What Is A Personal Injury Claim? In their simplest form, personal injury claims in New York City are about getting compensation for the money you have spent on medical bills as the result of an accident that someone else caused and, if applicable, the income you lost because you have to take a leave of absence from work. If your injuries are especially severe, you can also seek damages for future accident-related medical expenses and lost income. Sometimes, you can even get non-economic damages for pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment.
Does this mean that you get less money if you are already retired at the time of the accident and had already finished earning employment income before you got injured, and if you got to enjoy more years of life before the injury that cut short your enjoyment? Not always. For help getting a fair settlement, even if you were no spring chicken when you got injured in a preventable accident, contact a New York car accident lawyer.
New Yorkers Injured in Preventable Accidents are Entitled to Compensatory Damages, Regardless of Age or Health
Kids who grow up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side learn early how to cross streets so busy that they would cause adults from the suburbs to chicken out. One of those kids was Aurora Beauchamp. By the time she moved out of New York City as an adult and settled in Florida, she knew every walking route and bus route near her mother’s apartment on the Lower East Side.
One day in March 2017, Beauchamp, who was in her early 60s, was walking to her mother’s apartment, but the happiness of being near the comforts of home was enough to outweigh whatever fear and sadness she may have felt about the reason for her visit; she was going to the apartment to tell her mother in person that she had just received a diagnosis of uterine cancer. As she was crossing the street, a Metropolitan Transit Authority bus that was making a right turn struck her and dragged her for about 20 feet. Her left leg became permanently paralyzed as a result of the accident.
The MTA bus driver who caused the accident faced charges for failure to yield to a pedestrian and pleaded guilty. Beauchamp filed a personal injury lawsuit against MTA, and the lawsuit ended up as a jury trial. In 2024, the jury returned a verdict in Beauchamp’s favor, and the court awarded her over $72 million in damages. This is one of the largest damages awards that a court has ever ordered MTA to pay in a personal injury case. MTA intends to appeal the verdict.
Contact Leitner Varughese Warywoda About Motor Vehicle Accident Cases
A motor vehicle accident lawyer can help you if you were seriously injured in an accident involving a public bus, whether you were a passenger or a pedestrian. Contact Leitner Varughese Warywoda PLLC in Brooklyn, New York to discuss your case.
email: info@lvlawny.com | voice call: (212) 671-1110 | text message: (631) 886-4260
