Personal Injury Lawyer in Long Island City, NY

Long Island City is a construction and commuter neighborhood, and its injury caseload reflects that. High-rise development along Jackson Avenue and Vernon Boulevard, the Queensboro Bridge and Queens Plaza approaches, the Sunnyside Yard corridor, warehouse and logistics work near the waterfront — the accidents here are disproportionately construction and vehicle related.

Two bodies of law do most of the work:

• Labor Law § 240(1) — the scaffold law — imposes absolute liability on owners and general contractors when a worker is injured by a fall from height or by a falling object that was inadequately secured. The worker's own carelessness is generally not a defense. Labor Law § 241(6) extends liability for violations of specific Industrial Code rules, and § 200 codifies the common-law duty to provide a safe workplace.
• Motor vehicle rules: no-fault benefits of $50,000 from the vehicle involved, with the NF-2 application due within 30 days, and the serious injury threshold of Insurance Law § 5102(d) governing pain and suffering.

An injured construction worker usually has two parallel tracks — a workers' compensation claim against the employer and a third-party Labor Law action against the owner and general contractor. Workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy against the employer, but not against those other parties, and the compensation carrier will assert a lien on the third-party recovery. Ask any attorney how they intend to handle that lien; the negotiation over it materially affects what reaches the client.

Deadlines: three years for personal injury (CPLR 214), two years for wrongful death, and 90 days' notice of claim with suit in one year and 90 days where the City, the MTA or the Transit Authority is a defendant. Long Island City lies in Queens County, so cases are filed in Supreme Court, Queens County, 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard, Jamaica. New York applies pure comparative negligence (CPLR 1411). General information, not legal advice.

Nothing upfront. New York injury attorneys work on contingency — a percentage of the recovery, nothing if there is no recovery. One-third of the net recovery is the customary arrangement in New York personal injury matters; medical malpractice follows the separate scale in Judiciary Law § 474-a.

What changes the outcome financially:

• Whether the case resolves before suit, in discovery, or at trial
• Case expenses — safety engineering experts in Labor Law cases, accident reconstruction, medical narratives, deposition transcripts, filing fees
• The order in which expenses and fee are deducted
• Liens: workers' compensation, no-fault, health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid
• Insurance and contractual indemnity arrangements between owner, general contractor and subcontractor, which often determine how much coverage is actually available
• Municipal involvement and its added procedure

Note that a workers' compensation lien in a construction case can be substantial, and that resolving it requires the carrier's consent under Workers' Compensation Law § 29. Our consultation and referral cost nothing.

Because a construction injury is not a general injury case. It is a Labor Law case with a parallel compensation claim, a lien to negotiate, and multiple insurers pointing at each other — and it needs an attorney who does that work regularly.

• Free consultation; the referral costs you nothing.
• Available 24/7 at (800) 669-0060.
• English, Spanish, and Russian.
• Over 30 years matching injured people with attorneys across New York and New Jersey.
• Local case experience in Queens County.
• Continued involvement after the introduction.

Attorneys in Michael Brook's network stress one point to every injured construction worker: report the accident to the employer in writing and file the compensation claim, even while the third-party case is being evaluated. Immigration status does not affect the right to bring either claim.

Disclaimer: Michael Brook Attorney Referral is not a law firm and provides no legal representation or legal advice. This is general information and does not replace advice from a licensed attorney about your specific situation. No result is guaranteed.