Syracuse

Syracuse is located in Onondaga County at the intersection of Interstates 81 and 90. The city has 26 neighborhoods within its boundaries, and Interstates 481 and 690 serve its outlying areas. A focal point of the community is Syracuse University, while the Everson Museum of Art and the Landmark Theatre highlight its cultural scene. Whether you are traveling on I-90, attending a college basketball game, or exploring a museum, you may be involved in a sudden accident. This can result in a wide range of serious injuries, including brain trauma, broken bones, crushing, amputation, disfigurement, scarring, and spinal cord damage. If you are injured in Syracuse because of another person or entity's negligence or misconduct, you should contact the Syracuse personal injury lawyers at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano, LLP.

In order to recover damages in New York through a personal injury lawsuit, you must usually establish negligence. However, when you are harmed on someone else's property by a property owner or occupier, you must also show that the property owner had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition that caused your harm. For example, if you fell on a broken step leading to the doorway of a retail store, you would need to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the property owner knew or should have known about the broken step.

By contrast, medical malpractice lawsuits require you to show not ordinary negligence but professional negligence. Generally, a health care provider must fail to abide by the professional standard of care applicable to their specialty. The professional standard of care is made up of the standards and practices that are used by other reasonable professionals in the same specialty when faced with the same or similar circumstances.

Usually, it is necessary for a personal injury attorney in the Syracuse area to retain an expert to provide an opinion about what the professional standard of care was in a particular lawsuit, and whether the defendant deviated from it. It is not enough to prove that there was a deviation. The deviation must have a causal connection to the harm suffered. For example, if you would have gotten worse as a cancer patient no matter what the doctor did, you will not be able to recover damages.

Sometimes negligence results in a wrongful death. To recover damages in New York, the estate will need to establish that the decedent would have been able to sue for personal injury damages if they had not passed away. For example, if your spouse died in a motorcycle accident caused by a drunk driver, you can probably bring a wrongful death lawsuit.

However, the question may be more complicated if your stepchild died because they received delayed treatment for cancer, for example. In that situation, a Syracuse personal injury attorney would need to retain a credible expert to provide an opinion on whether there was professional negligence, and whether it caused your loved one's death. We would also need to determine whether you are among the group of family members entitled to wrongful death damages.

Generally, the decedent's personal representative must file the wrongful death lawsuit. If the decedent was involved in estate planning prior to their death, they may have chosen a personal representative. In other cases, the court appoints a personal representative.

In many cases, a defendant raises the defense of comparative negligence. This is a defense that requires the jury to evaluate whether the victim was partially or fully to blame for the accident. The jury determines damages and assigns a percentage of fault to each of those alleged to be at fault. The plaintiff's damages are reduced by their percentage of fault. Generally, joint tortfeasors can be held jointly and severally liable. However, if one of the negligent people or businesses has 50% or less liability, it can only be severally liable for noneconomic losses.

If you are injured in Syracuse through the fault of another party, you should consult an experienced personal injury lawyer. The knowledgeable attorneys at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano may be able to help you recover the damages to which you are entitled. Call us at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form.