New York law lets you sue a person or company that hurt you through negligence, recklessness, or an intentional act. The suit asks a court for money, called damages, to cover your losses.
That includes car crashes, falls on unsafe property, construction injuries, defective products, dog bites, assaults, and the death of a family member.
You cannot sue simply to prove a point. The law requires a concrete loss: medical bills, lost wages, property damage, or pain and suffering. Below, we cover what qualifies, the deadlines, and where the law draws lines.
What does it actually mean to sue someone?
A lawsuit is a formal court demand for compensation from whoever caused your harm. In most injury cases, the defendant's insurance company pays the settlement or judgment, not the defendant personally.
Few cases reach a verdict. The suit creates leverage. Insurers price a claim backed by solid medical records and a real trial threat very differently from one that cannot be proven. What matters is not what happened. It is what you can prove.
What kinds of conduct can you sue for?
Negligence drives most New York injury suits: someone failed to use reasonable care and hurt you. Think of a driver running a red light, a store ignoring a spill, or a landlord leaving a stair broken.
Intentional conduct, such as assault, also supports a suit. So does strict liability in certain cases, like defective products. Property owners and general contractors face liability under Labor Law § 240 when a worker falls from a height because safety devices failed. Workers hurt on the job may also have claims tied to safety violations, which we explain in our article on suing for OSHA violations.
Families can sue for wrongful death under EPTL § 5-4.1 when negligence kills a loved one.
What damages can you recover?
New York recognizes three categories. Economic damages repay measurable losses: medical bills, lost wages, reduced future earning capacity, rehabilitation costs, and property damage. One spinal surgery can top $100,000, so these figures matter.
Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and the strain an injury puts on a marriage or family. No formula sets the number. The medical record, the permanence of the injury, and the strength of the proof set the value.
Punitive damages are rare. Courts reserve them for truly egregious conduct, such as a grossly intoxicated driver. Most cases resolve on the first two categories alone.
Are car accident lawsuits different?
Yes. New York's no-fault system handles the first layer of a crash claim. Your own insurer pays up to $50,000 in basic benefits: medical bills, 80% of lost wages up to $2,000 per month, and $25 per day for transportation. You must file the no-fault application within 30 days of the crash.
To sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering, your injury must meet the serious injury threshold in Insurance Law § 5102(d). Under current law, the categories are: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ or system, permanent consequential limitation, or significant limitation of a body function. An older category based on 90 days of disability was repealed by the 2026 tort reform and no longer applies to new suits.
Fault carries more weight now. Under CPLR § 1411(b), a crash claimant whose fault exceeds the combined fault of the defendants recovers nothing. Our car accident practice page explains how these rules fit together. If you are worried about the other side of a claim, read whether someone can sue you for a minor car accident.
What if you were partly at fault?
Outside of motor vehicle cases, New York follows pure comparative fault under CPLR § 1411(a). In a premises or general negligence claim, your recovery shrinks by your share of fault. Partial fault does not bar the claim.
Motor vehicle cases follow the stricter rule above. If your fault exceeds the defendants' combined fault, the claim is barred. A separate rule, Insurance Law § 5104(d), caps non-economic damages at $100,000 for certain at-fault claimants. That includes a driver who failed to insure a vehicle they were required to insure, or who was convicted of impaired driving connected to the crash.
Construction cases have their own rules. Under Labor Law § 240(1), a worker's own comparative negligence is not a defense to an elevation-hazard claim against the owner or general contractor.
Can you sue your employer?
Generally, no. Workers' Compensation Law § 11 makes comp the exclusive remedy against your employer. Comp pays medical care and a portion of lost wages regardless of fault.
Comp never pays for pain and suffering. In a serious work injury, the real recovery usually comes from a third-party suit against someone other than your employer: the property owner, the general contractor, another subcontractor, or an equipment manufacturer. That case runs alongside the comp claim. It does not require suing your boss.
How long do you have to sue?
Most New York personal injury suits must be filed within three years under CPLR § 214. Wrongful death claims carry a two-year deadline under EPTL § 5-4.1.
Claims against a city, county, or public authority move much faster. You must serve a Notice of Claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law § 50-e. Miss that window and the claim can die before it starts. Crash victims also face the 30-day no-fault filing deadline. Every clock starts on the date of injury, whether or not you have spoken to anyone yet.
How Schwartzapfel Holbrook evaluates what you can sue for
Three questions guide our review of any potential case. Who is legally responsible? What are the full losses? What can be proven? Answering them means finding every policy and every responsible party, not just the obvious one. A single crash may involve the driver's policy, the vehicle owner's policy, an employer's commercial coverage, and your own underinsured motorist coverage.
Schwartzapfel Holbrook accepts a limited number of serious injury cases across New York City, Nassau County, and Suffolk County. We prepare each one for trial, because preparation moves settlement value. If we decline a case, we urge people to seek another opinion. One lawyer's answer is not always the final answer.
