A traumatic brain injury can change how you think, remember, and control your moods, sometimes for the rest of your life, and the bills start before the diagnosis is even settled. A New York brain injury lawyer at Silver Law Group handles these cases across all five boroughs and New York State, and you owe no fee unless the firm recovers money for you. Every case starts with a free consultation, in English, Spanish, or Russian, and the phone is answered 24/7. Call 212-470-4544.
Do You Have a Brain Injury Case in New York
Someone else has to have been negligent for you to bring a claim, and New York splits negligence into four parts you have to prove: the other party owed you a duty of care, they breached that duty, the breach caused your injury, and you suffered real damages because of it. A driver owes other people on the road reasonable care. A property owner owes visitors a reasonably safe premises. A hospital owes you the accepted standard of treatment.
Depending on how you were hurt, the party who owes you money might be a negligent driver, a property owner or building manager, a construction company, a doctor or hospital, the maker of a defective product, or a city agency. More than one can share the blame, which is common in serious brain injury cases where a crash, a road defect, and a delay in treatment all played a part.
Types and Warning Signs of a Traumatic Brain Injury
Brain injuries run a wide range of severity. A concussion or mild TBI sits at one end. A contusion (bruising of the brain), a brain bleed, diffuse axonal injury (widespread tearing of nerve fibers when the brain twists inside the skull), and anoxic or hypoxic injury (brain cells dying from lack of oxygen) sit at the severe end, and any of them can leave permanent deficits.
A traumatic brain injury comes from an outside force: a blow, a jolt, an object striking the head. An acquired brain injury comes from inside the body, such as a stroke or oxygen loss during a medical event. The two can look alike afterward but point to different causes and different defendants.
Do not let the word “mild” fool you. Symptoms often do not show up at the scene. Headache, memory loss, personality or mood change, and dizziness can surface days or weeks later, after the adrenaline fades and the swelling sets in. That delay is one reason people skip early treatment and hurt their own case.
Common Causes of Brain Injury Claims in New York
Silver Law Group handles brain injury claims from the accidents that most often cause them across New York:
- Car, truck, bus, motorcycle, pedestrian, and bicycle crashes
- Slip-and-fall and other premises cases, where a property owner failed to fix or warn about a hazard
- Construction accidents, where Labor Law §240 and §241 give workers added protection for falls and falling-object injuries on the job
- Medical malpractice, including anesthesia errors and missed or delayed stroke diagnosis
- Assaults
- Defective products
The New York State Department of Health reports that the leading causes of TBI statewide are falls, motor vehicle crashes, and assaults. Each year across New York, traumatic brain injuries cause more than 2,200 deaths, roughly 17,000 hospitalizations, and almost 38,000 emergency department visits. The pattern in the five boroughs tracks that same list, with crashes and falls at the top.
Can You Sue After a Car-Accident Brain Injury — No-Fault and the Serious Injury Threshold
For a brain injury from a car, truck, or motorcycle crash, New York’s no-fault system pays your early medical bills and part of your lost wages through your own auto insurer, regardless of who caused the crash. No-fault does not pay for pain and suffering, and it normally blocks you from suing the driver who hit you.
Insurance Law §5102(d) is the way out. It defines a “serious injury” that lets you step outside no-fault and sue the at-fault driver for the full range of damages, pain and suffering included. A significant brain injury typically clears that threshold, because the statute covers permanent limitations and injuries that keep you from your usual activities. Whether your injury qualifies is often the fight the insurer picks first, which is why the medical documentation you build early decides so much.
Proving Fault and Shared Blame in New York
Fault is proven with evidence, not argument. In a brain injury case that means your medical records and imaging, neuropsychological testing that measures how the injury changed your cognition, testimony from treating and expert physicians, and proof from the scene: the police report, photographs, vehicle data, or surveillance video. Your brain injury attorney lines those up so the insurer cannot pin the crash on you.
Being partly at fault does not end your claim. Under CPLR §1411, New York follows pure comparative negligence. You can recover even if you were mostly responsible, and your award is reduced by your percentage of fault. If a jury finds you 30 percent to blame, you keep 70 percent of the damages.
