of those injured people, if they sue now, sues under the amended statute. For a driver, passenger, pedestrian or cyclist, evidence of who was at fault must be gathered early and carefully, because a finding of more than 50 percent fault now ends the case rather than reducing it. Our Brooklyn auto accident attorneys walk through the no-fault claim and the lawsuit against the other driver in Part III of this guide.
We are a family-owned Brooklyn firm, located in Midwood at 1628 Kings Highway. Karen Goldberg Sager leads our personal injury work and has practiced for more than 35 years. She was admitted to the New York bar in 1988 and is also admitted in New Jersey, the District of Columbia and the United States Supreme Court. Our staff works in English, Spanish, Russian and Polish.
Two practices shape how we take on an injury matter. First, we meet clients where they are. If you cannot come to the office because you are recovering at home or in a hospital, we will come to you. The first weeks after an injury are when photographs still exist, witnesses can still be found and the medical chart is still being written, so a meeting in that window is worth more than a meeting a month later. Second, injury matters are accepted on a contingency fee basis. There is no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery, and the fee is stated in a written retainer agreement, as New York court rules require.
We also handle the matters that often arise alongside an injury, including wrongful death and estate administration, so that a family does not need a second firm to open an estate before a death claim can be brought.
Each Part opens with a short answer to its question, then states the rule, explains it and shows how it applies to a Brooklyn situation. Statutes are named in the text so you can look them up. Where we use an example with names, it is a made-up illustration, labeled as such, and not a real case. Where we mention a result our firm has obtained, it comes from our published results and carries the required reminder that prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Part I begins with the first 90 days after an injury, because that is where most of what follows is won or lost.
After an injury in Brooklyn, the first 90 days decide whether a claim can be brought at all. In that period, a no-fault application may be due within 30 days, a crash report within 10 days, and a sworn notice of claim against the City or another public body within 90 days. Evidence disappears on a similar schedule.
The three-year deadline in Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214(5) is the one most people know. It is also the least urgent of the deadlines that run after a Brooklyn injury. The shorter clocks are the ones that end cases.
A driver in a crash that injures or kills anyone, or that causes more than $1,000 of damage to any one person’s property, must file a written report with the Department of Motor Vehicles within 10 days. That is Vehicle and Traffic Law section 605. A person injured by a motor vehicle must give the insurer written notice of a no-fault claim “as soon as reasonably practicable, but in no event more than 30 days after the date of the accident.” That rule is in the mandatory policy endorsement in 11 NYCRR 65-1.1, which the Department of Financial Services publishes as Regulation 68. The same endorsement requires medical bills within 45 days of the service and proof of lost earnings within 90 days. A claim against the City of New York or another public corporation requires a sworn notice of claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law section 50-e, then a lawsuit within one year and 90 days under section 50-i.
New York courts treat these periods as conditions, not formalities. In DeCicco v City of Syracuse, decided by the Appellate Division, Fourth Department in 2009, a lawsuit filed one year and 91 days after the event was dismissed as one day late. General Municipal Law section 50-e(5) does let a court permit a late notice of claim, but the relief is discretionary. The court asks, in particular, whether the public body learned the essential facts of the claim within 90 days or a reasonable time afterward, and whether the delay substantially prejudiced it. In our office, the 90-day date goes on the calendar the day a file opens, before the medical picture is complete, because the notice cannot wait for the medicine.
The New York City Department of Transportation reported 47,557 traffic injuries citywide in 2025 through December 15. Some of those crashes involve a City vehicle, a City bus or a roadway condition the City maintained. For those cases the operative deadline is 90 days, not three years, and nothing about the injury announces which kind of case it is.
This is general guidance, not advice about a particular event. In the first week:
The table is a reading aid drawn from the statutes and regulation named. It is not a ruling that any particular claim is timely, and several of the periods have exceptions that depend on facts a guide cannot know.
| Deadline | What is due | Who it applies to | Where it is written |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 days | Written crash report (Form MV-104) to the Department of Motor Vehicles when anyone is injured or killed, or property damage to any one person exceeds $1,000 | Drivers in a motor vehicle crash | Vehicle and Traffic Law section 605 |
| 30 days | Written notice of a no-fault claim (Form NF-2, Application for Motor Vehicle No-Fault Benefits) to the insurer | Anyone injured by a motor vehicle: drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists | 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 |
| 45 days | Medical bills submitted to the no-fault insurer, counted from the date of the service | Same | 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 |
| 90 days | Proof of lost earnings and other necessary expenses to the no-fault insurer | Same | 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 |
| 90 days | Sworn notice of claim served on the public corporation | Claims against the City of New York, the Housing Authority, a school district or a similar public body | General Municipal Law section 50-e |
| 1 year and 90 days | Lawsuit filed against the public corporation (wrongful death: two years from the death) | Same | General Municipal Law section 50-i |
| 3 years | Lawsuit filed against a private person or business | Private defendants | Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214(5) |
Two notes on the table. The no-fault endorsement allows a late notice or bill only on “written proof providing clear and reasonable justification” for the delay. Insurers deny late applications routinely, so do not count on that exception. And in a wrongful death case, the 90 days for the notice of claim run from the appointment of a representative of the estate, not from the death, under section 50-e(1)(a).
Under General Municipal Law section 50-e(2), the notice must be in writing and sworn to by or on behalf of the claimant. It must state the name and address of the claimant and any attorney, the nature of the claim, the time when, the place where and the manner in which the claim arose, and the items of damage or injury so far as then practicable. It can be served by personal delivery or by registered or certified mail. In a city of more than one million people, which means New York City, section 50-e(3) also allows electronic service in the form the city prescribes.
For a claim against the City of New York itself, the notice goes to the Office of the Comptroller. The Comptroller’s claims office accepts personal injury claims online through its eClaim system, or in person or by certified mail at 1 Centre Street, Room 1225, New York, New York 10007. The claim form must be notarized. The City, New York City Transit, the Housing Authority and the Department of Education are separate entities. A notice addressed to the wrong one has not been served on the right one. Part IV explains which agency receives which notice.
Video and physical evidence are lost on a schedule shorter than any deadline in the table above, and the law offers only a partial remedy once they are gone.
The remedy comes from Pegasus Aviation I, Inc. v Varig Logistica S.A., decided by the Court of Appeals in 2015. A party asking the court to punish the destruction of evidence must show three things: that the party holding the evidence had a duty to preserve it when it was destroyed, that it was destroyed with a culpable state of mind, and that the evidence was relevant to the claim. If the destruction was intentional or willful, relevance is presumed. If it was merely negligent, the injured person must prove relevance.
A duty to preserve usually arises when the holder of the evidence knows litigation is likely. A written preservation letter sent in the first week creates that knowledge. A letter sent after a store’s camera system has overwritten the footage asks the court to penalize a record that no longer exists, and even a sanction, if one is granted, is not the same as the footage.
In Brooklyn, the evidence that matters is often held by someone other than the defendant: a bodega camera facing the corner, a doorbell camera on a brownstone, a bus camera, the event data recorder in a vehicle, the dispatch record for a sidewalk repair, or the 311 history for a pothole. The single most useful thing a lawyer does in the first ten days is identify who holds those records and put them on notice in writing. That is one reason we meet injured clients at home or in the hospital during that window rather than waiting for them to be able to come to the office.
There are two insurers, and they are not treated alike. Your no-fault insurer is paying your medical bills, and the policy endorsement in 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 makes cooperation a condition of coverage. You must submit to medical examination by physicians the insurer selects “when, and as often as, the Company may reasonably require,” and you may be required to give an examination under oath. Missing those examinations can end the benefits. The other driver’s liability insurer is a different matter. You have no obligation to give it a recorded statement. A statement given before the plates, the photographs and the first medical chart have been assembled is how small inconsistencies are created and later used.
On social media, the rule comes from Forman v Henkin, decided by the Court of Appeals in 2018. The Court rejected the idea that an account holder’s privacy settings govern what must be disclosed in a personal injury case. It also rejected the idea that starting a lawsuit makes an entire account automatically discoverable. In practice, a photograph of you at a family event, posted privately, can be demanded if it bears on the injuries you claim. Assume the defense will see what you post.
The one party you should always speak to fully is your doctor. Tell the treating physician every symptom, including the ones that seem minor. The defense examiner reads that chart months later and was not in the room.
An injury that is not documented in the first days is harder to connect to the event later, and some injuries do not announce themselves at the scene.
That is a medical observation before it is a legal one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s HEADS UP program notes that concussion signs and symptoms may not show up right away and may take hours or days to appear or be noticed. People decline the ambulance, say they are fine, and describe a headache or confusion two days later. Nothing in this guide is medical advice; treatment decisions belong to a physician. The legal point is narrower. The first chart entry that records a symptom is the anchor for every later test, and a gap between the event and the first complaint is the first thing a defense lawyer looks for. Our firm’s traumatic brain injury page describes the kinds of events in which these claims arise, most often falls and collisions.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case and does not describe any client of the firm.
Rosa Almonte, 58, is crossing Kings Highway at East 16th Street in Midwood when a car making a left turn strikes her. She is taken to a Brooklyn emergency room with a fractured wrist and a bruised hip, and she tells the attending physician she was hit by a car in the crosswalk. The driver stops, as Vehicle and Traffic Law section 600 requires, and the police prepare a report.
The first clock is the driver’s. He must report the crash to the Department of Motor Vehicles within 10 days under section 605. That is his obligation, not hers, but the report he files will be evidence.
The second clock is hers. As a pedestrian, Rosa’s no-fault benefits come from the insurer of the car that struck her. Her written application must reach that insurer within 30 days under 11 NYCRR 65-1.1, and her hospital bills must be submitted within 45 days of each service. If she misses the 30 days, the insurer may deny the application unless she can show clear and reasonable justification in writing. Her fractured wrist also matters for another reason: a fracture is one of the categories of serious injury under Insurance Law section 5102(d), which Part III explains.
The third clock is the one she does not know about. Three weeks after the crash, a neighbor tells her the pedestrian signal at that corner had been dark for several days and that someone had called 311 about it. That fact raises a possible claim against the City of New York for the condition of the signal. The notice of claim for that possibility is due 90 days after the crash under General Municipal Law section 50-e, whether or not the City’s responsibility is ever proven. If Rosa first learns of the signal problem on day 100, her only route is an application for leave to file a late notice under section 50-e(5), and the court will ask whether the City already knew the essential facts and whether the delay prejudiced it. If she learns of it on day 20 and does nothing, she has the same problem with a worse excuse.
The example also shows why the May 26, 2026 change matters at the scene. If the driver’s insurer argues that Rosa stepped off the curb against the signal, her share of fault is no longer merely a reduction in a motor vehicle case. Under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(b), a finding that her fault exceeded the driver’s would bar her recovery entirely. The witness who saw the dark signal is not a detail. In our pedestrian knockdown cases, that witness is found in the first week or not at all.
