Serious injuries change lives – not only the life of the injured person but his or her family members as well. At Powers & Santola, LLP, we know how the recovery from a personal injury can be slow, painful and costly. If you were harmed by another’s negligence, you need a personal injury lawyer what will be able to help you get through this challenging period and recover the compensation you are due.
Since 1987, our attorneys have provided skillful legal guidance and aggressive representation to personal injury victims and their families in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and communities throughout Upstate and Western New York.
Our injury law firm’s mission is to pursue full and fair compensation for the injuries our clients have suffered due to the actions of negligent doctors, construction site owners, drivers and others.
What Is a Personal Injury Claim?
Very few accidents are random, with no one to blame. Those would not qualify as personal injury claims. In most accident cases, someone did something to cause it. A valid personal injury claim must prove that another person or party acted carelessly, and that their behavior directly harmed you or a loved one. The legal term for this is negligence.
Most personal injury claims involve negotiating with the at-fault party’s insurance company. You will be seeking compensation for the injuries and losses that you suffered as a result of the insured’s negligence. Legal problems typically arise when the insurance company disputes liability for the accident or the severity of your injuries. They may also claim that you shared a portion of the fault. A personal injury law firm can take over all settlement negotiations and fight for fair compensation for your injuries. An attorney can also stand up for you so that you are not assigned an unfair proportion of the fault.
New York sets deadlines for how long you have to file different types of injury claims.
- Personal injury: 3 years from the date of the accident or injury
- Medical malpractice: 2 years and 6 months from the date of the malpractice or end of continuous treatment of a condition, illness or injury
- Wrongful death: 2 years from the date of death
In certain cases against government agencies, you must provide notice of a potential claim within 90 days after the accident.
Talk to a lawyer at Powers & Santola, LLP, before the statute of limitations for your claim expires so that your claim isn’t barred in court.
One important note: New York handles car accident claims differently from other personal injury claims. New York is a no-fault state. That means that if you are in a crash, you will first ask your own insurance company to pay for your medical costs and other economic losses, even if you did not cause the accident. Compensation from the other party’s insurance carrier may be available only if you sustained serious injuries such as disfigurement or substantial loss of a body function. Examples of this include herniated discs, vision loss, internal injuries, psychological damage, and permanent scarring. A Powers & Santola, LLP, lawyer can talk to you about other possible avenues for compensation if you’ve been in a car accident.
How Do I Know If I Have a Personal Injury Case?
When we provide a consultation about your case, we will answer all of your questions and learn more about what happened to you or your family member.
Duty
To be liable to you, a person, company or government agency must owe a duty of care to you. For instance, New York’s “Scaffold Law” places a duty on construction site owners, contractors and their agents to ensure the safety of workers who operate in a location, or in a manner, where they could fall from one level to another.
Breach
You must show that a party failed to fulfill the duty of care owed to you. For example, a doctor may have breached a duty of care owed to you as a patient if the doctor failed to order proper tests based on your symptoms (causing your cancer to go undiagnosed).
Causation
You must also establish that a party’s negligence – whether actions or failure to act – caused harm to you. For example, if a driver had not been recklessly texting while driving, the driver would not have crossed the center line and struck your vehicle
Damages
Finally, you must show that you suffered actual harm as the result of the party’s conduct such as severe bodily injuries that required you to stay in a hospital for a prolonged period and to miss time at your job.
To learn more about the steps that are involved in pursuing a personal injury lawsuit in New York, please see our Timeline.
What Can a Personal Injury Lawyer Recover in Albany?
Our goal at Powers & Santola, LLP, is to make a fundamental difference in each client’s life. We know how difficult it can be to suffer from traumatic brain injury, spinal cord damage or severe burns due to the careless or reckless acts of another.
We also know that money cannot replace all that is lost when someone is catastrophically injured or killed in an accident. But we can analyze your case and advise you of your legal options. Should you move forward with your claim, we always push for the maximum amount of compensation possible.
