East Meadow Pedestrian Accident Attorney
The quiet, shady residential streets of East Meadow, with their tidy homes and well-tended lawns, have attracted families for generations. It’s a place where parents and children can feel safe and removed from the hustle-and-bustle of New York City, while also remaining in Its orbit. Living in East Meadow means having major institutions and facilities—the Nassau Medical Center, the Coliseum, Hofstra—just a short ride or walk from the front door.
Nothing, however, shatters that idyll quite as quickly and violently as a pedestrian accident. Suddenly, the attraction of living in a walk-friendly hamlet like East Meadow becomes a major drawback. A driver’s moment of distraction or carelessness leads to a collision with a person crossing the street, which leads to a life transformed by a catastrophic injury.
Victims of pedestrian accidents in East Meadow have rights under New York law to receive compensation for their injuries and losses. The caring, skilled East Meadow pedestrian accident lawyers at Jacoby & Meyers LLP can help. Contact us today for a free consultation.
About Jacoby & Meyers LLP
If you have lived or worked in East Meadow for longer than a few months, you have probably already heard of Jacoby & Meyers LLP from our television ads, or driven past our offices on Front Street in Hempstead. For nearly fifty years, we have been the region’s go-to lawyers for pedestrian accident injury cases. We represent victims of accidents and incidents caused by someone else’s wrongful conduct, fighting to make sure they receive the compensation they need to regain their health and rebuild their lives.
Over our years of practice, we have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for accident victims through settlements and jury verdicts. Of course, our past successes do not guarantee future results. They do, however, show that clients of our firm have experienced, hard-working lawyers on their side who have the reputation, knowledge, and resources to build strong cases against even the most well-funded and powerful defendants.
Overview of Pedestrian Accidents in the East Meadow Area
According to a recent report on pedestrian accidents in New York State, “pedestrian safety continues to be a serious concern, with pedestrians accounting for nearly 3 out of 10 fatalities on New York roadways.” Roughly a quarter of pedestrian fatalities in the Empire State occur on Long Island every year. Sadly, accidents in the East Meadow area contribute a significant share of those deaths (around 30 per year, on average), along with hundreds of non-fatal injuries to pedestrians.
The vast majority of those accidents involved a single-vehicle collision with a pedestrian. Most pedestrian accidents happen during daylight or early evening hours, and in the East Meadow area the number of accidents tends to jump in October, November, and December each year (perhaps due to darkness falling earlier and back-to-school pedestrian traffic).
Contributing Factors in East Meadow Pedestrian Accidents
Three contributing factors account for a majority of the pedestrian accidents that occur in East Meadow and throughout New York State.
Let’s take a look at each of them.
- Failure to yield the right of way. By far, the most commonly reported contributing factor in East Meadow-area pedestrian accidents consists of a driver of a car, truck, bus, or other vehicle failing to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian in the roadway. Drivers have a legal obligation to take extra care around pedestrians. There is no excuse for a driver striking a pedestrian in most circumstances, even in cases where a pedestrian fails to follow the letter-of-the-law in walking near or crossing a street. Failure-to-yield accidents involving pedestrians often occur at intersections with heavy foot traffic, and along roads that lack sidewalks or adequate room on the shoulder for a pedestrian to walk safely.
Driver distraction/inattention. Drivers also have a special obligation under state law to avoid succumbing to distractions that take their eyes off the road, hands off the wheel, or minds off the task of safe driving. In just a few seconds of driver distraction, a vehicle can easily travel enough distance for a driver to collide with an unsuspecting pedestrian. These days, cell phone screens, texting, and social media represent the most potent and dangerous distractions for drivers and pedestrians in their path. However, drivers also put pedestrians in harm’s way by eating with one hand, tuning a radio, turning to talk to a passenger, or merely daydreaming.- Pedestrian error/confusion. Pedestrians frequently make mistakes in walking across or near a roadway in East Meadow. Drivers have a special obligation under state law to anticipate pedestrian errors and confusion, and to drive in control and at a safe-enough speed to avoid a pedestrian collision. For example, pedestrians may make the mistake of thinking a driver sees them before stepping off the curb. Or, a malfunctioning signal light may confuse them about when it is safe to enter a crosswalk.
