Watertown Personal Injury

Watertown is located about 20 miles south of the Thousand Islands and is home to about 30,000 residents. I-81 travels to the west of the city, linking it to Syracuse to the south and Canada to the north, while U.S. 11 and State Routes 3 and 12 meet in its center. Whether you are injured in a car accident, a slip and fall, or a construction accident, you may face steep medical bills and need to take time off from work to recover. Most people do not have enough money saved up in case of a serious accident. It can be crucial to bring a personal injury lawsuit to recover damages to pay for such items of loss as medical bills, replacement services, lost wages, and out-of-pocket costs. At DeFrancisco & Falgiatano, our Watertown personal injury lawyers are ready to help you recover damages after an accident.

Often, personal injury lawsuits are brought under a theory of negligence. To establish negligence, you need to show that it is more likely than not that the defendant owed you a duty of care, but they fell short of the standard of care and caused an accident as a result. These elements can be shown in different ways, depending on the circumstances of the accident.

If you were injured in a car crash involving another car, you would likely need to show that another driver breached a duty of reasonable care, and this breach caused your injuries. A driver can breach the duty to use reasonable care by speeding, drunk driving, texting while driving, weaving, tailgating, failing to obey street signs and signals, and failing to yield, among other examples. If a driver engaged in any of this conduct, and their actions caused your injuries, a personal injury attorney in Watertown should be able to hold them responsible for the accident.

If you were injured on somebody else's property, you will need to establish in a premises liability claim that the property owner or occupier had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition that caused your injuries. While a property owner or occupier may not admit that they knew that there was something dangerous on the property and failed to repair it, we may be able to show that the property owner should have known about it by using reasonable care. Usually, this is accomplished by showing that the dangerous condition existed so long that a reasonable property owner would have noticed it and either provided warnings or fixed the problem. For example, if you slipped and fell on a puddle of milk in a grocery store, a Watertown personal injury attorney may be able to use video surveillance footage to show that the puddle was there for many hours, such that a reasonable grocery store staff would have cleaned it up or put up orange cones to prevent falls.

Construction accidents in New York may lead to multiple types of claims, depending on the situation. For example, if you are a worker who works at high elevations, you are supposed to have special protection against gravity-related accidents under what is known as the Scaffold Law. Workers who work at elevations are supposed to receive safety equipment. When a worker falls because they were not provided with the appropriate safety equipment, it may be possible to obtain damages, even if the worker was partially at fault for the accident. For example, even if a worker had improperly fastened a safety harness that was defective, the owner or general contractor could be liable. After a construction accident that causes injuries, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may look at the site and issue citations. If they make findings about the cause of the accident, these may be useful evidence for the purpose of recovering damages.

A defendant may raise the defense of comparative negligence under some circumstances. The jury can evaluate the evidence and arguments and assign percentages of fault to both the defendant and the plaintiff. The plaintiff's damages will be reduced by an amount proportionate to their fault.

If you have suffered serious injuries in an accident in Watertown, we may be able to help you recover damages from the people or entities that caused it. Call us at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form to set up your appointment.