New York law divides personal injury damages into categories. There are economic damages, which compensate victims for financial losses resulting from an accident. Economic damages are easily quantified with documents such as bills and receipts.
Victims may also be awarded non-economic damages. This is money for injuries that aren’t as easy to add up with a calculator, such as pain and suffering or humiliation. It can be challenging for a judge or jury to place a dollar amount on losses that can’t be backed by solid numbers. Powers & Santola, LLP, regularly employs experts to support claims for non-economic damages. Their testimony can be a key part of you getting the money you deserve.
New York follows a doctrine of pure comparative fault. This means that your recovery in a personal injury claim can be reduced according to the percentage of fault assigned to you. If the other party in your case claims that you were at fault for your injuries, we will be ready to answer.
If you have lost a loved one due to the negligence of another, please see our Wrongful Death section to learn more about your rights and the damages that can be pursued in those cases.
Cases Our Personal Injury Lawyers Handle in Albany
The attorneys at Powers & Santola, LLP, focus primarily on three areas of law:
Medical Malpractice Learn More
Construction Site Accidents Learn More
Motor Vehicle Accidents Learn More
Due to our legal skill, experience and resources, we can handle personal injury cases in a wide range of other areas, including:
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Learn More
Premises LiabilityLearn More
Defective ProductsLearn More
Is a Personal Injury Attorney an Affordable Option?
Some people may worry about the cost of hiring an attorney. Let us put those fears to rest. You have nothing to lose by working with an attorney at our firm. We charge nothing upfront. Powers & Santola, LLP, handles all of its claims on a contingency basis. That means we only get paid if we recover a verdict or settlement on your behalf.
How does that work? Powers & Santola, LLP, will pay for all of the court costs and any other services needed to investigate your case in depth. If we win, we will accept payment as a percentage of your award, as well as reimbursement for any services that we paid in order to prevail on your claim. An alternative fee arrangement may be negotiated depending on the attorney or law firm. There are also special rules on fee arrangements in New York medical malpractice cases. However, they are still contingent fees, meaning there is no financial outlay from you at the start.
Why would we risk our own money with no promise of reward? It’s because Powers & Santola, LLP, only accepts cases that we believe have merit. We don’t represent whoever walks in our door.
When we take your case, you can be assured that our interests are aligned with yours. We want to help you secure the maximum amount of compensation on your claim. The more we recover for you, the more we get paid as well. No one else has your best interests in mind after an accident – not the insurance companies, not the police, not the courts.
The attorneys at Powers & Santola, LLP, strongly advise against representing yourself. Research shows that non-lawyers rarely prevail in court. It’s also possible to make mistakes at the beginning of the process that can be challenging for an attorney to fix later. Studies also show that claimants with attorneys actually end up with more money than those who try to negotiate a settlement on their own.
The beauty of a contingency fee arrangement is that there is nothing to lose. In fact, you never have to pay our attorney’s fees out of your pocket. If we win compensation for you, we deduct our fees from the total award and pass all the rest along to you. If we are unable to recover compensation for you, we don’t get paid. It’s as simple as that.
It all starts with a free consultation that comes with no strings attached.
Get Help Today from Our Personal Injury Attorneys in Albany
When we accept a personal injury case at Powers & Santola, LLP, our attorneys look at the big picture. We consider your current medical needs, your anticipated rehabilitation and vocational retraining and your physical and medical needs far into the future.
We understand the effects that serious injuries can have on victims and families as well as the long-term costs associated with treating the injuries. We don’t settle for less than our clients need and deserve. This dedication to our clients’ interests has allowed us to recover millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements for people who have suffered injuries in Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and throughout New York.
Albany Practice Areas
Medical Malpractice | Wrongful Death | Delayed Cancer Diagnosis | Workplace Accident | Personal Injury | Product Liability | Nursing Home Abuse | Sexual Abuse | Child Victims Act | Auto Accidents | Premises Liability | Construction Accident | Catastrophic Injuries