Part II turns to the question that example raises: how New York decides who was at fault, and what happens when the answer is “both.”
New York decides fault by asking whether a person failed to use the care a reasonably careful person would have used, and then by assigning each party a percentage. Since May 26, 2026, what that percentage means depends on the kind of case. In most injury cases a share of fault reduces the recovery. In a motor vehicle case filed on or after that date, a share greater than the defendants’ combined share ends it.
A negligence claim is not a claim that something bad happened. It is a claim that a specific person owed you a duty, failed to meet it, and caused a measurable injury by that failure. Each element has to be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning it is more likely true than not.
The four parts are duty, breach, causation and damages. Duty is the legal obligation to act with reasonable care toward the injured person. Breach is the failure to meet that standard. Causation requires that the breach actually brought about the injury and that the injury was a foreseeable result. Damages are the actual harm: medical bills, lost wages, pain and the loss of normal activities.
Duty is specific to the defendant, which is why Part I spent so long on identifying the right one. A driver owes other users of the road ordinary care, and the Vehicle and Traffic Law supplies much of the content of that duty. Vehicle and Traffic Law section 1146 says every driver “shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any bicyclist, pedestrian, or domestic animal upon any roadway.” The same section adds a presumption that matters in Brooklyn’s crosswalks. A driver who causes physical injury to a pedestrian or bicyclist while failing to exercise due care is presumed to have caused the injury by that failure, and the driver carries the burden of rebutting the presumption. A store owner’s duty is different. It turns on whether the owner created a hazard or had time to discover it, a rule Part V explains. A general sense that “someone should have fixed it” is not a duty, and files go wrong when that sentence is mistaken for one.
In most cases the fight is not over duty or damages. It is over causation and the injured person’s own conduct, which is the subject of the rest of this Part.
New York now has two comparative fault rules. Which one applies depends on whether the case involves a motor vehicle and when the lawsuit was filed.
Both are in Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411. Subdivision (a) states the general rule that has governed New York since 1975. In any action for personal injury, injury to property or wrongful death, “the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or to the decedent, including contributory negligence or assumption of risk, shall not bar recovery.” The damages “shall be diminished in the proportion which the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant or decedent bears to the culpable conduct which caused the damages.” This is pure comparative fault. A person found 80 percent responsible for a fall still recovers 20 percent of the proven damages.
Subdivision (b), added by Part EE of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, carves out one category. In any action for personal injury “subject to article fifty-one of the insurance law,” which means a claim arising from the use or operation of a motor vehicle, the claimant’s culpable conduct “shall bar recovery if the culpable conduct attributable to the claimant is greater than the culpable conduct of the person against whom recovery is sought or is greater than the combined culpable conduct of the persons against whom recovery is sought.” At exactly 50 percent fault the claimant still recovers half. At 51 percent the claimant recovers nothing. According to the Department of Financial Services, the amendment applies to actions commenced on or after May 26, 2026.
One more statute matters here. Under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1412, culpable conduct “shall be an affirmative defense to be pleaded and proved by the party asserting the defense.” The defendant, not the injured person, has to prove that the injured person was at fault and by how much. That has not changed. What has changed is the stakes. In a car, bus, truck, motorcycle, pedestrian or bicycle case filed on or after May 26, 2026, the defense is no longer arguing only about the size of the recovery. It is arguing about whether there is one.
The table shows the arithmetic under both rules. The dollar figures are illustrative, not predictions. Every real case also involves insurance limits and the other reductions described in Part VI.
| Injured person’s share of fault | Proven damages | Recovery in a non-motor-vehicle case (section 1411(a), pure comparative fault) | Recovery in a motor vehicle case filed on or after May 26, 2026 (section 1411(b)) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 percent | $100,000 | $100,000 | $100,000 |
| 20 percent | $100,000 | $80,000 | $80,000 |
| 50 percent | $100,000 | $50,000 | $50,000 |
| 51 percent | $100,000 | $49,000 | $0 |
| 80 percent | $100,000 | $20,000 | $0 |
Two things stand out. First, the two rules produce identical results up to and including 50 percent. The change affects only the injured person whose fault exceeds the defendants’ combined fault. Second, the pure comparative fault column applies to a fall in a store, on a sidewalk or at a construction site, to a dog bite and to a medical malpractice claim, because none of those is an action subject to Insurance Law Article 51. The same slip on a wet floor that would bar recovery inside a car case does not bar it inside a store fall case. Readers who carry the car rule over to every Brooklyn injury will reach the wrong answer.
When two or more defendants share fault, New York generally lets the injured person collect the whole judgment from any of them, with one important exception for defendants whose share is small.
The exception is Article 16 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules. Under section 1601, when a defendant’s liability is found to be “fifty percent or less of the total liability assigned to all persons liable,” that defendant’s liability for non-economic loss, meaning pain and suffering, is limited to its own share. The limit applies only to non-economic loss. For economic loss, such as medical expenses and lost earnings, every liable defendant remains responsible for the whole amount.
Section 1602 lists situations where even the non-economic limit does not apply. Three are common in Brooklyn injury cases. Under section 1602(6), the limit does not protect “any person held liable by reason of his use, operation, or ownership of a motor vehicle or motorcycle.” Under section 1602(7), it does not protect a defendant who acted with reckless disregard for the safety of others. Under section 1602(8), it does not apply to claims under Article 10 of the Labor Law, which includes the scaffold and construction site provisions discussed in Part V. The 2026 legislation did not touch section 1602(6). Reports that joint and several liability was “reformed” for car cases are incorrect; the official text of section 1602 shows its most recent revision in 2019.
In a two-car collision, then, each negligent driver can be made to pay the entire judgment regardless of share. In a sidewalk fall involving both the City and an adjoining owner, a defendant found 30 percent at fault pays 30 percent of the pain and suffering award but can be pursued for all of the medical expenses. Which defendants are joined, and how fault is divided among them, changes what can actually be collected. That is why the investigation in the first weeks looks for every responsible party rather than the most obvious one.
In many New York cases, fault is decided by a judge on written motion rather than by a jury. The rules governing those motions favor an injured person who has preserved clear evidence.
The first rule comes from Rodriguez v City of New York, decided by the Court of Appeals in 2018. An injured person seeking partial summary judgment on the defendant’s liability does not have to prove freedom from his or her own comparative fault. The defendant’s negligence can be established first; the injured person’s share, if any, is decided later. Since the 2026 amendments, that later decision can be outcome-determinative in a motor vehicle case, so the sequence Rodriguez permits is still useful, but the second step carries more weight than it did.
The second rule is the rear-end presumption. As the Appellate Division, Second Department, which hears appeals from Brooklyn, restated it in O’Hara v Bancker Construction Corp. in 2024, a rear-end collision with a stopped or stopping vehicle establishes a prima facie case of negligence against the rear driver, who must then come forward with a non-negligent explanation. The Second Department has also held, in Sokolowska v Song in 2014 and in later cases, that a claim that the lead vehicle stopped suddenly, standing alone, is not enough, because stops that are foreseeable in traffic must be anticipated by the driver who follows. Our firm’s rear-end collision page describes how that presumption operates in practice.
The third rule is the one introduced in 2026. Insurance Law section 5104(a), as amended, provides that in a motor vehicle case the trier of fact “shall not determine the question of whether an injury is a serious injury until the trier of fact has determined the party or parties at fault.” Fault comes first at trial. If the jury finds the injured person more at fault than the defendants combined, the case ends there, and the medical question Part III describes is never reached.
Because a finding of 51 percent fault now ends a motor vehicle case, the evidence that fixes percentages, which is collected in the first days, matters more than it did before.
Percentages are assigned by a jury weighing testimony about speed, signals, lane position, distraction and visibility. Much of that evidence is perishable: the witness who saw the light, the camera that caught the turn, the skid marks before the rain. Speed evidence has also become more specific in Brooklyn. New York City’s default speed limit is 25 miles per hour, and since Sammy’s Law took effect in 2024 the City has begun lowering limits to 20 miles per hour on selected streets, beginning with Prospect Park West in Brooklyn. A driver doing 30 on a street newly posted at 20 is in a different position than the same driver on an unchanged street, and a photograph of the sign is the proof.
The New York City Department of Transportation reported that 111 pedestrians were killed in traffic citywide in 2025. Pedestrians and cyclists are the parties most often accused of contributing to their own injuries, by crossing mid-block, entering against a signal or riding outside a bike lane. Under the old rule those arguments reduced a recovery. Under the new rule they can eliminate it. The presumption in Vehicle and Traffic Law section 1146 helps, because it places the burden of explanation on the driver, but a presumption is a starting point, not a verdict.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case and does not describe any client of the firm.
Theo Marchetti, 34, is riding his bicycle north on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. A parked driver, Elaine Russo, opens her door into his path without looking. Theo strikes the door, is thrown, and fractures his collarbone. Theo was riding about a foot closer to the parked cars than the painted bike lane marking, and he was wearing earbuds. His lawsuit is filed in September 2026.
Because the claim arises from the use of a motor vehicle, it is subject to Insurance Law Article 51 and therefore to Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(b). Elaine’s insurer pleads Theo’s culpable conduct as an affirmative defense, which section 1412 requires it to prove. Suppose a jury finds Elaine 70 percent at fault for opening the door without looking and Theo 30 percent at fault for his lane position and inattention. Theo recovers 70 percent of his proven damages, assuming his fracture satisfies the serious injury threshold, which, as a fracture, it does. Now suppose the jury believes a witness who says Theo swerved toward the car while looking at his phone, and assigns him 55 percent. Under section 1411(b), Theo recovers nothing. Under the law as it stood for lawsuits filed before May 26, 2026, he would have recovered 45 percent.
Change one fact. Theo is not on a bicycle but walking through a Williamsburg grocery store, where he slips on a spill the staff had been told about an hour earlier, while looking at his phone. The jury again finds him 55 percent at fault. This is not an action subject to Article 51. Section 1411(a) applies, and Theo recovers 45 percent of his proven damages. Same person, same percentage, same borough, opposite result. The difference is the statute, not the facts. Our firm’s bicycle accident page explains why the first version of Theo’s case now depends so heavily on what is documented in the first week.
Part III takes up the system that governs every motor vehicle case before fault is ever discussed: New York no-fault insurance, and the serious injury threshold as it stands after the 2026 changes.
A motor vehicle crash in New York produces two separate claims. No-fault insurance pays medical bills and part of lost wages, up to $50,000, without regard to who caused the crash. A lawsuit for pain and suffering requires a “serious injury” under Insurance Law section 5102(d). For lawsuits filed on or after May 26, 2026, that definition has eight categories, not nine.
No-fault is the first source of money after a crash. An insurer pays it regardless of fault, and it is lost if the paperwork is late.
