Personal injury in
New York City.
New York City personal injury settlements are shaped by plaintiff-friendly Bronx and Kings County juries, the no-fault auto threshold, and Labor Law § 240 absolute-liability claims for construction workers.
New York City personal injury practice operates within New York State's framework, pure comparative negligence (with a 51% bar for car crash cases since 26 May 2026), three-year limitation for negligence claims, no-fault auto with a "serious injury" threshold under Insurance Law § 5102, but the metro adds factors that materially change the value of a claim. Bronx and Kings County (Brooklyn) jury pools are statistically among the most plaintiff-favourable in the United States, and verdicts in those venues regularly exceed comparable awards in suburban Long Island or upstate New York.
Construction injuries in NYC are a category unto themselves. Labor Law § 240 imposes absolute liability on contractors and property owners for gravity-related accidents (falls, falling objects), with no comparative-fault reduction available. The result is that an NYC scaffold-fall case typically settles for materially more than the same fact pattern in a state without an analogous statute.
Subway and bus claims against the MTA are subject to a 90-day notice-of-claim requirement under Public Authorities Law § 1276, the shortest tolling deadline in NY personal injury practice and a regular trap for unrepresented claimants.