Hasbrouck Heights Personal Injury Lawyers

Have you or a loved one suffered an injury due to someone else’s negligence?

You may have the right to pursue compensation for your medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, and other damages. With our trusted team of Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers, you can feel confident knowing that we will manage every detail of your case. From filing your claim with the insurance company to aggressively negotiating for the maximum compensation you deserve, we handle it all.

With over 20 years of experience in personal injury law, our award-winning attorneys have the expertise, resources, and dedication to tackle even the most complex cases. Our firm has a proven record of success and has earned five stars in Client Reviews across New Jersey. Let us fight for your rights while you focus on your recovery. If you’re looking for a lawyer for personal injury in New Jersey, our legal team at Lynch Law Firm, PC, is ready to fight for your rights while you focus on your recovery.

Complete a Free Case Evaluation form now to get started with our accident attorneys.

What Should I Do if I Have Been Injured?

If you’ve been injured due to someone else’s negligence, taking the right steps immediately can help protect your rights and strengthen your claim. Gathering and preserving evidence is crucial in proving the extent of your damages and demonstrating that another party’s negligence caused your injury.

To build a strong case, our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers recommend taking the following steps:

Seek Immediate Medical Attention

Your health and safety should always come first. No matter how minor your injury may seem, it’s essential to seek medical care as soon as possible.

Visiting a doctor, hospital, or emergency room not only ensures you get the treatment you need but also creates official medical records of your injuries. These records serve as crucial evidence, documenting your symptoms, diagnostic tests, treatments, and the cause of your injury, all of which can play a key role in strengthening your personal injury claim.

Document Your Injuries and the Accident Scene

To strengthen your personal injury claim, you need solid evidence proving that your accident and injuries resulted from someone else’s negligence. The sooner you gather this information, the stronger your case will be.

Here’s how you can effectively document your injuries and the accident scene:

• Taking photos
• Requesting any video footage of the accident
• Writing down everything you can remember about the incident
• Obtaining the contact information for witnesses to ask for statements about what they saw
• Requesting a copy of your accident report from the Hasbrouck Heights Police Department or New Jersey State Police, depending on where your accident happened

This evidence will be crucial when filing your claim with insurance companies or pursuing legal action with a New Jersey personal injury lawyer.

Contact a Reputable Personal Injury Attorney

After an accident, speaking with an experienced New Jersey personal injury attorney as soon as possible can make all the difference in your case. A reputable Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyer can evaluate the details of your accident, assess your injuries, and guide you through the claims process to ensure you receive the maximum compensation you may be entitled to.

We will also help you gather all of the evidence and documentation you need to support your case.

Click to contact our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury attorneys today.

Do I Have a Personal Injury Case?

Suppose you’ve been injured due to someone else’s negligence. In that case, you may have the right to pursue compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other damages under New Jersey personal injury law.

Personal injury cases allow victims to hold individuals, businesses, or other entities accountable for the harm they’ve caused. However, to successfully file a claim, you must prove that someone else was responsible for your injuries.

Negligence: Establishing Liability in a Personal Injury Case

To win a personal injury claim in New Jersey, you must prove that the at-fault party acted negligently and failed to uphold their duty of care, leading to your injuries.

The four essential elements required to establish negligence are:

The At-Fault Party Had a Duty of Care

The first step in determining whether you have a valid personal injury claim is establishing that the at-fault party owed you a duty of care.

Examples of duty of care include:

• Doctors and Healthcare Providers: Medical professionals have a legal obligation to provide competent and safe treatment to their patients.
• Property Owners and Landlords: Landlords, businesses, and property owners must maintain safe premises to prevent injuries to tenants, customers, and visitors.
• Motorists and Drivers: Every driver must operate their vehicle safely, follow traffic laws, and avoid reckless behavior that could endanger others.

In some cases, the at-fault party may have failed to act with reasonable care, leading to an accident and injuries. If you believe someone else’s negligence caused your injury, a New Jersey personal injury lawyer can help assess your case and fight for the compensation.

The At-Fault Party Breached Their Duty of Care

After establishing that the at-fault party owed you a duty of care, the next step is proving that they breached this duty by acting negligently, recklessly, or intentionally.

A breach of duty occurs when someone fails to act as a reasonable person would in a similar situation. This can involve reckless actions or failing to take necessary precautions to prevent harm.