Insurance Law section 5102(a) defines “basic economic loss” as up to $50,000 per person. Within that amount, the statute covers necessary medical and rehabilitation expenses; lost earnings, with the insurer paying 80 percent of lost earnings up to $2,000 per month for up to three years after the crash; and other reasonable and necessary expenses, such as transportation to medical appointments or household help, up to $25 per day for up to one year. The mandatory policy endorsement in 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 adds a $2,000 death benefit. Section 5102(a)(5) also lets a policyholder buy an additional $25,000 of coverage, and many drivers do not know whether they have it.
| Benefit | Statutory limit | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total basic economic loss | $50,000 per person | Insurance Law section 5102(a) |
| Medical and rehabilitation expenses | Necessary expenses within the $50,000 | Insurance Law section 5102(a)(1) |
| Lost earnings | 80 percent of lost earnings, up to $2,000 per month, for not more than three years from the date of the crash | Insurance Law section 5102(a)(2) and (b)(1) |
| Other necessary expenses | Up to $25 per day, for not more than one year from the date of the crash | Insurance Law section 5102(a)(3) |
| Death benefit | $2,000, in addition to the $50,000 | 11 NYCRR 65-1.1 |
| Optional additional coverage | $25,000 if purchased by the policyholder | Insurance Law section 5102(a)(5) |
Who pays follows the vehicle, not the person. A driver or passenger looks first to the insurer of the vehicle he or she was in. A pedestrian or bicyclist looks to the insurer of the vehicle that struck him or her. The application, Form NF-2, must be in writing and must reach the insurer within 30 days of the crash, as Part I described. The same endorsement makes cooperation a condition of coverage. The insurer may require medical examinations by physicians of its choosing “when, and as often as, the Company may reasonably require,” and may require an examination under oath. In our experience, a missed independent medical examination is the most common reason benefits stop before the $50,000 is reached.
For a Brooklyn household, this means no-fault pays the emergency room, the orthopedist, the physical therapist and part of a missed paycheck in the first months, whether the crash was your fault or someone else’s. What it never pays is compensation for pain, for the loss of normal activities or for a permanent limitation. For those, the law requires a lawsuit, and a lawsuit requires a serious injury. Our firm’s car accident claims process page walks through how the two claims run side by side.
An injured person may sue a driver for pain and suffering only if the injury fits one of the categories in Insurance Law section 5102(d). The list of categories depends on the date the lawsuit was filed.
Insurance Law section 5104(a) provides that in an action between covered persons for injuries arising from the use or operation of a motor vehicle in New York, there is no right to recover for non-economic loss “except in the case of a serious injury.” Section 5102(d), as amended by Part EE of Chapter 58 of the Laws of 2026, now defines a serious injury as a personal injury that results in death; dismemberment; significant disfigurement; a fracture; loss of a fetus; permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system; permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member; or significant limitation of use of a body function or system.
What the amendment removed is the ninth category. Until May 26, 2026, the statute also covered a medically determined injury or impairment of a non-permanent nature that kept the person from substantially all of his or her usual daily activities for at least 90 of the 180 days after the crash. Practitioners called it the 90/180 category. For a person with a soft-tissue injury who recovered after several months, it was often the only category available. According to the Department of Financial Services in Insurance Circular Letter No. 3 of 2026, the amendment applies to actions commenced on or after May 26, 2026.
| Category of serious injury | Lawsuit filed before May 26, 2026 | Lawsuit filed on or after May 26, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Death | Yes | Yes |
| Dismemberment | Yes | Yes |
| Significant disfigurement | Yes | Yes |
| Fracture | Yes | Yes |
| Loss of a fetus | Yes | Yes |
| Permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system | Yes | Yes |
| Permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member | Yes | Yes |
| Significant limitation of use of a body function or system | Yes | Yes |
| Non-permanent injury preventing substantially all usual daily activities for 90 of the first 180 days | Yes | No |
The filing date controls, not the crash date. A person hurt in a 2025 crash who sues in late 2026 must fit the eight-category definition. A person whose lawsuit was already on file before May 26, 2026 is judged under the older one. For anyone whose injury would have qualified only under the 90/180 category, the difference is the difference between a case and no case.
A serious injury is proved with objective medical evidence and a physician’s reasoned opinion, not with the injured person’s description of pain. A gap in treatment must be explained.
The Court of Appeals set the standard in Toure v Avis Rent A Car Systems in 2002 and restated it in Perl v Meher in 2011. A physician’s assessment of a limitation may be quantitative, assigning a numeric percentage or degree of lost range of motion, or qualitative, “provided that the evaluation has an objective basis and compares the plaintiff’s limitations to the normal function, purpose and use of the affected body organ, member, function or system.” In Perl, the Court also rejected a rule that would have required contemporaneous numeric measurements, so a treating doctor’s later quantified findings can be used if the earlier records show the injury was identified at the time. In Pommells v Perez, decided in 2005, the Court held that even where objective proof exists, “additional contributory factors” that “interrupt the chain of causation between the accident and claimed injury—such as a gap in treatment, an intervening medical problem or a preexisting condition” can warrant dismissal unless they are addressed.
The categories most often litigated are the two limitation categories, because that is where disc herniations, bulges and radiculopathy are argued. A fracture visible on an X-ray meets the threshold on its own. A herniated disc shown on an MRI does not, by itself. The injured person must also show that the disc produces a limitation of use that is permanent and consequential, or significant, measured against normal function. The defense will answer that the limitation is minor, that it pre-dated the crash, or that the injured person stopped treating for months without explanation.
These rules reward three things that are within the injured person’s control: seeing a treating physician early and consistently, telling that physician about every symptom, and, if treatment is interrupted, making sure the reason is recorded. In Pommells itself, the Court accepted that the termination of no-fault benefits could explain a gap in treatment, but only because that explanation was in the record. With the 90/180 category gone for new lawsuits, this evidence carries more of the case than it did before.
In a motor vehicle lawsuit filed on or after May 26, 2026, the jury decides fault before it decides whether the injury is serious. A narrow new cap also limits pain and suffering damages for certain at-fault drivers.
The sequence is in the amended section 5104(a): the trier of fact “shall not determine the question of whether an injury is a serious injury until the trier of fact has determined the party or parties at fault.” Combined with Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(b), discussed in Part II, this means a jury that finds the injured person more than 50 percent at fault never reaches the medical question.
The cap is in the new section 5104(d). Other than in an action for injuries resulting in death, recovery for non-economic loss “shall be limited to one hundred thousand dollars” in a serious injury case brought by or for an injured person who is at fault, who is not already barred by section 1411, and who was doing one of three things at the time of the crash: operating an uninsured motor vehicle that he or she was responsible for insuring, unless the lapse in coverage was shorter than 30 days; operating a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or drugs and later convicted of it; or operating a vehicle during the commission of a felony or immediate flight from one and later convicted of the felony.
The cap is narrow by design. It does not apply to a passenger who did none of those things, to a pedestrian, to a cyclist, or to a driver who was insured, sober and not committing a crime. It does not apply to any case involving a death. And it does not apply at all outside motor vehicle cases. New York still has no general cap on pain and suffering damages for a fall, a construction injury or medical malpractice, a point Part VI returns to.
The provision most likely to matter in Brooklyn is the first one. A driver whose policy lapsed for more than 30 days, who is partly at fault, and who is seriously injured by another driver’s greater negligence is now limited to $100,000 for pain and suffering regardless of the severity of the injury. Keeping a policy in force is, among other things, a litigation decision.
New York requires every driver to carry coverage for the uninsured driver who hits them, and a separate public corporation covers hit-and-run victims who have no policy of their own. Both come with deadlines.
Your own policy is governed by Insurance Law section 3420(f). The minimum liability coverage a New York driver must carry remains $25,000 per person and $50,000 per crash for bodily injury, and $50,000 per person and $100,000 per crash for death. Every policy must also include uninsured motorist coverage at those minimums. Section 3420(f)(2) requires insurers to offer supplementary uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, known as SUM, up to the policyholder’s own liability limits and up to $250,000 per person and $500,000 per crash. For policies issued on or after June 16, 2018, SUM coverage is written at an amount equal to the insured’s bodily injury liability limits unless the policyholder requests lower limits or rejects the coverage in writing. An older policy that was never re-issued can differ.
Minimum limits are low relative to the cost of a serious injury. A Brooklyn driver struck by a motorist carrying the $25,000 minimum has, after no-fault, a claim worth whatever the injury supports and a defendant whose insurer will pay no more than $25,000. SUM coverage on the injured person’s own policy fills part of that gap, which is why we ask every new client for the declarations page of their own policy at the first meeting, even when they were not driving.
For a hit-and-run, or a crash with an uninsured driver when the injured person has no policy of his or her own, the Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corporation, created by Article 52 of the Insurance Law, provides no-fault benefits and bodily injury coverage to qualified New York residents. The deadlines are short. Under Insurance Law section 5208, a hit-and-run victim must report the crash to the police within 24 hours, or as soon as reasonably possible, and must file a notice of intention to make a claim with the corporation within 90 days, as the Appellate Division confirmed in 2024. For a crash with an identified uninsured vehicle, the notice is due within 180 days. Late notices are excused only by a court and only where the corporation already knew the essential facts and was not prejudiced. Our firm’s hit-and-run accident page describes how those claims proceed.
The same statutes apply to everyone injured by a car, but how they apply changes with how the injured person was traveling.
A pedestrian or bicyclist struck by a motor vehicle is covered by that vehicle’s no-fault insurer and, to sue the driver for pain and suffering, must meet the serious injury threshold like anyone else. Vehicle and Traffic Law section 1146, discussed in Part II, places on the driver the burden of rebutting a presumption that a failure to exercise due care caused the injury. The New York City Department of Transportation reported 111 pedestrian deaths citywide in 2025 and 47,557 traffic injuries through December 15 of that year. These are not unusual cases in Brooklyn. They are the common ones.
A motorcyclist is in a different position. Insurance Law section 5102(f) excludes a motorcycle from the no-fault definition of a motor vehicle, so a motorcyclist does not receive no-fault benefits from the motorcycle’s policy, and the rules in this Part apply differently. Those cases need individual review, and our motorcycle accident page describes the issues.
An e-bike or electric scooter rider struck by a car is generally treated like a bicyclist for these purposes. Crashes between e-bikes and pedestrians raise a separate question: whether the e-bike is a “motor vehicle” at all under the Vehicle and Traffic Law. The answer determines whether any no-fault coverage exists and whether the threshold applies. Our e-bike accident page addresses those cases, which have grown with the vehicles.
A passenger in an Uber, Lyft or other for-hire vehicle in New York City is riding in a vehicle licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The insurance available depends on whether the driver was logged in, en route to a pickup or carrying a passenger. The coverage is typically higher than a private car’s, but identifying the correct policy requires the trip records. Our rideshare accident page explains what to collect.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case and does not describe any client of the firm.