Other factors can also contribute to the cause of a pedestrian accident in East Meadow, such as bad weather and road conditions, speeding and aggressive driving, and vehicle and traffic safety equipment malfunctions.
No matter what the cause of an accident involving a pedestrian, however, the important points to remember are that cars should never collide with pedestrians, that when they do, it virtually always means someone other than the pedestrian did something wrong, and that the East Meadow car accident lawyers at Jacoby & Meyers LLP has skill and resources to get to the bottom of what happened and to secure the compensation for the injured pedestrian.
Common East Meadow Pedestrian Accident Injuries
Pedestrians may suffer serious and fatal injuries in East Meadow pedestrian traffic accidents. Virtually all of these accidents result in at least some injury to the pedestrian, with just under half classified in police reports as either moderate, severe, or fatal. Even an injury classified as minor, however, can and often do cause major long-term health complications for a pedestrian accident victim.
Here are some of the most common, and serious, injuries pedestrians can suffer, for which Jacoby & Meyers LLP can often help recover compensation.
- Traumatic brain injuries. Pedestrians struck by motor vehicles frequently suffer a blow to the head, most commonly when the collision knows them down and their heads strike the pavement. That blunt force can cause a laceration or abrasion to the scalp, or may even fracture the victim’s skull. The greatest harm from that blow, however, often consists of damage to brain tissue, known as a traumatic brain injury (TBI), caused by the brain deforming, twisting, or rattling within the skull, and by subsequent bleeding or swelling. TBIs can have a wide range of severe outcomes, from comas and cognitive/motor/emotional impairments to long-lasting physical effects like chronic headaches, insomnia, and fatigue.
- Spinal cord injuries. The violent trauma of a pedestrian traffic accident can also damage a victim’s spinal column and the delicate bundle of nerves it protects, known as the spinal cord. An injury to the spinal cord frequently leaves the pedestrian victim paralyzed and without sensation in a large portion of the victim’s body. Sadly, many spinal cord injuries do not heal. Victims must adapt to a life confined to a wheelchair, facing massive expenses and severe potential consequences for their long-term health.
- Crushed or amputated limbs. Another nightmare scenario that confronts some East Meadow pedestrian accident victims involves losing the function of a limb, or losing the limb altogether to amputation after a vehicle runs over it or pins it. Victims who endure this particular trauma frequently suffer agonizing physical and psychological pain in confronting a new life in which they must learn to rely on prosthetics or other assistive devices if they hope to live independently.
- Organ damage and other internal injuries. The impact from a vehicle or getting pinned under it can also cause massive internal injuries to victims. Ruptured organs may cease to function. Damaged blood vessels may cause dangerous internal bleeding. Victims of these injuries frequently need emergency surgery to save their lives, and even then, the life they will lead afterward may involve significant alterations to their diet or lifestyle that make everything more difficult and expensive.
- Broken bones and orthopedic trauma. It is the rare East Meadow pedestrian accident that does not result in, at the very least, a broken bone, torn ligament, damaged tendon, or dislocated joint. Most of these injuries may heal in time with proper medical care, but that does not make them any less painful and disabling in the meantime, nor does it ensure that the victim will not suffer from long-term, chronic pain, loss of mobility, and other complications that impact their lives and livelihoods.
This list above merely represents a sampling of the countless injuries an East Meadow pedestrian could suffer in a traffic accident. No matter what type of injury a victim suffers, however, there is an excellent chance the lawyers at Jacoby & Meyers LLP have helped a client with similar trauma in the past. Over our decades of law practice, we have developed a deep well of knowledge about how traumatic injuries happen, and how they heal, from which we can draw to help ensure that our clients receive the full amount of compensation they deserve.
