Manhattan Personal Injury Lawyer

Manhattan is the most densely populated county in the United States. It is also one of the most legally complex places in the country to bring a personal injury claim. If you've been hurt on a Midtown sidewalk, in a taxi collision, on a construction site, or in a building with a faulty elevator shaft, you need a Manhattan personal injury lawyer who knows both New York law and the specific rules that apply here. At The Orlow Firm, our attorneys have represented injured New Yorkers since 1982. We have a Manhattan office at The Chrysler Building, 405 Lexington Avenue, ready to serve you.

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The numbers explain why personal injury claims in Manhattan are both common and high-stakes.

According to NYC DOT Vision Zero data, Manhattan recorded 5,809 crashes in 2023. Those crashes resulted in 34 deaths, 19 of them pedestrians, and 7,253 injuries. A Transportation Alternatives analysis of the first half of 2024 found that Midtown Manhattan has the highest rate of traffic violence of any neighborhood in New York City. During those six months, eight people were killed within the Manhattan congestion relief zone alone, nearly one every three weeks. Every single one of those deaths involved a pedestrian or cyclist. SUVs and pickup trucks accounted for 94% of non-motorist fatalities citywide during this period.

Beyond traffic, Manhattan's construction boom has made its job sites among the most active in the country. Its aging buildings, dense subway system, and concentration of city-owned property create additional injury risks at every turn.

Many Manhattan injury cases also involve the City of New York as a defendant. That can happen when a claim arises from a broken city sidewalk, a school stairwell, a city bus, or a police encounter. Claims against the city carry strict procedural deadlines that can end a case permanently if missed. New York's no-fault insurance system and pure comparative negligence law add further complexity that differs significantly from other states.

Our firm handles all of it. With four New York City office locations, including our Manhattan office at The Chrysler Building, 26th Floor, 405 Lexington Avenue, we are accessible to injured clients throughout New York County. We can also come to you if you cannot come to us.

How New York's Comparative Negligence Law Protects Manhattan Injury Victims

One of the most important things to understand about a Manhattan personal injury claim is how New York handles shared fault. Many people assume that being partly to blame for an accident means they cannot recover anything. That is not true under New York law.

New York follows pure comparative negligence under CPLR § 1411. Even if you were partially at fault, you are still entitled to recover compensation. Your total award is reduced by your percentage of fault. If a jury awards you $200,000 but finds you 20% at fault, you recover $160,000. Even if you were found 70% at fault, you could still recover 30% of your damages. New York is one of a handful of states with this pro-plaintiff rule. Most states cut off recovery once fault reaches a certain level.

To succeed in any personal injury claim, you must establish four elements of negligence: the at-fault party owed you a duty of care, they breached that duty, the breach caused your injury, and you suffered real damages. In practice, defendants and their insurers will work to inflate your share of fault to reduce what they owe. Under the Rodriguez v. City of New York decision, comparative negligence is an affirmative defense that the defendant must prove. It is not something you must disprove. That distinction matters.

New York's joint and several liability rules also mean that when multiple defendants share responsibility, each can be held accountable for the full damages. Brian Seth Orlow and Adam Moses Orlow are both admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York. Each has spent over 25 years identifying every potentially liable party and pushing for full recovery.

New York's No-Fault Insurance: What Motor Vehicle Injury Victims Must Know

If your injury happened in a motor vehicle accident, New York's no-fault insurance system shapes both your initial benefits and your right to sue. This applies to car crashes, taxi collisions, truck accidents, bus incidents, and rideshare crashes.

New York is a no-fault state. Regardless of who caused the accident, your own insurer pays your medical expenses and 80% of your lost wages through no-fault Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage. The total benefit is capped at $50,000 in basic economic loss. This applies even if the other driver was entirely at fault.

No-fault coverage does not pay for pain and suffering. To pursue a separate lawsuit for those damages, your injuries must meet the "serious injury" threshold under New York Insurance Law § 5102(d). Qualifying injuries include death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, any fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ or system, permanent consequential limitation, significant limitation of use, or a non-permanent medically determined injury. For the last category, the injury must prevent you from performing substantially all normal daily activities for at least 90 of the first 180 days after the accident.

In plain terms, documentation is everything. A gap in medical treatment, missed appointments, or thin records can allow an insurer to argue your injury doesn't meet the threshold, cutting off your right to sue for pain and suffering. Our firm works with treating physicians and medical experts to make sure your injuries are documented properly and your case clears this standard.