Dmitri Volkov, 41, is stopped at a red light on Ocean Parkway when a delivery van strikes his car from behind. He has neck and lower back pain at the scene and is seen at an emergency room that evening. His own insurer is his no-fault carrier, and his lawyer files the NF-2 application within 30 days. An MRI three weeks later shows a herniated disc at L4-L5 with nerve root involvement. There is no fracture.
Fault is the easier question. Under the rear-end presumption described in Part II, the van driver must offer a non-negligent explanation, and a bare claim that Dmitri stopped suddenly at a red light will not do. With the van driver’s fault established and nothing attributing fault to Dmitri, the section 1411(b) bar does not threaten him even though his lawsuit is filed in November 2026.
The threshold is the harder question. A herniated disc is not a fracture and does not meet the threshold by itself. Dmitri must prove a permanent consequential limitation or a significant limitation of use, and his orthopedist supplies the objective basis Toure and Perl require: a measured loss of lumbar range of motion compared with normal, attributed to the disc on the MRI, with pre-existing causes ruled out from his prior records. Then the problem appears. No-fault stopped paying for physical therapy after an insurer’s doctor found no further need, and Dmitri, unable to afford it, stopped treating for five months. Under Pommells that gap must be explained, and the explanation that benefits were cut off and he could not pay has to be in his testimony and his doctor’s records, not supplied for the first time in opposition to a motion.
Two changes of fact show the stakes. Had Dmitri’s lawsuit been filed in early 2026, the 90/180 category might have been available if he was unable to work or care for himself for three of the first six months; filed in November 2026, that category does not exist for him. And had he let his own insurance lapse for two months before the crash and been found 20 percent at fault for a slow stop, section 5104(d) would cap his pain and suffering damages at $100,000. As his case stands, with coverage in force and no fault assigned, there is no cap.
Part IV turns to the defendant that appears in a large share of Brooklyn cases and brings its own rules with it: the City of New York and the public authorities that run its buses, trains, housing and schools.
A claim against a public body in New York is a claim the government allows only on its own conditions. The first condition is a sworn notice of claim, generally due within 90 days, served on the correct entity. The second is a lawsuit filed within one year and 90 days. Both are enforced strictly, and the City, its authorities and the State are separate defendants with separate notices.
An injured person may sue the City of New York, its public authorities or the State, but only by following procedures that have no counterpart in a case against a private driver or store. Those procedures are conditions of the right to sue, not technicalities.
Governments were once immune from suit. New York waived that immunity by statute and attached conditions to the waiver, so that public bodies could investigate claims while the evidence was fresh and settle the valid ones before litigation. For cities and most local public corporations, the main condition is the notice of claim required by General Municipal Law section 50-e, which Part I introduced. For the State, it is a claim or notice of intention filed in the Court of Claims under Court of Claims Act section 10. Courts treat a late notice as a defect that, unless excused, ends the case regardless of its merits.
The scale in Brooklyn is large. According to the New York City Comptroller, the City resolved 13,397 claims in its 2024 fiscal year for $1.94 billion, the most ever paid in a single year, and $1.04 billion of that went to tort claims for personal injury and property damage. Personal injury claims filed against the City from auto accidents rose to 2,040 that year. In the 2023 fiscal year, Brooklyn accounted for 5,254 of the tort claims filed against the City. These figures describe claims against the City itself. They do not include the Transit Authority, the Housing Authority, the public hospitals or the State, each of which is a separate defendant with a separate claims process.
A public body is a potential defendant in a wide range of ordinary Brooklyn injuries: a fall on a subway stair, a crash with a Sanitation truck, an injury in a public housing stairwell, a pothole on Linden Boulevard, a mistake at a public hospital. In each, the question of which entity owned or controlled the place or vehicle has to be answered in the first weeks, because the notice goes to that entity and no other.
The table summarizes the rules in the statutes named. It is a reading aid, not a determination that any claim is timely, and every row has exceptions that depend on facts.
| Defendant | Common Brooklyn examples | Notice of claim | Deadline to sue | Where it is written |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of New York and its agencies | City streets and crosswalks (Department of Transportation), Sanitation and Parks vehicles, police and fire vehicles, City-owned buildings | Sworn notice within 90 days, served on the Office of the Comptroller by eClaim, personal delivery or certified mail | One year and 90 days from the event; wrongful death, two years from the death | General Municipal Law sections 50-e and 50-i |
| New York City Transit Authority and Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority | Subway stations and trains, most City buses | Notice within 90 days under section 50-e, served on the Authority itself; the complaint must allege that 30 days passed without adjustment or payment | One year and 90 days, except wrongful death | Public Authorities Law section 1212 |
| New York City Housing Authority | Stairwells, elevators, walkways and grounds of public housing developments | Notice within 90 days under section 50-e, served on the Authority; 30-day allegation required | One year and 90 days | Public Housing Law section 157 |
| New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation | Kings County Hospital Center, Woodhull, Coney Island Hospital and other public hospitals | Notice within 90 days, served on the Corporation, which is a separate entity from the City | One year and 90 days | McKinney’s Unconsolidated Laws section 7401(2) |
| New York City Department of Education | Public school buildings and grounds, school buses operated by the Department | Notice of claim required | Governed by Education Law section 3813 | Education Law section 3813 |
| State of New York | State highways, State hospitals such as SUNY Downstate, State parks and facilities | Claim, or notice of intention to file a claim, filed and served on the Attorney General within 90 days | If a notice of intention was timely served, the claim must be filed within two years; otherwise the claim itself is due within 90 days | Court of Claims Act section 10(3) |
Three things stand out. First, the 90-day period is nearly universal, but the recipient is not. Second, the one-year-and-90-day suit deadline replaces the three-year period that applies to private defendants. A public defendant does not get the longer period just because the plaintiff also sued a private one. Third, the State is in a different court altogether. A claim against the State belongs in the Court of Claims, not in Supreme Court, Kings County. Court of Claims Act section 10(6) permits a late claim only on a motion made before the ordinary limitations period would have expired, and only on a showing of merit and lack of prejudice.
A notice of claim served on the wrong public body is not a notice at all as to the right one. The courts have said so in cases that began with an understandable mistake about who owned what.
Each public corporation is a separate defendant. In Scantlebury v New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, decided in 2005, the Court of Appeals observed that it has “long recognized that the City of New York and HHC are separate entities for purposes of a notice of claim.” The same is true of the Transit Authority and the Housing Authority. A notice served on the Comptroller does not reach the Housing Authority, even though both are public bodies with “New York City” in their names.
In Matter of Ramos v New York City Housing Authority, decided by the Appellate Division, Second Department in 2018, the injured person fell on a sidewalk, and counsel, believing the abutting property belonged to the City, served a timely notice on the City. The property belonged to the Housing Authority. The claimant had to petition the court for leave to serve a late notice on the Authority, lost in the trial court, and prevailed only on appeal. That is the best outcome a mistaken service can produce: months of motion practice to get back to where a correct notice would have started.
Our office treats the identity of the owner as a question to be answered with documents, not assumptions. The land records for a building, the agency that holds the permit for a street excavation, the operator of a particular bus route and the owner of a hospital are all matters of public record, and the answers determine where the notice goes. Where responsibility is uncertain, the safer course is to serve every entity that might be responsible within the 90 days. A notice served on an entity that turns out to have no responsibility costs little. A notice not served on the entity that does costs the case.
After a notice of claim is filed against the City or another municipal defendant, the defendant may require the injured person to answer questions under oath before any lawsuit can be filed. Skipping that examination bars the suit.
The statute is General Municipal Law section 50-h. Once a notice of claim is filed, the city, county, town, village, fire district or school district may demand an examination of the claimant “relative to the occurrence and extent of the injuries or damages for which claim is made.” The demand must be served within 90 days of the filing of the notice of claim. The examination is conducted under oath, and the municipality may also require a physical examination. Where a demand has been served, no action may be commenced until the claimant has complied. If the municipality does not hold the examination within 90 days of its demand, the claimant may proceed to sue. A claimant who fails to appear, or who asks to postpone beyond that period, may not sue until the examination is completed. Public Authorities Law section 1212 and Public Housing Law section 157 give the Transit Authority and the Housing Authority the same right.
The 50-h hearing is the first sworn testimony in the case. It usually happens within a few months of the injury, before the injured person has seen the medical records, before the defendant has produced any documents, and often while treatment is continuing. The transcript follows the case to the end. An answer given casually at a 50-h hearing about how far from the curb a pothole was, or how long a spill had been on the floor, will be read back at a deposition two years later.
We prepare clients for a 50-h hearing as carefully as for a deposition, because it is one. The hearing also serves a second purpose. It is the first point at which the City’s lawyers look seriously at the claim, and a well-documented claimant at a 50-h hearing is a claimant whose case the Comptroller’s office may settle before suit. Our bus accident page describes how these hearings typically unfold in Transit Authority cases.
The City of New York cannot be held liable for a defective street or sidewalk unless it received written notice of the specific defect beforehand and failed to fix it within 15 days. That rule defeats more claims than any question of fault.
New York City Administrative Code section 7-201(c), commonly called the pothole law, is the reason. As the courts have quoted it, no civil action may be maintained against the City for injury resulting from a street, highway, sidewalk or crosswalk being “defective, out of repair, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed” unless written notice of the condition was given to a City agency or there was written acknowledgment from the City of the condition, and the City then failed or neglected “within fifteen days after the receipt of such notice to repair or remove the defect, danger or obstruction.” Oral complaints, telephone calls and the City’s own inspections do not satisfy the statute. The notice must be in writing. The Court of Appeals recognizes two exceptions: where the City itself created the defect through an act of negligence, and where the condition arose from a special use that benefited the City.
Notice is usually proved through an organization most Brooklyn residents have never heard of. The Big Apple Pothole and Sidewalk Protection Corporation, created by the plaintiffs’ bar, surveys City streets and sidewalks and files maps of defects with the Department of Transportation. The Court of Appeals held in 1995 that those maps, once filed, serve as prior written notice of the conditions they depict, and the Department maintains a Prior Notification Unit to search them. The maps are read strictly. A symbol for a raised sidewalk does not give notice of a hole. A map from many years before the fall may be found too remote. A defect at one address does not give notice of a defect next door.
The first investigative step in any street or sidewalk fall against the City is therefore a records search for written notice: the Big Apple map for the block, written complaints to the Department of Transportation, permits and work orders for the location, and the City’s own repair records. In the 2023 fiscal year, the Comptroller reported 2,350 sidewalk claims citywide and $53.5 million in sidewalk settlements, which shows that these cases can be won. They are won on paper. Our road defect page describes how the same prior-written-notice rule applies to a driver or cyclist injured by a hole in the roadway. For sidewalks, the picture is further complicated by Administrative Code section 7-210, which shifts most sidewalk liability to the adjoining property owner and is the subject of Part V.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case and does not describe any client of the firm.
