New York City Personal Injury Attorneys

Personal Injury Claims in Brooklyn & Beyond

When another party’s negligence, carelessness, or recklessness causes you physical or mental harm, you deserve to be compensated for your hardships and losses.

At Rubenstein & Rynecki, our New York City personal injury attorneys have nearly 50 years of experience fighting for victims of negligent and wrongful conduct. Based in Brooklyn, we serve clients throughout New York City’s boroughs, providing aggressive advocacy and compassionate, client-focused representation.

When you turn to our team, we will fight for the maximum settlement or verdict possible given the facts of your case.

Get started with a free initial consultation today; call (718) 522-1020 or contact us online. We serve clients in English, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Greek, and Creole.

Cases We Handle

How the Extent of Your Injuries Affect Your Claim

The severity of a victim’s injury determines the amount of compensation available. Generally speaking, the more severe the injuries, the more compensation available.

Below, we have provided a very general overview of your possible options following different types of injuries:

Minor injuries: Cuts, scrapes, bruises, contusions, and other minor injuries typically require minimal medical attention, and victims rarely lose work over them. We may recommend you file an insurance claim against the culpable party.
Moderate injuries: With whiplash, sprains and strains, broken bones, serious lacerations, and other moderate injuries, you can incur significant medical and incidental costs, as well as lose work time. Getting an appropriate settlement from an insurance company can be challenging, and most claimants do significantly better when they retain legal representation.
Severe injuries: Permanent harm—such as traumatic brain injury, paralysis, or the loss of a limb—can produce high expenses for a lifetime. These cases may require litigation to secure an award to cover past, current, and future costs.

Our legal team thoroughly investigates every aspect of your personal injury case to determine the best path forward to achieving optimal results.

How to Use Witnesses in a Personal Injury Claim

Witnesses can be extremely valuable when it comes to your personal injury claim. So many times, these cases come down to the word of the claimant versus the word of the defendant, which makes it difficult for injured parties to receive the damages they deserve.

Quality witnesses can tip the scales in your favor.

Any time you have suffered an accident or an injury, you should scan the area for witnesses and, if you are physically able, get their information.

You should write down all of their names and contact information, as well as a summary of what they saw and where they were while they witnessed the accident. If your potential witnesses seem cooperative, you could ask them to create a written statement.

If you sustained an injury in a motor vehicle accident, you could also get a copy of the police report, as it could contain information about witnesses who spoke to officers at the scene. You also have the option to use expert witnesses in your case.

Experts in certain fields can provide extremely useful testimony that can explain complicated subject areas for lay people, such as judges, juries, and insurance adjusters.

Types of Damages Available in Personal Injury Cases

Personal injury law is designed to restore—or “make whole”—the accident victim. Since it is impossible to undo the harm the victim has endured, those responsible for the accident must pay compensation to the victim for their injuries and losses, known collectively as “damages.”

These damages fall into two main categories:

Economic damages: These include bodily injury, lost income from missed work, diminished income from not being able to work in the future, and other losses that have a set dollar amount associated with them.
Non-economic damages: These include physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of quality of life, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and other harder to quantify intangible losses.

Insurance companies are extremely unwilling to pay damages to injured victims and will often go to great lengths to dispute claims or pressure victims to accept lowball settlement offers.

Without experience in the legal arena, you may accidentally make a mistake or say something that jeopardizes your right to a full recovery. We strongly recommend that you speak to an experienced attorney at our firm before talking to anyone from the insurance company about your case.

Many people want to know how much their claims are worth but, unfortunately, it is impossible to know how much you might recover in each category of damages without reviewing the various details of your case.

Numerous factors impact your recovery and the value of your claim. Our team can discuss these factors with you during a free initial consultation and provide a clearer picture of what you can expect from the legal process. We have the knowledge, resources, and legal acumen to help you fight for the maximum compensation you deserve.

What is Comparative Negligence Law?

A major factor in determining whether and in what amount you can recover damages in a personal injury case is the determination of each party’s degree of negligence. In cases where the injured party shares part of the blame for an accident, New York law allows that party to recover damages that are reduced based on his or her percentage of fault. For example, if you were in a car accident where a court determined you were 10 percent negligent, you could collect 90 percent of your losses from other at-fault parties. Unlike other states that follow modified comparative negligence rules, New York’s pure comparative negligence law does not prohibit you from filing a personal injury claim if you were more at fault than the other party/parties involved. As long as you can prove that the other person or entity was at least somewhat to blame, you could have a case.

How Long Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit in New York?

The statute of limitations sets time limits for filing various types of lawsuits as follows: Personal injury: Three years from the date of injury Wrongful death: Two years from the date of death Medical malpractice: Two and a half years from the date of the medical error Products liability: Three years from the date of injury Premises liability: Three years from the date of injury For latent injuries—those not immediately apparent—the statutory period begins running on the date you discovered or reasonably should have discovered you were injured. However, you may not be entitled to the full statutory period. For example, if a surgeon leaves a foreign object inside your body, you have only one year from the date of discovery to file a lawsuit. There are also different statutory limits for child victims. Additionally, when the defendant is a government agency, other limitations apply, and deadlines are generally shorter. Contact an attorney at our firm to learn more about filing a claim against a government entity in New York City.

Additionally, when the defendant is a government agency, other limitations apply, and deadlines are generally shorter. Contact an attorney at our firm to learn more about filing a claim against a government entity in New York City.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Personal Injury Attorney?

Personal injury attorneys are paid contingency fees, which are based on the amount of damages recovered.
Generally speaking, you are not required to pay any attorney fees unless/until your lawyer recovers a settlement or verdict for you.
New York law sets guidelines for contingency fees as follows:

30% of the first $250,000 of the sum recovered
25% of the next $250,000
20% of the next $500,000
15% of the next $250,000
10% of any amount over $1,250,000

The sum recovered is the net amount of a settlement or court award after deducting certain expenses, such as: Expert testimony fees Investigation services Other professional services, such as economics experts who estimate damages claims Attorneys cannot deduct liens, assignments, or claims in favor of hospitals, medical care, dental care, podiatric care, doctor’s and nurses’ treatment, self-insurers, or insurance carriers.

Types of expert witnesses include:

Medical experts, who can testify about the extent of your injuries, resulting disabilities, and the relation of those injuries to your accident
Economic experts, who can testify about the types of financial losses you experienced or will experience because of your injury
Accident reconstruction experts, who specialize in analyzing and explaining how the collision occurred
Construction experts, who testify about unsafe workplace conditions

For more information and guidance on the witnesses you should seek for your personal injury lawsuit, speak with a respected attorney at Rubenstein & Rynecki today.

Contact Rubenstein & Rynecki for Compassionate Legal Service

If you are suffering from a devastating injury, Rubenstein & Rynecki can provide the quality legal representation you need to pursue full compensation. We provide compassionate, client-focused service and are dedicated to maximizing our clients’ recoveries. We are always available and provide consistent communication to our clients.

Our firm can assist you in English, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Greek, or Creole according to your needs. We offer free consultations and there is no obligation for you when you speak to our team about your potential case.

Take advantage of a free consultation and get to know our skilled and dedicated attorneys. Call us at (718) 522-1020 or contact our office online to schedule an appointment.