How Much Is a New York Brain Injury Case Worth
What your case is worth depends on how badly you were hurt and what the injury will cost you over a lifetime, not on any average or advertised figure. The main factors are the severity of the brain injury, your future medical and rehabilitation needs, the earning capacity you lost, and how the injury changed your daily life.
New York lets you recover economic damages (past and future medical care, lost income, and the cost of long-term care), non-economic damages (pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life), and, in rare cases of egregious conduct, punitive damages.
To put real numbers to future costs, the firm works with treating doctors, life-care planners, and economists who project decades of care and lost earnings for a young person who may never work the same way again. A brain injury attorney who quotes you a dollar figure before that work is done is guessing.
What to Do After a Brain Injury in New York
Take these steps after a head injury in New York:
- Get an immediate medical evaluation, then follow up with a neurologist. Bleeding and symptoms can appear days later, and the record of early treatment protects both your health and your claim.
- Keep the accident or police report, your medical records, and any imaging such as CT and MRI scans.
- Start a symptom journal with dates: headaches, memory gaps, mood swings, sleep trouble.
- Do not give a recorded statement to any insurer before you speak with a head injury lawyer. Adjusters call within days, and a few words about how you “feel fine” can be used to argue the injury is minor.
If a Brain Injury Left Your Loved One Unable to Speak for Themselves
When a brain injury leaves someone unable to make legal decisions, New York lets a spouse, parent, or court-appointed guardian bring the claim on their behalf. You do not have to wait for the person to recover to protect their rights. For an injured child, the clock is different: CPLR §208 tolls the deadline so the child has until three years after their 18th birthday to sue.
How Long You Have to File a Brain Injury Claim in New York
New York sets more than one deadline, and the shortest one controls whether you can still sue:
- Three years to file most personal injury lawsuits, under CPLR §214.
- Two years and six months for medical malpractice, under CPLR §214-a.
- Two years for wrongful death, under EPTL §5-4.1, if a brain injury proves fatal.
- Ninety days to file a Notice of Claim when a city or public entity is involved, under GML §50-e, followed by a one-year-and-90-day deadline to sue. This applies to injuries involving NYC buses, city vehicles, NYC Health + Hospitals facilities, or NYCHA property.
The 90-day city rule is the trap that ends the most cases. If a public agency may share the blame for your injury, call before three months pass.
What It Costs to Hire a New York Brain Injury Lawyer
Hiring a New York brain injury lawyer here costs you nothing up front. Silver Law Group works on contingency: you pay no retainer and no hourly bills, the firm advances the cost of investigators, medical records, and expert witnesses as the case moves, and the fee comes only as a set percentage of what the firm recovers for you. If there is no recovery, you owe no fee, and you are not billed for the costs the firm advanced. That arrangement lets someone with mounting medical bills and lost income hire the same representation as someone who could pay by the hour.
Boroughs and Areas We Serve Across New York
New York’s injury law is identical in all five boroughs, but where your case is filed and which hospital treated you shape how it moves. Silver Law Group represents brain injury clients across the city:
- Manhattan
- Brooklyn
- Queens
- The Bronx
- Staten Island
The firm’s office is in Midtown Manhattan, at 49 West 37th Street, 7th Floor. Each borough page covers that borough’s courts, hospitals, and local specifics in depth.
Why Choose Silver Law Group for Your Brain Injury Case
Reasons injured New Yorkers hire a traumatic brain injury lawyer at Silver Law Group:
- Trial-ready preparation. Every case is built as if it will go to a jury, and that posture is what pressures insurers to pay.
- Service in English, Spanish, and Russian, so the details of your injury do not get lost in translation.
- Someone answers 24/7.
- Contingency representation, so cost is never the reason you wait to call.
- When a brain injury keeps you from traveling, the attorney can come to your home or hospital room.
Free Consultation with a New York Brain Injury Lawyer
The consultation is free and comes with no obligation. Call Silver Law Group at 212-470-4544 to tell a New York brain injury lawyer what happened and hear where your case stands. The line is open 24/7, the firm works in English, Spanish, and Russian, and you pay no fee unless the firm recovers for you.