Nadia Petrov, 63, is standing in the aisle of a B44 bus on Nostrand Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, holding a strap, when the bus brakes hard at a light. She falls and tears the meniscus in her right knee, which later requires arthroscopic surgery.
Two claims begin at once, and they go to different places. As a bus passenger injured by the operation of a motor vehicle, Nadia has a no-fault claim, and the bus’s operator is her no-fault insurer. Her written application is due within 30 days under 11 NYCRR 65-1.1. Separately, her claim for pain and suffering is a tort claim against a public authority. The bus is operated by the New York City Transit Authority, so Public Authorities Law section 1212 governs. A sworn notice of claim must be served on the Authority, not on the City and not on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, within 90 days under General Municipal Law section 50-e. If her lawyer serves the Comptroller instead, the Authority has received nothing.
Within 90 days of her notice, the Authority demands a 50-h hearing. Nadia testifies under oath about where she was standing, what she was holding, how the bus moved and what she felt. The Authority’s lawyers will later argue that the stop was an ordinary incident of city traffic. The bus’s own camera footage and the operator’s records, requested in writing in the first weeks, are the evidence that answers them.
Her lawsuit must be filed within one year and 90 days of the fall, and the complaint must allege that at least 30 days passed after her notice without the Authority adjusting or paying the claim. Because the Transit Authority is a motor vehicle operator, Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1602(6) means it cannot limit its share of a pain and suffering award under Article 16, as Part II explained. And because the case arises from the operation of a motor vehicle and will be filed after May 26, 2026, Part III applies in full. The jury decides fault before it decides whether her torn meniscus is a significant limitation of use. If the Authority persuades the jury that Nadia was more at fault than the operator for not holding on securely, Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(b) ends the case.
Three clocks, one entity, one bus. Had Nadia fallen instead on the stairs of the Sheepshead Bay subway station, the same Authority and the same deadlines would apply but no-fault would not, because no motor vehicle was involved. Had she fallen on the sidewalk outside the station, the defendant might be the City, the Transit Authority or a private owner, and Part V explains how to tell.
Part V takes up those special liability rules: sidewalks, stores, construction sites, dogs and medical care, each of which has a statute or doctrine of its own.
Several kinds of Brooklyn injury are governed by a statute or doctrine of their own, layered on top of the negligence rules in Part II. Sidewalk falls turn on who owns the adjoining building. Store falls turn on notice. Construction injuries turn on the Labor Law. Dog bites changed in 2025, and claims against doctors carry a shorter deadline than any other injury case.
Since 2003, the owner of the property next to a New York City sidewalk is usually responsible for injuries caused by its condition. Owners of small owner-occupied homes are exempt, and for those sidewalks the City remains the defendant. The answer depends on the building, not on the crack.
The statute is New York City Administrative Code section 7-210. As the courts have quoted it, subdivision (a) makes it “the duty of the owner of real property abutting any sidewalk, including, but not limited to, the intersection quadrant for corner property, to maintain such sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition.” Subdivision (b) makes the owner liable for personal injury “proximately caused by the failure of such owner to maintain such sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition.” The same subdivision states the exemption: it “shall not apply to one-, two- or three-family residential real property that is (i) in whole or in part, owner occupied, and (ii) used exclusively for residential purposes.” Subdivision (c) completes the picture. The City is not liable for failing to maintain sidewalks except those abutting exempt properties and those the City itself owns.
The statute reassigned a duty the City had carried for a century, and the courts have spent two decades defining its edges. The exemption requires all three elements: three or fewer residential units, owner occupancy of at least part of the building, and exclusively residential use. A two-family house with a ground-floor dental office is not exclusively residential. A three-family house whose owner lives in one unit and rents the other two is exempt. The Appellate Division, Second Department, which hears Brooklyn appeals, looks to the actual use of the building on the day of the fall, and the City typically proves a property’s status with Department of Finance classification records. The Court of Appeals held in Vucetovic v Epsom Downs in 2008 that a tree well is not part of the “sidewalk” for purposes of section 7-210, so a fall in a tree well is a claim against the City rather than the owner. Where the City is the defendant, the prior-written-notice rule in Administrative Code section 7-201(c), explained in Part IV, applies in full.
| Where the fall occurred | Likely defendant | Rules that apply | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sidewalk in front of an apartment building, store, mixed-use building, or any building with more than three units | The property owner | Administrative Code section 7-210; ordinary negligence and notice principles | Three years under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214(5) |
| Sidewalk in front of a one-, two- or three-family house that is owner-occupied and used only as a residence | The City of New York | Administrative Code section 7-210(c); prior written notice under section 7-201(c) | Notice of claim within 90 days; suit within one year and 90 days |
| Sidewalk in front of City-owned property | The City of New York | Section 7-210(c); prior written notice | Same |
| Tree well | The City of New York | Vucetovic v Epsom Downs; prior written notice | Same |
| Sidewalk at a public housing development | New York City Housing Authority | Public Housing Law section 157 | Notice within 90 days; suit within one year and 90 days |
| Street bed, crosswalk or roadway | The City of New York, or a utility or contractor that opened the street | Section 7-201(c) for the City; ordinary negligence for private parties | 90 days and one year and 90 days for the City; three years for private parties |
The table explains a pattern we see constantly: two adjoining row houses on the same block, one owned by a family that lives in it and one converted to a storefront, produce two different defendants, two different notice rules and two different deadlines for the same uneven sidewalk flag. The Comptroller’s count of 2,350 sidewalk claims against the City in the 2023 fiscal year covers only the claims where the City was the defendant. The much larger number of claims against private owners is not tracked in one place. Our page on sidewalk fall cases describes what we document at the scene. The first step is always the same: photograph the defect, then photograph the building it is in front of.
A Brooklyn property owner is not liable for ice or snow during a storm or for a short period afterward, and the length of that period is set by City ordinance.
The first part of the rule is court-made. In Sherman v New York State Thruway Authority, decided in 2016, the Court of Appeals applied the “storm in progress” doctrine. A property owner’s duty to deal with a snow or ice condition is suspended while a storm is ongoing and does not arise until a reasonable time after it ends. The second part is Administrative Code section 16-123(a), which gives New York City owners four hours after the snow stops falling to clear the sidewalk and excludes the hours between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. from that count. A storm that ends at 2 a.m. does not require shoveling until 11 a.m.
These rules are defenses, and they are proved with weather records. The first thing a defendant does in a Brooklyn ice case is retain a meteorologist to establish that precipitation was still falling, or had stopped less than four countable hours before the fall. The injured person’s lawyer does the same thing in reverse. The second question is whether the owner, having chosen to shovel or salt, did so carelessly. An owner who undertakes snow removal must do it with reasonable care. An owner who piles snow where it will melt and refreeze across the walkway can be liable for the condition the shoveling created, even inside the grace period. Our snow and ice fall page explains what to photograph, and the answer is the whole sidewalk, not only the patch you fell on.
A fall on a wet floor or broken step does not establish liability by itself. The injured person must prove the owner created the hazard or knew, or should have known, about it in time to fix it.
The standard of care comes from Basso v Miller, decided by the Court of Appeals in 1976. A landowner must keep its property in a reasonably safe condition in view of all the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to others, the seriousness of the potential injury and the burden of avoiding the risk. The notice rule comes from Gordon v American Museum of Natural History, decided in 1986: “To constitute constructive notice, a defect must be visible and apparent and it must exist for a sufficient length of time prior to the accident to permit defendant’s employees to discover and remedy it.” In Gordon, the plaintiff slipped on a piece of waxy paper on the museum steps. Nothing showed how long the paper had been there, and a general awareness that litter sometimes accumulates is not notice of a particular piece of it, so the case was dismissed.
The burden shifts in a specific way. A store or landlord moving to dismiss a fall case must first show that it did not create the condition and had neither actual nor constructive notice of it. The Second Department has held that to show a lack of constructive notice, the defendant must offer evidence of when the area was last cleaned or inspected relative to the time of the fall. A general description of cleaning practices is not enough. If the defendant cannot say when anyone last looked at the floor, the motion fails. If it can, the injured person must point to evidence that the condition had been there long enough to be found: a dirty or tracked-through spill, a prior complaint, a video showing the hazard for a period before the fall.
In a Brooklyn supermarket, pharmacy or apartment lobby, the evidence that decides these cases exists for days, not years. Surveillance footage is overwritten. Sweep logs and inspection sheets are discarded. Incident reports are written by the store, for the store. The preservation letter described in Part I is the instrument that keeps those records in existence, and it is most useful when it arrives in the first week. Our premises liability page describes the kinds of property cases we handle, including stores, parking lots and residential buildings.
New York gives construction workers a statutory claim against property owners and general contractors that does not exist in most other states, and it does not depend on proving that anyone was careless.
The statute is Labor Law section 240(1), often called the Scaffold Law. It requires “all contractors and owners and their agents,” with an exception for “owners of one and two-family dwellings who contract for but do not direct or control the work,” to furnish for work on a building or structure “scaffolding, hoists, stays, ladders, slings, hangers, blocks, pulleys, braces, irons, ropes, and other devices which shall be so constructed, placed and operated as to give proper protection to a person so employed.” The courts describe the liability as absolute. Where a violation of the statute is a proximate cause of a gravity-related injury, such as a fall from a height or a falling object, the owner and contractor are liable regardless of their own care, and the worker’s own negligence is not a defense. The one exception is where the worker’s own conduct was the sole cause of the accident, with the required safety devices available and no statutory violation at all. Labor Law section 241(6) imposes a separate nondelegable duty on owners and contractors to provide reasonable and adequate protection where construction, excavation or demolition is performed, but a claim under it requires proof that a specific safety standard in the State Industrial Code was violated. Labor Law section 200 codifies the ordinary common-law duty to provide a safe workplace.
These claims are brought against owners and contractors rather than employers because of the workers’ compensation system. An injured worker generally may not sue his or her own employer and receives compensation benefits instead. The Labor Law lets the worker sue the other parties responsible for the site, and section 240(1) in particular shifts the risk of elevation-related injury to the parties who control the work. As Part II noted, Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1602(8) excludes Labor Law Article 10 claims from the Article 16 limitation, so an owner found a small percentage at fault may still be liable for the whole award.
In Brooklyn, where scaffolding and sidewalk sheds are a permanent feature of the streetscape, these claims arise from falls from ladders and scaffolds, collapsing structures and objects dropped from above. They also arise for people who are not workers. A pedestrian struck by debris falling from a construction site has an ordinary negligence claim against the owner and contractor, and the duty under section 241(6) extends to persons “lawfully frequenting” the work area. Our construction accident page explains how a worker’s compensation claim and a Labor Law lawsuit proceed at the same time.
