Queens Personal Injury Lawyers

Queens Injury Claims Handled From Our Office on Steinway Street

Lawsuit Legal's New York office is in Queens, on the fifth floor of 32-56 Steinway Street in Astoria, and it is staffed during business hours.

A Queens injury claim turns on two questions before it turns on the injury itself: who caused it, and whether that party is public or private.

A private driver, property owner, or hospital leaves you three years to sue for most injuries.

The City, the MTA, NYCHA, and the public hospitals leave you 90 days to serve a notice of claim.

Car crash cases filed since May 26, 2026 also face a narrower injury threshold and a fault rule that can end the claim.

Attorney Don Worley has been providing injured workers, accident victims, and families throughout Queens the successful legal representation needed to secure meaningful recovery, since 2005.

You pay nothing unless we win. Call (888) 713-6653 for a free review of your Queens injury claim, in English or Spanish.

Which Injury Claims We Take, From Scaffold Falls to Missed Diagnoses

We handle serious injury and wrongful death claims from every Queens neighborhood and the rest of New York City.

Queens builds the city's towers, drives its cabs, delivers its dinners, and works both of its airports. Our Astoria office is located in the heart of Queens, conveniently located for people usually hurt doing one of those jobs, and whether Spanish-speaking or English, we can help.

• Construction falls and job site injuries. If you fall from a scaffold, a ladder, or an unprotected edge, the owner and the general contractor answer for it under Labor Law § 240(1), and your own carelessness is not a defense. That claim runs beside workers' compensation rather than replacing it. See our page on construction accident claims from Queens job sites and our page on collecting comp and suing the owner at the same time.
• Workers' compensation claims. We handle the compensation claim itself before the Workers' Compensation Board, so the weekly benefits and any lawsuit against a third party move together instead of in two offices. The benefit rates and Board deadlines are on our page about workers' comp claims before the New York Board.
• Car, truck, and rideshare crashes. A collision on Queens Boulevard, Northern Boulevard, the Long Island Expressway, or the Van Wyck starts in the no-fault system no matter who caused it. Uber, Lyft, and taxi claims add TLC coverage rules, covered on our page about TLC and rideshare crashes.
• Pedestrians, cyclists, and delivery riders. What a rider was on decides whether no-fault pays at all and whether the threshold applies. See our pedestrian accident lawyers and our page on e-bike and delivery rider crashes.
• Medical malpractice. Elmhurst Hospital and Queens Hospital Center are run by NYC Health + Hospitals, so a claim against either needs a notice of claim within 90 days, while a private Queens hospital such as Mount Sinai Queens leaves two and a half years. We handle malpractice claims against New York hospitals and doctors on both calendars, and the borough's hospitals are listed by owner on our page for Queens medical malpractice cases.
• Sidewalk, stairway, and building falls. A New York City building owner usually answers for the sidewalk in front of the building under Administrative Code § 7-210. A fall in a NYCHA development, such as Queensbridge, Ravenswood, or the Astoria Houses, adds a 30-day waiting period to the 90-day notice. See NYC sidewalk liability and NYCHA injury claims.
• Subway and bus injuries. A fall on subway stairs or a collision with a city bus is a claim against a public authority, with the 90-day notice attached. See our page on subway, bus, and MTA injuries.
• Nursing home neglect. A resident who was neglected has a statutory claim under Public Health Law § 2801-d, with a damages floor and attorney's fees, on top of ordinary negligence. Our page on New York nursing home neglect claims covers what it requires.
• Dog bites. Since the Court of Appeals decided Flanders v. Goodfellow in April 2025, a dog owner in New York can be sued for ordinary negligence as well as under the older vicious-propensity rule.^[1] Both routes are explained on our page about dog bite claims under New York law.
• Wrongful death. A death claim is brought by an estate representative appointed by the Surrogate's Court, which for Queens families sits at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica. Our page on how a New York family brings a death claim covers the appointment and who can file.

Which of these your claim falls under decides both the deadline and who pays, so it is the first thing we sort out on a call.

