The New York Personal Injury Law Blog - Personal Injury News and Info

The New York Personal Injury Blog

How Does Qualified Immunity Affect Wrongful Death Claims?

Police officers are often confronted with very difficult decisions. When a dangerous situation appears to escalate, officers must often make a judgment call: Either try to diffuse the situation verbally or pull the trigger on the suspect. When an officer opts for the latter, he opens himself up to a potential wrongful death suit.

Wrongful death lawsuits against the police, however, differ from traditional wrongful death suits.

Getting into a nasty fender bender can leave you fuming. But some common antics by angry drivers after an accident can make the situation even worse.

Here are five things you should avoid doing after an accident, or else risk digging yourself deeper into trouble:

What Damages Can You Claim After a Car Accident?

If you have been injured following a New York car accident, there are many possible damages that you may claim.

While you will probably want to speak with a New York car accident attorney to learn more about the specific claims you may make in your case, here's a look at the basic types of damages that you can potentially collect:

Did you recently go on a bad cruise and want to know what your legal options are? Specifically, can you sue a cruise line for ruining your vacation?

These days, Carnival Cruises have made headlines for some unsightly and unfortunate accidents. But according to travel experts, it doesn't look like there's much hope for those who want to sue the cruise line.

If you're in a car accident, what do you need to do?

For starters, when getting into a vehicle accident, you have to stop your car. This is even more important and even imperative when your accident results in personal injury to someone, whether minor or serious.

But that's not all.

Can you sue a nursing home if you or a loved one were denied proper care?

That's a good question and one that many are asking after the recent news out of California. An elderly woman died after a nurse declined to perform CPR on her, citing the facility's policy.

The facility maintains that it was an independent living facility and not a nursing home. But that leads many to ask: What are a patient's rights in a nursing home?

What is the statute of limitations for a motor vehicle accident in the state of New York?

That depends.

First, for the uninitiated, let's go back to what the word "statute of limitations" even means. The statute of limitations is the time limit within which a lawsuit can be started. The rule is thi s-- a lawsuit must be started within a certain amount of time from the incident or from the discovery of the injury, otherwise the party loses his right to bring a lawsuit.

According to The New York Times, over 90 percent of cases settle out of court. That's a huge amount of lawsuits that settle rather than fight it out in litigation.

While it's more common and sometimes far more cost effective to settle, there are many ways to have successful settlement negotiations. Here are a few tips and pointers on settlement talks.

If your photo has been misused online, you're probably very upset.

It might have been an innocent case of you appearing at a party in a compromising position (i.e., you had too much to drink) and now, you don't want your coworkers to see the photo.

Or, it may have been something more serious like catfishing, which is the creation of a fake profile using your likeness in order to "catch" an unsuspecting victim for fraudulent purposes.

Depositions are an important part of a lawsuit. If you've filed a lawsuit or if you're being sued, you will likely eventually be called for a deposition.

What does that mean, and what do you need to know about depositions in New York?

For starters, depositions are governed by the law of civil procedure. In New York, if your case is a simple civil lawsuit for money damages, your lawsuit will be governed by state law and the rules of the court where your lawsuit has been filed.

Here's what you need to know, in a nutshell, about depositions in New York: