If one of my clients is injured on a sidewalk, a pathway or a roadway, it is important to determine who the correct party is so that we start the lawsuit if a lawsuit is necessary against them. If you’re walking on a sidewalk, it may be owned by a county, it may be owned by a different municipal entity, or it may be a private sidewalk. If the location in which you are injured is a municipal entity, we need to know that early because there is only a 90-day time limit to file a notice of claim to pursue that case. If it’s a privately owned sidewalk or pathway, there is no 90-day time constraint in which you would need to abide by to file your notice of claim. That is why it’s important that we know whose sidewalk it is so that we start your case off on the right foot from the very beginning and the process can be expedited as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In situations of being injured on a sidewalk or pathway, there also needs to be a letter of prior written notice in order to even pursue the case if the location that you were injured on is owned by a municipality. Letters of prior written notice are not required to be sent to the Department of Public Works in the event that the property that you were injured on is under the ownership of a private landowner.
If you are in need of legal counsel in regards to a personal injury in New York, please contact The Law Offices of Jonathan D. Sands and we would be happy to assist you.