How We Help East Meadow Pedestrian Accident Victims
At Jacoby & Meyers LLP, our mission is to secure full and fair compensation for victims of accidents that would not have happened were it not for someone else’s careless, reckless, or intentionally harmful actions. We do that by providing personalized legal representation tailored to each of our clients’ unique legal and financial needs.
Those services often include:
- Investigating pedestrian accidents to determine how they happened and whose unreasonably dangerous decisions or actions contributed to their cause. Our years of experience have given us the insight to know that the driver of the vehicle involved in a collision is not always the only party who might owe our client damages. We dig into the details to find everyone who might owe compensation to our injured client.
- Evaluating the impact of pedestrian accident injuries on our clients’ lives. As skilled, experienced lawyers, we know that the harm to our clients often runs far deeper than the financial burden of paying for medical care or from missing work. We work closely with clients and their families to understand the full range of ways that an injury has disrupted their lives and livelihoods.
- Planning an effective legal strategy for securing the most money possible to pay for the harm our clients have suffered.
- Communicating that plan to our clients in language they can understand, and answering our clients’ questions about their options.
- Executing on the strategy our clients have authorized us to pursue, which may involve filing lawsuits in East Meadow area courts, and sending claims and demands to insurance companies and defense lawyers.
- Negotiating with defense lawyers and insurance companies to explore our clients’ options for achieving a full and fair settlement of their claims.
- Advising our clients about when we believe they should accept a settlement offer, and when rejecting the offer represents their most reasonable course of action.
- Litigating our clients’ claims in the East Meadow area and other courts, including taking those claims to trial before judges and juries when settlement negotiations alone do not yield the outcome our clients deserve.
Every case we take on behalf of an East Meadow pedestrian accident victim has unique facts and circumstances, and so, the steps we take to secure compensation for a client do not always involve each of the tasks above. We tailor our legal advice and efforts to the specific needs of each one of our clients.
There is no such thing as a cookie-cutter case at Jacoby & Meyers LLP. Every client’s trauma and challenges are unique and deserving of personalized, focused attention from a skilled, caring, diligent East Meadow pedestrian accident attorney. That attention starts with a client’s very first consultation with a member of our team, and never wavers throughout any representation our firm takes.
East Meadow Pedestrian Accident FAQs
Pedestrian accident victims and their family members often come to us at Jacoby & Meyers LLP with long lists of pressing and important questions about their legal rights and financial futures. They need guidance about how to make important decisions that will affect their lives today and in the long-term.
We are always happy to answer our clients’ questions. However, our years of experience also give us the foresight to anticipate some questions our future clients might ask us. We answer those frequently asked questions below. For answers to your specific questions about an East Meadow pedestrian accident that has upended your life or the life of a loved one, contact us today.
Frequently Asked Questions
We need to know more about your case.
As we mentioned earlier, pedestrians should never get hurt in traffic accidents. It just shouldn’t happen, and if it did, then there’s a good chance someone other than the pedestrian bears the blame. Under New York law, the at-fault party will typically owe damages to the injured pedestrian. One way to secure those damages is to file a lawsuit. At Jacoby & Meyers LLP, we file and litigate those types of lawsuits on behalf of injured accident victims every day.
That depends on the specific circumstances of the East Meadow traffic accident in which you suffered injuries as a pedestrian.
Many pedestrian accident victims assume that the only party they can sue is the driver of the vehicle that struck them. That’s a reasonable assumption, since East Meadow drivers have a special responsibility to exercise care not to harm pedestrians. However, as experienced lawyers for victims of pedestrian accidents, we also know that the law may require other individuals, companies, organizations, and even government entities to pay damages, too.