No-fault rules apply only to motor vehicle accidents. Slip and fall cases, construction accidents, medical malpractice, and most other personal injury claims operate under different rules. There is no threshold requirement for those claims, and the standard filing deadline is three years under CPLR § 214.

Suing the City of New York: The 90-Day Notice of Claim Rule

This is the most time-sensitive issue in many Manhattan injury cases. It is also the one most often misunderstood by injury victims and underexplained by other law firms.

If New York City or any city agency may be responsible for your injury, you must file a Notice of Claim within 90 days of the accident. This is required by General Municipal Law § 50-e, and it covers a wide range of Manhattan situations:

• A slip and fall on a defective city sidewalk
• An injury at a public school, city park, or NYCHA building
• An accident involving an NYPD vehicle, MTA bus, or sanitation truck
• An assault in a city facility due to inadequate security
• An injury in a subway station or on an MTA subway car

Missing this deadline is nearly always fatal to a claim against the city. Courts grant very few exceptions. Even strong cases get dismissed when this step is skipped.

After you file the Notice of Claim, the city may require a 50-H hearing, a formal examination under oath, before your lawsuit moves forward. You must then file the lawsuit itself within one year and 90 days of the accident. That is much shorter than the standard three-year period that applies to private defendants.

The volume of city injury claims shows how often this rule comes into play. According to the NYC Comptroller's Annual Claims Report, the city paid more than $1.04 billion in personal injury and property damage claims in Fiscal Year 2024. Claims against the NYPD alone totaled $309.51 million. City attorneys litigate these cases hard, which is why experienced representation matters from day one.

Steven S. Orlow, our founding partner, is a Cornell Law graduate who served as Counsel to the County Executive of Queens County and as a former NYC Council Member-At-Large. His government background gives our firm a sharp understanding of how city agencies defend these claims and what it takes to win.

If the City of New York may bear any responsibility for your injury, call us at (646) 647-3398 right away. The 90-day clock starts on the date of your accident.

Types of Personal Injury Cases We Handle in Manhattan

Our attorneys handle personal injury cases across all the major categories that arise in Manhattan.

Motor Vehicle Accidents

Manhattan's streets produce a constant volume of serious motor vehicle accidents. Taxi collisions in Midtown, truck accidents in the Financial District, rideshare crashes in the West Village, pedestrian knockdowns near crosswalks — we handle all of them. Claims involving commercial vehicles often include higher insurance policies and multiple potentially liable parties: the driver, the company, and sometimes a separate vehicle owner.

Construction Accidents

Manhattan has one of the highest concentrations of active construction sites of any city in the world. New York Labor Law § 240, the Scaffold Law, and § 241(6) impose a non-delegable duty on property owners and general contractors to provide safe working conditions and proper fall protection. These laws impose strict liability for gravity-related injuries, meaning fault comparisons often do not apply. Our firm has recovered millions of dollars for construction workers injured on Manhattan job sites, including a $900,000 recovery for a painter who suffered a scaffold accident in Manhattan.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Premises Liability and Slip and Fall

Property owners throughout Manhattan have a legal duty to keep their buildings and spaces reasonably safe. When they fail, the results can be serious. We represent clients injured by defective stairs, unmarked wet floors, broken elevators, poor lighting, and structural hazards. Sidewalk cases are especially common in Manhattan. When the sidewalk is city-maintained, the 90-day Notice of Claim requirement applies.

Negligent Security

When someone is assaulted in a building where owners failed to maintain adequate security, the property owner can be held liable. Broken locks, absent guards, and malfunctioning cameras all contribute to foreseeable harm. We represent clients injured in apartment building assaults, hotel attacks, and parking garage incidents.

Workplace Injuries

Not every workplace injury in Manhattan is a construction case. Office workers, hospitality employees, and retail staff injured on the job may have claims against third parties such as building owners, equipment manufacturers, or maintenance contractors, claims that go beyond what workers' compensation alone covers.

Wrongful Death

When a family member dies due to someone else's negligence, surviving family members may bring a wrongful death claim. Recoverable damages include lost financial support, medical and funeral expenses, and the pain and suffering the deceased experienced. If a city entity is involved, a 90-day Notice of Claim is still required.