For nearly twenty years, a New York dog bite victim could recover only by proving the owner knew the dog was dangerous. Since April 2025, the victim may also sue for ordinary negligence.
The change came in Flanders v Goodfellow, decided by the Court of Appeals on April 17, 2025. Since its 2006 decision in Bard v Jahnke, the Court had held that the owner of a domestic animal could be held liable only under a strict liability theory, which required proof that the owner knew or should have known of the animal’s vicious propensities. In Flanders, the Court wrote that “we overrule Bard to the extent that it bars negligence liability for harm caused by domestic animals.” An injured person may now proceed on strict liability, on negligence, or on both.
Under the old rule, a bite by a dog with no known history of aggression often produced no case at all, however careless the owner had been in letting the dog loose. Under Flanders, the question becomes the familiar one from Part II: did the owner act as a reasonably careful person would have, given what the owner knew about the dog and the circumstances. An owner who lets a large dog off its leash in a crowded Prospect Park meadow can be judged by that standard even if the dog had never bitten anyone before. Strict liability remains available where the owner did know of the dog’s propensities, and it remains the easier claim to prove when the evidence exists: prior bites, complaints, warning signs, or the owner’s own statements.
A medical malpractice claim in New York must usually be brought within two years and six months, a shorter period than any other injury case. A claim against a public hospital must also be preceded by a 90-day notice of claim.
The statute is Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214-a. An action for medical, dental or podiatric malpractice “must be commenced within two years and six months of the act, omission or failure complained of or last treatment where there is continuous treatment for the same illness, injury or condition which gave rise to the said act, omission or failure.” There are two exceptions. Where the claim is based on the discovery of a foreign object left in the body, the action may be commenced within one year of the discovery, or of the discovery of facts that would reasonably lead to it, whichever is earlier. And where the claim is based on a negligent failure to diagnose cancer or a malignant tumor, under the 2018 amendment known as Lavern’s Law, the two years and six months run from when the patient knew or reasonably should have known of the negligence and that it caused injury, provided the action is commenced no later than seven years from the negligent act.
The continuous treatment rule is the provision most often misunderstood. The clock runs from the end of continuous treatment for the same condition by the same provider, not from the patient’s last visit for anything. A patient who returns to a surgeon for follow-up of the surgery at issue may still be within the period. A patient who returns to the same practice for an unrelated complaint usually is not. The statute also excludes from “continuous treatment” examinations undertaken at the patient’s request merely to ascertain the state of the patient’s condition. A malpractice complaint must also generally be accompanied by a certificate of merit under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 3012-a, confirming that the attorney has reviewed the case with a physician.
In Brooklyn, the public hospital rule in Part IV changes everything about timing. A claim against Kings County Hospital Center, Woodhull or Coney Island Hospital is a claim against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which requires a notice of claim within 90 days and a lawsuit within one year and 90 days. A claim against SUNY Downstate is a claim against the State in the Court of Claims. The two years and six months of section 214-a does not help a patient of a public hospital who has missed those shorter periods. The contingency fee in malpractice cases is also set by a separate statute, Judiciary Law section 474-a, which Part VI explains.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case and does not describe any client of the firm.
Yusuf Adeyemi, 47, is walking along Carroll Street in Crown Heights when he trips on a sidewalk flag raised two inches by a tree root and fractures his left wrist. The raised flag sits on the property line between two adjoining brownstones. Number 412 is a three-family house whose owner lives on the parlor floor and rents the other two apartments. Number 414 has a chiropractor’s office on the ground floor and the owner’s apartment above.
Under Administrative Code section 7-210, the two buildings produce two different defendants. Number 414 is not used exclusively for residential purposes, so its owner is responsible for the sidewalk in front of it and can be sued within three years. Number 412 is a three-family, owner-occupied, exclusively residential property. It is exempt, and responsibility for its sidewalk stays with the City of New York. Yusuf’s lawyer therefore has 90 days to serve a notice of claim on the Comptroller, and the City will defend on prior written notice under section 7-201(c). Unless a Big Apple map or a written complaint to the Department of Transportation recorded that raised flag before the fall, the claim against the City fails regardless of how dangerous the condition was. If the root that lifted the flag is in a tree well, Vucetovic places that portion with the City as well.
A survey is ordered in the first week to fix exactly where Yusuf’s foot caught. If the defect is entirely in front of Number 414, the case is a three-year negligence claim against a private owner, with the usual questions of notice: how long the flag had been raised, whether the owner had been cited, whether neighbors had complained. If the defect straddles the line, both defendants are sued in the same action, the City within one year and 90 days and the owner within three years. Under Article 16, discussed in Part II, if the jury finds the owner 30 percent at fault and the City 70 percent, the owner’s share of the pain and suffering award is limited to 30 percent, but the owner remains liable for all of Yusuf’s medical expenses and lost wages. His own share of fault, if the defense argues he was looking at his phone, reduces his recovery proportionally under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(a), because this is not a motor vehicle case and the 2026 bar does not apply.
Had Yusuf fallen on ice rather than a root, the question would shift to when the snow stopped and whether the four hours under section 16-123 had run. Had he fallen inside the chiropractor’s waiting room, the question would be notice under Gordon. Had he been struck by a brick from a scaffold above Number 414, the Labor Law would apply if he was a worker and ordinary negligence if he was not. Same sidewalk, five bodies of law.
Part VI turns to the question every injured person eventually asks, and that no honest lawyer can answer at the first meeting: what is the case worth.
The value of a New York injury case is the sum of the losses that can be proved, reduced by the injured person’s share of fault, by certain insurance payments that already covered the same loss, and by the liens that attach to the recovery. New York places no general cap on pain and suffering damages. The one exception, added in 2026, applies only to certain at-fault drivers.
New York allows recovery for two kinds of loss: the losses that can be added up and the losses that cannot. The second kind is usually the larger part of a serious injury case.
Economic loss includes medical expenses already incurred and those reasonably certain to be incurred in the future, lost earnings, lost future earning capacity, and the cost of household services the injured person can no longer perform. Non-economic loss includes pain and suffering, mental anguish, the loss of enjoyment of life and, for a spouse, the loss of consortium. A separate category, punitive damages, is reserved for conduct that is intentional, malicious or shows a reckless disregard for the safety of others, and is rare in ordinary negligence cases.
| Category | What it covers | How it is proved |
|---|---|---|
| Past medical expenses | Hospital, physician, therapy, medication and equipment costs already incurred | Bills and records |
| Future medical expenses | Care a physician says is reasonably certain to be needed: surgery, therapy, equipment, home care | Treating physician’s opinion; life care planner in larger cases |
| Lost earnings | Wages and benefits lost from the injury to trial or settlement | Pay records, employer records, tax returns |
| Lost earning capacity | Reduction in what the person can earn in the future because of permanent restrictions | Physician’s restrictions; vocational and economic experts |
| Household services | The value of work in the home the person can no longer do | Testimony; economist in larger cases |
| Pain and suffering | Physical pain and mental anguish, past and future | The injured person’s testimony, medical records, witnesses |
| Loss of enjoyment of life | Inability to engage in activities the person engaged in before | Same, as an element of pain and suffering |
| Loss of consortium | A spouse’s loss of services, society and companionship | Spouse’s testimony |
What is not capped matters as much as the list. New York has no statutory ceiling on compensatory damages in a personal injury case. The only exception is Insurance Law section 5104(d), added in 2026 and described in Part III, which limits non-economic damages to $100,000 for an at-fault driver who was uninsured, impaired and convicted, or committing a felony and convicted, in a motor vehicle case. It does not apply to any other injured person or any other kind of case. What does exist is appellate review. Under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 5501(c), the Appellate Division may set aside a verdict that “deviates materially from what would be reasonable compensation,” and it does so by comparing the award to awards approved in similar cases. A number that felt right in the courtroom is not always the number that survives.
A jury in Kings County Supreme Court therefore has wide discretion in valuing pain and suffering, but that discretion operates within a range the Second Department enforces. Experienced lawyers on both sides know that range, and it is the real reference point in settlement negotiations.
There is no formula. Pain and suffering is valued by a jury, or by lawyers predicting what a jury would do, based on how permanent and severe the injury is and how it has changed the person’s life. Prior awards in comparable cases set the outer bounds.
The jury is told to award a sum that is fair and just compensation for the injury, past and future, and is given no multiplier, schedule or chart. What actually moves the number, in the cases Karen Goldberg Sager has tried and settled over more than 35 years of practice, is permanency, surgery and a restriction a physician can describe in terms of ordinary function. A fracture that heals completely is valued differently from one that requires hardware and leaves a limp. A herniated disc managed with therapy is valued differently from one that leads to a fusion. The age of the injured person matters, because future pain is measured over a life expectancy. The credibility of the injured person matters more than almost anything else, which is one reason Part I urged telling the treating physician every symptom from the first visit.
Our published case results illustrate the range in cases of this kind. A client who fell into a deep depression in a city street and required surgery on both knees recovered $675,000. An emergency medical technician injured when another vehicle struck his ambulance and overturned it, requiring back surgery, recovered $650,000. A passenger on a city bus that stopped short, who suffered a torn meniscus requiring surgery, recovered $175,000. A rear-seat passenger in a car collision who required shoulder surgery recovered $125,000. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each of these figures reflects that case’s liability picture, insurance coverage, medical proof and the injured person’s share of fault, and none of them is a prediction for any other case. The common thread is the one described above: in each, a surgery and a permanent restriction were documented by the treating physicians.
Between the jury’s verdict and the check, three reductions commonly apply. A fourth, the defendant’s insurance limit, often matters more than any of them.
The first reduction is the injured person’s own share of fault, discussed in Part II. In a non-motor-vehicle case it reduces the award proportionally. In a motor vehicle case filed on or after May 26, 2026, a share greater than the defendants’ combined share eliminates it.
The second is the collateral source rule in Civil Practice Law and Rules section 4545. At common law, a defendant could not reduce its liability by pointing out that the plaintiff’s health insurer had already paid the medical bills. The statute changed that for economic loss. After the verdict, the trial court must consider evidence that any past or future cost or expense “was or will, with reasonable certainty, be replaced or indemnified, in whole or in part, from any collateral source,” and if it so finds, “it shall reduce the amount of the award by such finding.” Two limits apply. The reduction is itself reduced by the premiums the plaintiff paid for the benefit during the two years before the injury and the projected future cost of keeping it. And the statute excludes life insurance and any payments the payer has a statutory right to recover, because those payments will be paid back from the recovery rather than kept. The Court of Appeals added a further limit in Oden v Chemung County Industrial Development Agency in 1995: there must be “a direct correspondence between the item of loss and the type of collateral reimbursement” before an offset is made. Disability pension benefits that replace a lost pension do not offset an award for lost wages. The rule applies only to economic loss. Nothing reduces a pain and suffering award except fault.