Examples of a Breach of Duty:

• Motorists: Running a red light, speeding, driving under the influence, or texting while driving are all violations of a driver’s duty to operate a vehicle safely.
• Doctors and Medical Professionals: If a doctor fails to follow standard medical practices, misdiagnoses a condition, or provides substandard treatment, they may have breached their duty of care.
• Property Owners: Landlords, store owners, or businesses who fail to fix hazardous conditions, such as broken stairs or slippery floors, may be held responsible if someone gets injured.

The At-Fault Party’s Actions Directly Caused Your Injuries

Once it has been established that the at-fault party breached their duty of care, the next critical step is proving that their negligence directly caused your injuries.

Insurance companies and defense attorneys will often try to shift blame, arguing that your injuries were due to pre-existing conditions, unrelated incidents, or your own actions. To counter these tactics, it is essential to gather strong, indisputable evidence linking the accident to your injuries.

Your Injuries Caused You to Suffer Damages

Finally, you must be able to show that you suffered damages because of your personal injuries. This can include economic damages, such as medical bills and lost wages, or noneconomic damages, such as physical and/or mental pain and suffering.

Our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers will walk through each element with you to determine if you have grounds to file a personal injury calim. If you do, we will get to work immediately gathering the necessary evidence to build a strong claim on your behalf.

Call (800) 518-0508 for a free consultation and review of your claim.

Time Limits for Filing a Personal Injury Claim

If you believe you have a personal injury case, it’s important to act quickly. New Jersey law enforces strict statutes of limitations, which set a legal deadline for filing a claim. If you miss this deadline, you may lose your right to pursue compensation.

As outlined in New Jersey Statutes Annotated § 2A:14-2, most personal injury claims, including those for car accidents, medical malpractice and product liability, have a two-year statute of limitations.

Wrongful death lawsuits also have a two-year statute of limitations, as outlined in N.J.S.A § 2A:31-3.

While these deadlines apply to most cases, certain exceptions may extend or shorten the time you have to file, consulting an experienced New Jersey personal injury lawyer is the best way to ensure you do not miss your filing deadline.

New Jersey’s Discovery Rule

In some cases, the statute of limitations may be extended if the injury victim was not immediately aware of their injury or that it was caused by another’s negligence, which would give them grounds for a claim.

If this applies, the two-year statute of limitations begins from the date the individual discovered or reasonably should have discovered their injury, rather than from the date the injury occurred.

This rule is particularly relevant in cases involving chemical or toxic exposure, such as mesothelioma, which can take years to develop after asbestos exposure.

Claims Involving Minors or the Disabled

If a claim involves an individual who is a minor (under the age of 18) or legally incapacitated, the statutes of limitations will be tolled, or paused, until the minor reaches the age of 18 or the disability has been resolved.

This means, that if an individual was under the age of 18 at the time of the injury, the two-year statute of limitations will not begin to run until his or her 18th birthday. This will give him or her until his or her 20th birthday to file a claim.

However, this rule does not apply to medical malpractice claims involving birth injuries. In these cases, the lawsuit must be filed before the child’s 13th birthday.

Injury Claims Against the Government

Unlike personal injury claims against private individuals or businesses, cases involving government entities or employees have stricter requirements and shorter deadlines that must be followed.

Under N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 et seq, a notice of claim must be filed with the responsible government agency or department within 90 days of the accident.
Failing to meet this strict deadline will prevent you from pursuing a personal injury claim and seeking compensation. Because of this, it is crucial to act quickly and contact our New Jersey personal injury lawyers as soon as possible after your injury.

Our accident attorneys will carefully review your case, determine the applicable legal deadlines, and work diligently to ensure that all filing requirements are met on time.

Learn more by completing a Free Case Evaluation form.

Compensation from a New Jersey Personal Injury Lawsuit

A personal injury lawsuit is designed to provide financial compensation to victims who have suffered injuries due to another party’s negligence. This compensation helps cover the damages and losses resulting from the injury.

Depending on the details of your case, our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers may be able to help you recover two types of compensation:

Economic Damages

These damages are intended to reimburse you for the money you have spent or lost in relation to your injury. This can include:

Medical Bills

Medical expenses are typically the largest portion of compensation an injury victim will recover. This can include compensation for:

Lost Wages

If your injury has prevented you from working, you may be entitled to compensation for lost wages during your recovery period. This includes any income you were unable to earn due to missed workdays, reduced hours, or job restrictions caused by your injury.

In addition to past lost wages, if your injury affects your ability to work in the future, you may also be eligible for compensation for Lost Future Earnings and Reduced Earning Capacity.