What Your Manhattan Personal Injury Case May Be Worth

No attorney can guarantee a specific outcome. Every case turns on its own facts. What we can do is explain what types of compensation exist and what drives the value of a claim.

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Economic Damages cover your measurable financial losses:

• Medical expenses, past and future, including hospital bills, surgery, physical therapy, medications, and assistive devices
• Lost wages for time missed from work
• Loss of future earning capacity if the injury affects your ability to work long-term
• Property damage
• Out-of-pocket costs related to your injury, such as transportation to appointments or home modifications

Non-Economic Damages address losses that are real but harder to put a number on:

• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress and psychological trauma
• Permanent disability or disfigurement
• Loss of enjoyment of life, including activities and routines you can no longer do
• Loss of consortium, which is the impact on a marriage when one spouse is seriously hurt

New York imposes no cap on non-economic damages in most personal injury cases. Juries in New York County have returned substantial non-economic awards in serious injury cases. Our attorneys know how to present the reality of your injuries in a way that resonates.

Punitive Damages are rare. Courts award them in fewer than 5% of New York personal injury cases. They require proof that the defendant acted with conscious disregard for the safety of others, not just carelessness.

Insurance companies rely on two main tactics to reduce what they pay: disputing the severity of your injury and inflating your share of fault. Early settlement offers are almost always far below what a claim is actually worth. Our attorneys review the full picture, including medical records, income documentation, expert opinions, and comparable results, before entering any negotiation.

Our results include:

$2,875,000 — A legally blind man fell 16 feet into an open elevator shaft, sustaining serious back and heel injuries. Building owners must maintain safe access and working elevators, especially for residents with disabilities.

$1,500,000 — A client fell on a badly damaged sidewalk and needed back and ankle surgery. Defective sidewalks are one of the most common, and most contested, premises liability claims in Manhattan.

$1,200,000 — An 83-year-old pedestrian was struck and suffered multiple fractures. Pedestrian injuries remain at serious levels in Manhattan, where Midtown holds the citywide record for traffic violence.

$997,997 — A taxi driver was hit head-on by a truck and needed back surgery. Commercial vehicle accidents often involve higher policy limits and more complex liability.

$900,000 — A painter suffered a scaffold accident in Manhattan. New York's Scaffold Law provides strong protections for workers hurt in gravity-related accidents on construction sites.

$750,000 — A passenger in a work vehicle suffered neck and back injuries requiring surgery. Passengers in work vehicle accidents may have claims against the driver, the employer, and other parties.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

What to Do After a Personal Injury in Manhattan

The steps you take in the hours and days after an injury in Manhattan can strengthen or weaken your legal position.

1. Seek medical attention immediately. Even if you feel okay, get evaluated. Symptoms of traumatic brain injuries, internal injuries, and soft tissue damage often appear hours or days after the incident. A gap in treatment is one of the first things defense attorneys look for.

2. Document the scene. Take photos and video of the exact location, the hazardous condition, any vehicles involved, visible injuries, and the surrounding area. In Manhattan, conditions change fast. Construction sites get cleaned up, property owners fix hazards, and evidence disappears.

3. Get witness information. Manhattan's streets are rarely empty. If anyone saw what happened, collect their name and phone number. Independent witnesses are among the most valuable evidence in any injury case.

4. Report the incident formally. Call 911 for vehicle accidents and serious injuries. Ask the property manager for an incident report if you were hurt in a building. Notify your employer in writing if the injury happened at work.

5. If a city entity may be involved, act right away. The 90-day Notice of Claim deadline begins on the date of your accident. If your fall happened on a city sidewalk, you were hit by a city vehicle, or you were hurt in a subway station, call an attorney within days, not weeks.

6. Do not speak with the insurance company without counsel. Insurance adjusters are trained to get statements that minimize your claim. Anything you say, including a well-intentioned apology or a comment about how you're feeling, can be used against you.

7. Stay off social media. Insurers and defense investigators monitor claimants' social media. A photo of you at a family event or a post about a walk can be taken out of context and used to dispute your injuries.

8. Preserve all evidence. Do not repair damaged clothing or property. Keep all medical bills, appointment records, and correspondence. These documents form the foundation of your claim.