That is why, in a typical pedestrian accident case, our team may explore whether any of the following parties, among others, have a legal liability to our injured client:
- The driver of the vehicle that struck our client, if the driver made a mistake behind the wheel that led to the collision;
- The driver’s employer, if it was a commercial vehicle that struck our client, since New York employers usually have an obligation to answer for the actions of their employees;
- The manufacturer of the vehicle that struck our client, if some mechanical or electrical defect with the vehicle contributed to the cause of the accident; and
- The local government agency or contractor at-fault for causing an unreasonably dangerous and preventable road condition that played a role in causing the accident.
These are just a few examples; the point is that as skilled attorneys, we know that it takes digging into the facts of a case to know for sure who might owe damages to a pedestrian injured in an East Meadow traffic accident. No matter who that turns out to be, however, the team at Jacoby & Meyers LLP has the skill and experience to pursue compensation from that party on the injured pedestrian’s behalf.
As we said, every case is different, so the answer to this question will usually depend on the particular facts of what happened.
However, in general, by suing for damages after suffering injuries in an East Meadow pedestrian accident, a victim can often seek to recover compensation for:
- Past and future medical expenses associated with the injuries the accident caused, as well as other health complications resulting from those injuries. This includes the costs of emergency care, surgery, hospitalization, physical therapy, doctor visits, medical equipment, and medication.
- Other expenses the victim has because of the accident and injuries, such as the costs of replacing damaged property, or of hiring extra help with errands or day-to-day chores while recovering from an injury;
- Past and future lost income owing to the injury, such as when the victim must miss work while recovering from an injury, or when an injury leaves the victim disabled and unable to return to work at all;
- Pain and suffering the victim has endured because of the trauma of the accident and injury, including emotional struggles, harm to personal relationships, and an overall diminished quality of life; and
- Sometimes, punitive damages, which seek to punish the party at-fault for engaging in especially reckless or outrageous behavior that led to the accident, such as in a case involving a driver who runs into a pedestrian intentionally.
The Jacoby & Meyers LLP team works closely with East Meadow pedestrian accident victims and their family members to evaluate the potential to seek compensation for each of these categories of damages, to make sure that any legal action we pursue aims to recover the maximum damages allowable under the law.
Here, too, the answer depends on the facts. From the categories of damages listed above, you can probably figure out that the nature and extent of your injuries, and their overall impact on your life, play a large role in determining how much money you have the right to seek in a lawsuit. The worse the injury, and the greater its effect on your day-to-day life now and in the future, the higher the amount of money you may have the right to pursue under New York law.
The true value of your case, however, does not only depend on the amount of money you have the right to claim as damages.
How much you can realistically hope to recover also depends on two practical considerations:
- The strength of your case. To secure compensation, your lawyer must have the ability to prove—through evidence and legal argument—that a particular party owes you a particular amount of money. The higher the quality of your evidence, and the more sophisticated and accurate your legal arguments, the better your chances of securing the full amount of compensation you demand.
- The liable party’s financial resources. Even the strongest case, however, is only truly worth what the at-fault party can pay. In most East Meadow pedestrian accident cases, damages payments come from the liable parties’ liability insurance carriers. The higher the limits of the insurance policy, the more money available to pay a claim. Sometimes, the liable party may also have assets with which to pay a damages claim.
The skill and experience of your lawyer can have a significant impact on the two practical considerations above. In hiring Jacoby & Meyers LLP to represent you in your claim, you get a law firm with the resources and know-how to build you the strongest possible case for the situation, and to track down as many parties as possible who may owe you damages and have the financial capacity to pay.
It varies. Some cases take just a few weeks or months to go from start-to-finish. Others can last a year or more before they reach a favorable outcome. And, of course, there are no guarantees; sometimes an injured person’s lawsuit for damages does not succeed (which is why it is so important to pick a lawyer carefully to give yourself the best possible shot at success).
Factors affecting the timeline of an East Meadow pedestrian accident injury case lie mostly beyond your or your lawyer’s ability to control.