The third reduction is liens, described below. The fourth is not a legal rule at all. As Part III explained, a New York driver may carry as little as $25,000 in liability coverage per person. A judgment against an individual defendant for more than his or her insurance limit is collectible only to the extent the defendant has assets, which most do not. In practice, the available insurance, including the injured person’s own supplementary uninsured motorist coverage, sets the ceiling in many Brooklyn cases. Identifying every policy that applies is as much a part of valuing a case as proving the injury.
Several public and private payers have a legal right to be repaid from an injury recovery for what they spent on the injury. Resolving those claims is part of every settlement.
The rules differ by payer. Medicaid has a statutory lien under Social Services Law section 104-b, which attaches to any verdict, judgment or award and to the proceeds of any settlement once the local social services district serves written notice of the lien. Under the United States Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services v Ahlborn, as the New York State Department of Health has instructed local districts, the lien may be satisfied only from the portion of a settlement that compensates for past medical expenses, not from the portion for pain and suffering or lost wages. Medicare has a right of reimbursement under federal law for conditional payments it made for injury-related care, and settlements involving Medicare beneficiaries require a conditional payment letter and a final demand before funds are distributed. A workers’ compensation carrier that paid benefits for an injury has a lien on the proceeds of a recovery against a third party under Workers’ Compensation Law section 29(1). Hospitals may assert liens under Lien Law section 189. Private health insurers and employer health plans often have contractual reimbursement rights, which vary with the plan documents.
A settlement is not what the injured person receives. It is what the injured person receives after liens, disbursements and fees. Liens can often be negotiated, and the law provides for reductions in some circumstances, including a share of the attorney’s fee in workers’ compensation cases. A settlement negotiated without knowing the lien amounts is a settlement negotiated blind, which is why the lien inquiry begins at the first meeting, when we ask who paid the medical bills.
New York compensates a family for the financial losses caused by a death, not for their grief. Repeated efforts to change that rule have not succeeded as of October 2026.
The statute is Estates, Powers and Trusts Law section 5-4.3. It allows a wrongful death award of “such sum as the jury … deems to be fair and just compensation for the pecuniary injuries resulting from the decedent’s death to the persons for whose benefit the action is brought,” together with reasonable funeral and medical expenses and interest from the date of death. The courts define pecuniary injury as the economic value of the decedent to each distributee: lost income and support, lost household services, and, for children, the pecuniary value of a parent’s guidance. The sorrow of the survivors, the loss of companionship, and the loss of the decedent’s society are not compensable under the statute. The action must be brought by the personal representative of the estate within two years of the death under section 5-4.1, which means an estate must be opened before the claim can be filed. A separate claim, for the decedent’s own conscious pain and suffering between injury and death, survives to the estate under section 11-3.2 and is valued as any pain and suffering claim would be.
The Grieving Families Act would add grief and loss of companionship to the recoverable damages. It has passed both houses of the Legislature and been vetoed four times, most recently in early December 2025. A new version, Senate Bill S10171, was introduced in May 2026 and, as of this writing, remains in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Until a bill is signed, section 5-4.3 as described above is the law. Our firm handles the estate proceeding and the injury claim together, so that a family does not need two firms, and our guide to wrongful death lawsuits explains the estate steps in more detail.
In a New York injury case, the lawyer is paid a percentage of the recovery. The percentage is capped by court rule or statute, and no fee is owed if there is no recovery.
For most injury cases the cap is set by the Appellate Division. In the Second Department, which includes Brooklyn, the court rules permit a contingent fee of one-third of the net recovery, or alternatively a sliding scale that begins at a higher percentage on the first dollars and falls to 25 percent on amounts over $25,000. Percentages above the permitted schedules are treated as excessive. The retainer agreement must state the arrangement in writing, including whether the percentage is calculated before or after litigation expenses are deducted. For medical, dental and podiatric malpractice cases, Judiciary Law section 474-a imposes a lower statutory schedule: 30 percent of the first $250,000 recovered, 25 percent of the next $250,000, 20 percent of the next $500,000, 15 percent of the next $250,000 and 10 percent of any amount over $1,250,000. Bills to raise those percentages have been introduced but had not been enacted as of October 2026.
Expenses are separate from fees. Court filing fees, deposition transcripts, medical records, expert witness fees and investigators are costs of the case, and the retainer states how they are handled. At Goldberg Sager & Associates, personal injury matters are accepted on a contingency fee basis, which means there is no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery. The retainer agreement, not this guide, is the controlling statement of the terms in any particular case.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case, does not describe any client of the firm, and uses round numbers to show the sequence of reductions, not to predict any result.
Grace Mensah, 52, a home health aide, slips on a spill in a Flatbush supermarket that staff had been told about an hour earlier, and fractures her ankle in a way that requires surgery and leaves her with a permanent limp. Her case against the store goes to trial in Kings County Supreme Court. The jury awards $60,000 for past medical expenses, $40,000 for lost earnings and $200,000 for past and future pain and suffering, for a total of $300,000, and finds Grace 20 percent at fault for not watching where she stepped.
The first reduction is fault. Because this is not a motor vehicle case, Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(a) applies, and the award is reduced by 20 percent to $240,000: $48,000 for medical expenses, $32,000 for lost earnings and $160,000 for pain and suffering.
The second reduction is the collateral source rule. Grace’s employer provided a disability policy that paid her $20,000 while she was out of work, with no right of reimbursement. Under section 4545, the court reduces the lost earnings award by that $20,000, less the $1,200 in premiums she paid over the two years before the fall, a net reduction of $18,800. Her medical bills were paid by Medicaid. Because Medicaid has a statutory right of reimbursement, those payments are not a collateral source offset. Instead, Medicaid asserts a lien under Social Services Law section 104-b against the portion of the recovery for past medical expenses. The judgment stands at $221,200, plus interest from the date of the verdict.
The third step is distribution. Suppose the store’s insurer pays the judgment in full. Litigation disbursements of $6,000 are deducted. Under a one-third-of-net retainer, the fee is one-third of $215,200, or $71,733. The Medicaid lien, which was $30,000, is negotiated down to $22,500 in recognition of the reduction in Grace’s recovery for fault. Grace receives approximately $120,967.
Now change one fact. The store carried a liability policy with a $100,000 limit and has no other assets. The judgment is $221,200, but the collectible amount is $100,000, and every figure above is recalculated from that number. That is why, before any case is valued, the first question is not what the injury is worth but what insurance exists to pay for it.
Part VII describes how a case like Grace’s actually moves through the Kings County courthouse at 360 Adams Street, from the filing of the complaint to a verdict or settlement, and how long each stage takes.
A Brooklyn injury lawsuit is filed in Supreme Court, Kings County, at 360 Adams Street. It moves through pleadings, disclosure, a note of issue, motions and, if it does not settle, a trial before a six-person jury. Most cases settle. The ones that do not commonly take two to four years from filing to verdict, and the deadlines along the way are enforced as strictly as the ones at the start.
A serious injury case arising in Brooklyn is almost always filed in Supreme Court, Kings County. If it reaches trial, a jury of six decides it.
The court follows from the amount in dispute. The Civil Court of the City of New York hears cases seeking up to $50,000, a limit raised from $25,000 by legislation that took effect in 2022. Cases seeking more are brought in Supreme Court, which despite its name is New York’s trial court of general jurisdiction. The Civil Term of the Supreme Court for Kings County sits at 360 Adams Street in Downtown Brooklyn, and its Uniform Civil Term Rules supplement the statewide rules. Appeals from Kings County go to the Appellate Division, Second Department. Claims against the State of New York, as Part IV explained, go instead to the Court of Claims.
Civil Practice Law and Rules section 4104 says: “A jury shall be composed of six persons.” Under section 4113, a verdict need not be unanimous. It “may be rendered by not less than five-sixths of the jurors,” which in a six-person jury means five. If five cannot agree, the court discharges the jury and orders a new trial.
The forum matters because Brooklyn juries are drawn from Kings County residents, and the judges who hear these cases apply rules, such as the summary judgment deadline described below, that differ from those in neighboring counties. A lawyer who regularly tries cases at 360 Adams Street knows those rules and, as importantly, knows the range of verdicts the Second Department has approved for injuries like the client’s.
The longest part of a lawsuit is disclosure, the period in which each side learns the other’s evidence. The injured person’s own participation in it is unavoidable.
An action is commenced by filing a summons and complaint with the court, in Kings County through the court system’s electronic filing system, and the defendant must be served within 120 days under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 306-b. The defendant answers, typically pleading the affirmative defenses discussed in this guide: the injured person’s comparative fault, which section 1412 requires the defendant to plead and prove; in a motor vehicle case, the serious injury threshold; and, for a public defendant, any defect in the notice of claim. The injured person then serves a bill of particulars, a document that spells out the specific acts of negligence claimed and the specific injuries suffered.
New York requires “full disclosure of all matter material and necessary” to the case. In practice this means the exchange of documents, including medical records under authorizations the injured person signs; depositions, called examinations before trial, at which each party is questioned under oath by the other side’s lawyer; and an independent medical examination of the injured person by a physician the defendant selects. The court supervises this through a preliminary conference, at which a schedule is set, and compliance conferences as needed. When disclosure is complete, the injured person files a note of issue and certificate of readiness, which places the case on the trial calendar. A defendant who believes disclosure is incomplete must move to vacate the note of issue within 20 days of its service.
Three points matter most for a client. First, the deposition is the single most important day in most cases, because the transcript is used at trial and in every settlement discussion, and it deserves the preparation of a trial. Second, the defense medical examination is not optional. A client who does not attend risks dismissal, and a client who minimizes symptoms at the examination will see the examiner’s report quoted back for years. Third, the medical authorizations and records requests that seem like paperwork are the mechanism by which the case is proved. Delays in producing them are the most common reason a case stalls.
Many New York injury cases are decided in whole or in part by a judge on written motion. In Kings County, the deadline for that motion is shorter than the statewide default.
The statute is Civil Practice Law and Rules section 3212. A motion for summary judgment asks the court to decide an issue, or the whole case, because the undisputed facts leave nothing for a jury to resolve. The statute lets the court set a deadline for such motions no earlier than 30 days after the note of issue, and provides a default of 120 days. The Kings County Supreme Court Uniform Civil Term Rules set the local deadline: motions for summary judgment “may be made no later than sixty (60) days after the filing of a Note of Issue,” except that where the City of New York is a defendant represented by the Tort Division of the Corporation Counsel’s office, the period is 120 days. The Appellate Division, Second Department enforces that rule and has reversed trial courts that entertained late motions without a showing of good cause.