Call The Orlow Firm at (646) 647-3398 for a free consultation. We can meet you at our Manhattan office at The Chrysler Building or come to you if travel is not possible, including hospital visits for those with serious injuries.

Frequently Asked Questions About Manhattan Personal Injury Cases

How long does a Manhattan personal injury case take to resolve?

Most Manhattan personal injury cases resolve within one to three years from the date of filing. Complex cases involving the City of New York or disputed liability often take longer. Cases with clear liability and solid documentation sometimes settle sooner. We prepare every case as though it will go to trial, which typically strengthens settlement outcomes.

What if the person who injured me has no insurance or limited coverage?

When the at-fault party is uninsured or underinsured, other options remain. If the injury involved a motor vehicle, your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage may apply. In other cases, we look at whether property owners, employers, contractors, or building managers may also bear responsibility. We explore every path to recovery before concluding a case.

Can I still file a claim if I was partially at fault for my accident?

Yes. Under New York's pure comparative negligence law (CPLR § 1411), you can recover damages even if you were partly responsible. Your compensation is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you are not barred from recovering entirely. The key is having an attorney who can push back against efforts to inflate your share of fault.

What if my injury happened on the MTA subway or a city bus?

The MTA is a state public benefit corporation, not a city agency, but similar Notice of Claim requirements apply. You must file a claim with the MTA within 90 days of the incident. The deadline to file a lawsuit is one year and 90 days. Subway station conditions, platform gaps, brake failures, and operator error can all form the basis of a valid claim, but these cases require fast action.

Will my Manhattan personal injury case go to trial, or will it settle?

Most personal injury cases settle before trial — typically above 95%. How strong your settlement position is depends on how well your case is prepared. Insurers offer more when they know your attorneys are ready for trial. At The Orlow Firm, every Manhattan personal injury case is prepared to the trial standard from day one.

How do I pay for medical care while my case is pending?

In motor vehicle accident cases, no-fault PIP coverage pays medical expenses while your case is ongoing. For non-vehicle cases, your health insurance may cover treatment, with providers sometimes agreeing to defer collection until the case resolves through a medical lien. We can help connect you with providers who work with personal injury clients.

Can I file a claim if I was a tourist or visitor to Manhattan when I was hurt?

Yes. Personal injury law applies based on where the accident happened, not where you live. Visitors and out-of-state residents injured in Manhattan have the same rights under New York law as residents. The same deadlines and procedural rules apply, including the 90-day Notice of Claim for city defendants.

What if a family member was killed in a Manhattan accident?

A wrongful death claim lets surviving family members seek compensation for financial and personal losses. Recoverable damages include lost financial support, medical expenses before death, funeral costs, and compensation for the deceased's pain and suffering. If a city entity is involved, a Notice of Claim must be filed within 90 days — that window starts when the estate representative is appointed.

The insurance company offered me a settlement right away — should I accept?

No. Early offers are almost always below the actual value of a claim. Insurers make early offers before your injuries are fully understood and before an attorney has reviewed all sources of liability. Accepting usually requires signing a release that waives your right to any further compensation. Talk to a Manhattan personal injury attorney before signing anything.

Contact The Orlow Firm Today

The Orlow Firm has represented injured New Yorkers for over 40 years. When you work with us, a partner handles your case directly. We are a family firm. You will not be passed to a junior associate or lose track of who is working on your matter.

Call (646) 647-3398 for a free consultation. We work on contingency. You pay nothing unless we win your case.

Our Manhattan office is at The Chrysler Building, 26th Floor, 405 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10174. We also have offices in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. We can come to you if you cannot come to us.

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Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Sources & Official Resources

New York Laws Cited

1. CPLR § 1411 — Pure Comparative Negligence
2. CPLR § 214 — Three-Year Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
3. New York Insurance Law § 5102(d) — Serious Injury Threshold Definitions
4. General Municipal Law § 50-e — Notice of Claim Requirement
5. New York Labor Law § 240 — Scaffold Law (Absolute Liability for Elevation-Related Injuries)
6. New York Labor Law § 241(6) — Construction Site Safety Requirements

NYC & State Agency Sources

7. NYC DOT Vision Zero View — Crash and Fatality Data by Borough (2023)
8. NYC Comptroller Annual Claims Report (FY 2024)

Advocacy & Research

9. Transportation Alternatives — "New York City Experiences Deadliest First Six Months in Vision Zero History" (2024)