They often include:
- The time needed for the victim’s medical diagnosis and prognosis to become clear;
- The availability of evidence necessary to prove the victim’s case for damages;
- The number of parties with a legal liability to the victim and/or a financial stake in the outcome of the case;
- The strength of the victim’s case and the degree of dispute over issues like liability and damages; and
- The work schedules and habits of the representatives of the parties.
Victims of East Meadow pedestrian accidents can, however, control one important aspect of the timing of any legal action taken on their behalf: when they speak with a lawyer for the first time. The sooner you meet (in person or virtually) with an experienced pedestrian accident injury attorney like one from Jacoby & Meyers LLP, the sooner any appropriate legal action can begin.
It costs you nothing to meet with an attorney from Jacoby & Meyers LLP to talk about the East Meadow pedestrian accident that injured you or a loved one. Not one dime.
Jacoby & Meyers LLP also represents pedestrian accident injury clients on a contingent fee basis. In a contingent fee arrangement, we do not ask a client to pay us money upfront, and we do not charge the client an hourly fee for our services. Instead, we and the client agree that our fee will consist only of a percentage of any funds we secure on the client’s behalf through a settlement, jury award, or other favorable outcome. In other words, put our own efforts on the line; we do not get paid unless our client gets paid.
So, to summarize, hiring a lawyer to represent you in your East Meadow pedestrian accident injury case will probably not cost you anything in attorney fees unless and until your lawyer gets you results.
No, you should not—at least not without speaking with our experienced East Meadow pedestrian accident lawyers first. In fact, you should not accept any offer of payment from anyone until you have spoken with an attorney.
Sometimes, particularly in pedestrian accidents in which the pedestrian seems to have suffered “minor” injuries, the driver will try to pay the pedestrian directly so as not to get insurance or law enforcement involved. We strongly urge you not to agree to that type of payment. It puts your rights at risk and may violate the law.
Likewise, if the driver’s insurance company contacts you and offers to settle with you for a quick payment, we encourage you to exercise extreme caution. Sometimes, the insurance company for the at-fault party will try to tempt you with what seems like a lot of money, if only you will sign some papers they send you.
Sadly, the insurance company may do this to trick you into giving up your valuable legal rights in exchange for a payment that falls far short of the amount of money you will need in the future to pay for your expenses.
As tempting as quick money may seem, it virtually always benefits you to say “no, thanks” and to instead leave negotiations with the at-fault party, insurance companies, and defense lawyers to an experienced attorney who represents your interests, and wants to secure for you the maximum compensation allowed by law.
The team at Jacoby & Meyers LLP negotiates settlements day-in, day-out. We speak the language of liability insurance, and we have the know-how to figure out how much money our clients should receive for their East Meadow pedestrian accident injuries. Insurance adjusters and defense lawyers know we mean business, and that we will give our clients sound advice about whether a settlement offer gives them the value they deserve.
Skilled, Experienced Attorneys for East Meadow Pedestrian Accident Victims
East Meadow pedestrian accident lawyer, Andrew Finkelstein
Injuries suffered in an East Meadow pedestrian accident put victims and their loved ones in severe physical, emotional, and financial pain. They deserve skilled, compassionate legal representation to secure them the compensation they need to regain their health and rebuild their lives.
Jacoby & Meyers LLP can help. For nearly fifty years, we have represented accident victims throughout the Tri-State area. We have the knowledge, resources, and reputation to hold at-fault parties accountable for harming our clients in East Meadow pedestrian accidents.
Do not wait to protect your legal and financial rights after a pedestrian accident in East Meadow disrupts your life. Contact Jacoby & Meyers LLP today, open a live webchat with us, or call us at (877) 565-2993 for your free case consultation.
East Meadow Office
90 Merrick Avenue, Suite 601
East Meadow, NY 11554
(877) 565-2993
Client Testimonial
Review: 5/5
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
“The team and Jocoby & Meyers are excellent. They make sure the client is well taken care of. They are great with communication and they take their time to make sure the client is satisfied. Will definitely recommend.”
Review by: Danielle H.
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