Summary judgment runs in both directions. Under Rodriguez v City of New York, discussed in Part II, an injured person may obtain partial summary judgment on the defendant’s liability without disproving his or her own fault; in a rear-end collision case, that motion often succeeds. The defense, in turn, uses summary judgment to raise the serious injury threshold in motor vehicle cases, the lack of notice in store and sidewalk cases, and the storm-in-progress doctrine in ice cases. A substantial share of motor vehicle cases end at this stage, on the threshold, which is why the medical proof described in Part III has to be assembled during disclosure rather than after.
The 60-day rule means a Kings County case is often decided, settled or set for trial within a few months of the note of issue. Cases that survive summary judgment are also the cases that settle, because both sides then know what a jury will hear.
No statute sets the length of a lawsuit. The honest answer is a range that depends on the court, the defendant and the injury.
The table gives typical ranges from our experience in Kings County. They are not predictions for any case. A case with a public defendant, a disputed threshold or an injury that has not stabilized will take longer.
| Stage | What happens | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Investigation and claim | Evidence preserved, insurers notified, no-fault application filed, notice of claim served if a public body is involved, treatment continues | First 90 days |
| Pre-suit negotiation | Demand to the insurer once the injury has stabilized; many smaller cases resolve here | 3 to 12 months after injury |
| Pleadings | Summons and complaint filed and served; answer; bill of particulars | 1 to 4 months after filing |
| Disclosure | Document exchange, depositions, defense medical examination, preliminary and compliance conferences | 12 to 24 months |
| Note of issue and motions | Case placed on the trial calendar; summary judgment motions within 60 days in Kings County | 2 to 6 months |
| Settlement conferences and trial | Court-supervised settlement discussions; jury selection; trial, often in separate liability and damages phases | 6 to 18 months after note of issue |
| Appeal | Notice of appeal within 30 days of service of the judgment with notice of entry; briefing and decision in the Second Department | 12 to 24 months |
The medicine controls the calendar. A case should not be valued, and usually should not be settled, until the injured person has reached what physicians call maximum medical improvement, the point at which the long-term outcome is known. Settling a back injury case before the surgeon has decided whether a fusion is needed means settling for the wrong number. The three-year statute of limitations exists in part to allow that period. The one-year-and-90-day period for public defendants compresses it, which is one reason those cases are harder.
A case against a private driver with clear liability, a documented fracture and adequate insurance may settle within a year without a lawsuit. A case against the City involving a sidewalk defect, a prior-written-notice defense and a disputed injury may take three years or more. Both are personal injury cases. They are not the same case.
A trial in Kings County is decided by six jurors on a five-sixths vote, often in two phases. The verdict is reviewable by the Appellate Division for both liability and amount.
Personal injury trials in the Second Department are frequently bifurcated. The jury first decides liability, including the percentages of fault discussed in Part II, and only if it finds the defendant liable does it hear evidence of damages. In a motor vehicle case filed on or after May 26, 2026, Insurance Law section 5104(a) adds a required sequence within that structure: fault is decided before the jury considers whether the injury is serious. At the damages phase, the jury is asked to itemize its award by category, past and future, so that the court can apply the collateral source rule and the other adjustments described in Part VI.
The losing party may ask the trial judge to set the verdict aside, and may appeal. The notice of appeal is due 30 days after service of the judgment with notice of entry. On appeal, the Second Department reviews the liability finding for legal error and the damages award under the “deviates materially from what would be reasonable compensation” standard in Civil Practice Law and Rules section 5501(c). The court may order a new trial on damages unless the parties stipulate to a reduced or increased amount. The prospect of that review shapes settlement discussions after a verdict as much as the verdict itself does.
The end of a case is not the verdict or the settlement but the disbursement: the resolution of liens, the payment of disbursements and fees, and the delivery of the net recovery, in the sequence Part VI described. For a minor or an incapacitated person, the settlement must also be approved by the court, which reviews the amount and the fee and directs how the funds are held.
This example uses fictional names and is illustrative only. It is not a real case and does not describe any client of the firm.
Samuel Okafor, 38, a delivery worker, is struck by a car while riding an e-bike on Fourth Avenue in Sunset Park in October 2026. He suffers a fractured tibia requiring surgery. Within 30 days his lawyer files his no-fault application with the insurer of the car that struck him. Because the driver was private and no public agency was involved, no notice of claim is required, and the three-year statute of limitations applies. Because the lawsuit will be filed after May 26, 2026, the amended fault and threshold rules apply. His fracture satisfies the threshold, but his lane position will be the defense’s argument on fault.
The lawsuit is filed in Kings County Supreme Court in March 2027, after Samuel’s surgeon has confirmed that his recovery has plateaued with a permanent limitation. The driver is served within 120 days and answers, pleading Samuel’s comparative fault. Samuel’s bill of particulars identifies the fracture, the surgery and the permanent restrictions. A preliminary conference in June 2027 sets a disclosure schedule. Samuel is deposed in November 2027 and examined by the defense orthopedist in January 2028. His lawyer moves for partial summary judgment on liability under Rodriguez, relying on the police report, the driver’s deposition admission that he did not see the bike lane, and Vehicle and Traffic Law section 1146. The court grants the motion in April 2028, leaving Samuel’s own share of fault for the jury.
The note of issue is filed in June 2028. The driver’s insurer, facing a case in which liability is established and the injury is a surgical fracture, has one question left: Samuel’s percentage of fault, which under section 1411(b) must exceed 50 percent to defeat the claim entirely. With the driver’s admission on the record, the insurer offers its policy limits at a settlement conference in September 2028. Samuel’s lawyer has already confirmed that Samuel’s own auto policy carries supplementary uninsured motorist coverage above the driver’s limits and has preserved that claim. The case resolves in the autumn of 2028, two years after the crash, through two recoveries: the driver’s policy and Samuel’s own SUM coverage. The medical liens are resolved and the net proceeds are disbursed before the end of the year.
Had the car been a City vehicle, the same case would have begun with a notice of claim in the first 90 days, a 50-h hearing, and a lawsuit filed by January 2028 at the latest. Had Samuel’s fault been genuinely contested, the case would have gone to a bifurcated trial in 2029. The sequence is the same in every case. The facts decide how far along it the case travels.
How long do I have to file a personal injury lawsuit in New York?
For most injury claims against a private person or business, three years from the date of injury under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 214(5). Medical malpractice claims must be filed within two years and six months under section 214-a. Wrongful death claims must be filed within two years of the death. Claims against the City of New York and other public bodies require a notice of claim within 90 days and a lawsuit within one year and 90 days.
Can I sue the City of New York for a personal injury?
Yes, but only by serving a sworn notice of claim on the Comptroller within 90 days under General Municipal Law section 50-e, attending a 50-h hearing if the City demands one, and filing suit within one year and 90 days. For street and sidewalk defects, the City is liable only if it had prior written notice of the specific defect under Administrative Code section 7-201(c), or created it.
What counts as a “serious injury” after a New York car accident in 2026?
For lawsuits filed on or after May 26, 2026, Insurance Law section 5102(d) lists eight categories: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, a fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use, and significant limitation of use. The former category for non-permanent injuries lasting 90 of the first 180 days was removed.
What if I was partly at fault for my accident?
In most New York injury cases, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault but not eliminated, under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 1411(a). In a motor vehicle case filed on or after May 26, 2026, section 1411(b) bars recovery if your fault is greater than the combined fault of the people you are suing. At exactly 50 percent you still recover half.
Who is responsible if I fall on a Brooklyn sidewalk?
Usually the owner of the adjoining property, under Administrative Code section 7-210. The exception is a one-, two- or three-family house that is owner-occupied and used only as a residence; for those sidewalks the City remains responsible, a 90-day notice of claim applies, and the City must have had prior written notice of the defect. Tree wells are the City’s responsibility as well.
How much is a personal injury case worth in New York?
There is no formula. The value is the sum of provable economic losses and pain and suffering, reduced by your share of fault, by collateral source payments under Civil Practice Law and Rules section 4545, and by liens, and limited in practice by the available insurance. New York has no general cap on pain and suffering damages; the only exception is a narrow $100,000 cap for certain at-fault drivers in motor vehicle cases.
How long does a personal injury lawsuit take in New York?
In our experience, a contested case in Kings County Supreme Court commonly takes two to four years from filing to resolution, with most of that time spent in disclosure. Cases with clear liability and adequate insurance often settle within a year without a lawsuit. Cases against the City, or with a disputed serious injury threshold, usually take longer. The medical recovery, not the court, sets the pace.
Did New York pass the Grieving Families Act?
No. As of October 2026, the Grieving Families Act has been vetoed four times, most recently in early December 2025, and the current bill, Senate Bill S10171, remains in the Senate Judiciary Committee. New York wrongful death damages are still limited to pecuniary loss under Estates, Powers and Trusts Law section 5-4.3; grief and loss of companionship are not compensable.
How does Goldberg Sager & Associates charge for a personal injury case?
Personal injury matters are accepted on a contingency fee basis, which means there is no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery. The percentage is capped by Appellate Division rules, and by Judiciary Law section 474-a in medical malpractice cases, and is stated in a written retainer agreement. The initial consultation is free, and we meet clients at home or in the hospital when they cannot come to our office.
The rules in this guide are stated as they stand on October 3, 2026, including the motor vehicle amendments that apply to actions commenced on or after May 26, 2026. They will change again. The three facts this guide began with will not. Who the defendant is, which deadline applies, and when the lawsuit is filed decide more Brooklyn injury cases than any question about the injury itself. Where two deadlines might apply, use the shorter one.
Goldberg Sager & Associates is a family-owned Brooklyn firm located at 1628 Kings Highway, Brooklyn, New York 11229, with more than 70 years of combined legal experience. Karen Goldberg Sager leads our personal injury practice. Our staff works in English, Spanish, Russian and Polish. If you were hurt in Brooklyn and want to ask whether we can review your matter, call 718-645-6677 or contact us online. Injury consultations are free and can take place at our office, at your home or in the hospital.
Attorney Advertising. This guide is general information about New York law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Deadlines and rules depend on facts a guide cannot know; speak with an attorney licensed in New York about your own situation.
If you or a loved one has been injured due to someone else’s negligence, Goldberg Sager & Associates is here to help. Our Brooklyn personal injury attorneys offer free, no-obligation consultations to evaluate your case and explain your legal options. We handle injury cases on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay no attorney’s fees unless we recover compensation for you through a settlement or verdict. With over 70 years of combined legal experience representing injured New Yorkers in Brooklyn and throughout the city, our team has the knowledge, resources, and determination to pursue the full and fair recovery you deserve. If you’re too injured to travel, an attorney can meet you at home or in the hospital.
Get in touch with our experienced Brooklyn legal team today. Whether you were hurt in a crash, a fall, or another accident that wasn’t your fault, we’re here to listen, guide you through your options, and fight for the compensation you deserve.
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