Out-of-Pocket Expenses

Some injuries and accidents will also require out-of-pocket expenses that do not meet the categories above. If they are reasonable costs that are required for your injury, it may be possible to recover compensation for them. This can include:

Noneconomic Damages

Noneconomic damages are not as easily calculated because there is no direct monetary value. These damages attempt to compensate you for the effects of your injury on your personal life and can include:

The types and amount of compensation you can recover from a personal injury claim will depend on a variety of circumstances, including the severity of your injuries and how they affect your life.

Our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers have decades of experience helping accident victims obtain the maximum compensation they deserve for their injuries. We will utilize our vast resources and knowledge to help you file a successful claim.

Reasons Your Compensation Could be Reduced

While our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers will work tirelessly to secure the maximum compensation you deserve, certain factors may reduce or limit the amount you can recover.

New Jersey Comparative Negligence

One of the most common reasons your personal injury lawsuit compensation could be reduced is because of the rule of comparative negligence.

According to N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1, fault for a personal injury can be spread between multiple individuals. If the injury victim is found to be partially at fault for his or her injuries, his or her compensation will be reduced by his or her percentage of fault, so long as he or she is not more than 50 percent at fault.

This means that if you were awarded $20,000 in your personal injury case, but were found to be 30 percent responsible for causing your injuries, your award would be reduced by 30 percent to $14,000.

Damage Caps

Some states also place caps on the amount of compensation injury victims can recover from personal injury lawsuits. In New Jersey, the only damage cap is for punitive damages.

According to N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.14, punitive damages in personal injury cases are capped at $350,000 or five times the compensatory award, whichever is greater.

However, punitive damages are only awarded in cases in which the at-fault party acted out of actual malice or with wanton and willful disregard for the foreseeable harm that could come to the victim. For this reason, punitive damages are rarely awarded.

The Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers at Lynch Law Firm, PC focus on building strong claims to help clients recover the maximum compensation they are legally entitled to. We will fight to secure every type of compensation available to you.

Call (800) 518-0508 to get started fighting for the maximum compensation you deserve.

How Much Does a Personal Injury Attorney Cost?

At Lynch Law Firm, PC, our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis, meaning you pay nothing upfront, and we only get paid if we recover compensation for you.

There is no upfront cost or out-of-pocket expenses to hire our firm, and we do not charge any legal fees or other charges unless we obtain compensation on your behalf.

If we recover compensation for your claim, we charge a small percentage of your recovery. If we do not obtain compensation for you, you owe us nothing.

We also offer free consultations with our team of accident attorneys to discuss the details of your claim and help you determine if you have a case.

Why Hire Our Personal Injury Lawyers?

When selecting a personal injury lawyer, it’s essential to choose an attorney with the skills, experience, and resources necessary to successfully handle your claim.

At Lynch Law Firm, PC, our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers have over two decades of experience representing injury victims across New Jersey. We have a proven track record with extensive experience handling a wide range of personal injury and accident cases throughout New Jersey. Over the years, we have built relationships with medical professionals, accident reconstruction specialists, and other experts who provide crucial insight when investigating and building strong cases.

Founding Partner Jim Lynch serves on the Board of Governors for the New Jersey Association for Justice and holds the prestigious Civil Trial Attorney Certification from the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Earning this certification requires at least five years of membership in the New Jersey Bar, successfully passing a written examination, completing continuing legal education, and maintaining a distinguished reputation within the legal community.

Founding Partners Jim Lynch and Arthur Lynch are both proud members of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, an elite group of attorneys who have secured multi-million-dollar verdicts and settlements for their clients.

Types of Personal Injury Claims We Handle

The Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers at Lynch Law Firm, PC focus our practice solely on personal injury law. This means we are well-versed in the many laws and regulations applicable to your case.

We also know how to build a case that can stand up to any challenges you may face.

For more than two decades our accident lawyers have been committed to fighting for the rights of those who have been injured because of another’s actions. In that time, we have gained practical experience in handling a wide variety of practice areas, including:

Looking for a Personal Injury Lawyer Near Me?

At Lynch Law Firm, PC, our Hasbrouck Heights personal injury lawyers are committed to protecting your rights and fighting for the maximum compensation you deserve. You can trust our experienced legal team to work tirelessly on your behalf, handling every aspect of your claim with dedication and professionalism.

Contact us today for a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your case and learn more about how we can help. If we take your case, you pay nothing unless we win, and even then, our fee is only a portion of your recovery.

Call (800) 518-0508 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form.