Public Hospital and MTA Claims Run on a 90-Day Notice

New York lets you sue its public bodies only after you warn them. A claim against the City, the MTA, NYCHA, or NYC Health + Hospitals needs a sworn notice of claim within 90 days of the injury, under General Municipal Law § 50-e and the statutes that borrow it, and the lawsuit itself is due within one year and 90 days.^[2]

Queens has three adult Level I trauma centers. Elmhurst is public, while NewYork-Presbyterian Queens and Jamaica Hospital are private, so a malpractice claim after a serious crash can land on either calendar.

Two people hurt on the same Queens block can have three years or 90 days, depending on who owns the ground they fell on.

When the City, NYCHA, or a public hospital is involved, its lawyers can question you under oath at a 50-h hearing before the case is filed, and the transit agencies hold a sworn examination of their own. We prepare you for either the way we would prepare you to testify at trial.

The whole sequence is on our page about serving a notice of claim on a public body, and hospital cases have their own wrinkles, covered in suing a New York City public hospital.

Filing a Queens Lawsuit at the Sutphin Boulevard Courthouse in Jamaica

A lawsuit over a Queens injury is usually filed in Queens County Supreme Court, Civil Term, at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, which also hears civil cases at the Long Island City Courthouse, 25-10 Court Square. New York's venue rules can allow the county where a party lives instead, so a crash involving a Nassau or Brooklyn driver may come with a choice of courts.

Smaller claims, up to $50,000, can go to the Civil Court of the City of New York at 89-17 Sutphin Boulevard. A serious injury claim almost always belongs in Supreme Court, where there is no ceiling on what a jury can award.

Wherever the case is heard, the work runs from our Astoria office, and when an injury makes travel hard, we come to your home or the hospital.

The rules themselves are the same in every borough, and our page on New York injury law in all five boroughs walks through the 2026 changes that apply to every one of them.

Where the case is filed sets the calendar and the jury pool, so venue is settled before the complaint is drafted.

How Much Is a Queens Personal Injury Case Worth?

No honest lawyer can quote a number before reading the file. Value comes from four things, and the injury is only one of them.

• How badly and how permanently you were hurt. Surgery, a permanent limitation, and future care drive the largest values.
• How clear the fault is. In a car case, a fault share above the other driver's now ends the claim rather than shrinking it.
• How much insurance exists. A $25,000 minimum policy limits what the other driver's insurer will pay, which is why the search for other coverage matters.
• Who else is responsible. An employer, a building owner, a general contractor, or a public body can add a second source of money.

One of our New York sidewalk cases settled for $850,000 after the client, who tripped on an uneven section of pavement while walking to her bus stop, needed a cervical discectomy. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

New York does not cap pain and suffering in an ordinary injury case, and it has no medical malpractice cap. The 2026 reform added one narrow limit, $100,000 in non-economic damages for an at-fault injured driver who was uninsured, convicted of impaired driving, or committing a felony, which our page on New York damage caps explains.

For crash claims, our page on how New York crash settlements are valued covers the threshold and the first $50,000 of economic loss that no-fault takes out of the claim.

A first offer that arrives before your treatment is finished is priced on the bills so far, and signing it closes the claim for everything that comes later. Our page on what to check before accepting a first offer lists what to look at.

How Long You Have to File, From 90 Days to Three Years

Most New York injury claims can be filed within three years of the injury under CPLR § 214.^[6]

Shorter clocks override it: two years and six months for medical malpractice, two years from the death for wrongful death, and for a public defendant, the 90-day notice of claim followed by a lawsuit within one year and 90 days.

An injury at LaGuardia or JFK, both operated by the Port Authority, follows its own rule: a notice of claim at least 60 days before suit, and a lawsuit within one year.^[7]

A child's own claim is generally paused until 18, though malpractice claims have a ten-year ceiling. Every New York deadline sits side by side on our page about the New York statute of limitations.

After 90 days, a notice of claim can only be served with a judge's permission, and permission is never guaranteed, so we check the date on the first call.