by Andy Chen | May 31, 2021 | New York
In this post, I’m going to go over the statute of limitations under New York law for a negligence lawsuit. As a reminder, negligence is a type of tort for which a plaintiff can seek redress by filing a civil suit, often for money. In layman’s terms, negligence occurs when the defendant does something, but fails to exercise something called “ordinary care”. In my mind, a failure to exercise ordinary care is when the defendant fails to abide by the expectations people in society assume. For instance, when you’re driving a vehicle, pedestrians will assume that you’re paying attention, using your mirrors, etc. If you as the driver fail to exercise ordinary care — for instance, you’re not paying attention because you’re texting while driving — and cause an accident, you’ll likely be accused of negligence. If you’re a plaintiff suing for negligence, you generally have to prove at least these four criteria. : That defendant owed a duty to you, That defendant breached that duty to you by, for instance, failing to exercise ordinary care, You suffered injuries or damage of some kind, and Defendant’s breach of that duty to you was the proximate cause of the injuries or damage you suffered. These four criteria are, as I mentioned, not specific to one particular state. I learned the 4-criteria version of negligence in law school. Some lawyers learn the 3-criteria version which basically combines the injury and causation bulletpoints above into a single bulletpoint that states something like “defendant’s breach of duty proximately caused plaintiff’s injuries.” What’s powerful about negligence if you’re the plaintiff — or annoying, I...
