The injury wasn't your fault. The fight shouldn't be either.

The accident itself happens in seconds. What follows takes months. The emergency-room bill that arrives before you've stopped using the ice pack. The insurance adjuster who calls three times in the first week -- friendly, sympathetic, asking just a few quick questions. The missed paychecks while you can't drive. The physical therapist's appointments you didn't schedule but now have to attend twice a week. The lawyer's commercial you keep seeing on television but don't trust enough to call.

We've represented New Jersey accident victims for nearly two decades. We know how insurance companies evaluate injury claims. We know what they hope you'll say in that first phone call. And we know how to value liability, medical proof, permanency, insurance limits, and liens before you sign anything they put in front of you.

None of that requires you to know the law going in. The pages below walk through it in plain terms -- what a New Jersey claim has to prove, how the no-fault system and the verbal threshold change an auto case, how comparative fault affects what you recover, and what a contingency fee actually costs you. Read what is useful, skip what is not, and call when you want a person to look at your specific facts.

New Jersey personal-injury law in clear terms.

A New Jersey personal-injury claim requires four things: duty, breach, causation, and damages, as summarized by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Townsend v. Pierre, 221 N.J. 36 (2015) source . The defendant owed you a duty of care, the defendant breached that duty, the breach caused your injury (factually and proximately), and you have measurable damages -- medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and future care. Tort claims against public entities (a state agency, a municipality, a school board) add a strict 90-day Notice of Tort Claim requirement under N.J.S.A. 59:8-8 source ; the lawsuit itself is barred otherwise, even within the two-year window.

Our personal-injury attorneys handle cases from the first phone call through trial and, when needed, the Appellate Division. We do not treat the insurance company's first offer as the case value. We evaluate liability, medical proof, permanency, insurance limits, and liens, and we prepare cases for litigation when the evidence supports it.

Key terms

Personal injury terms insurers use early

Accident claims move faster when clients understand the words adjusters, doctors, and defense lawyers use. These definitions cover the terms most likely.

Negligence

A failure to use reasonable care that causes injury, usually analyzed through duty, breach, causation, and damages.

Liability

Legal responsibility for causing harm or being required to pay damages because of fault, ownership, employment, or another legal basis.

Comparative negligence

New Jersey's rule reducing recovery by the injured person's percentage of fault and barring recovery above 50 percent fault.

Damages

The losses recoverable in a claim, including medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, future care, and other proven harm.

Personal Injury Protection PIP

No-fault auto insurance benefits that pay initial medical bills and certain wage-loss benefits regardless of who caused the crash.

Verbal threshold Limitation on lawsuit

The auto-policy lawsuit limitation that restricts pain-and-suffering recovery unless the injury fits a statutory category.

Permanency

A medical opinion that an injury will not heal to function normally, often central to verbal-threshold auto cases.

UM/UIM coverage Uninsured motorist coverage, Underinsured motorist coverage

Insurance coverage for claims involving uninsured or underinsured drivers when the responsible driver lacks enough coverage.

Tort Claims Act notice

The strict 90-day notice generally required before suing a New Jersey public entity or public employee.

Demand package

The settlement submission sent to an insurer with liability evidence, medical records, bills, wage proof, and a demand figure.

Discovery

The litigation phase where parties exchange documents, written answers, medical records, expert reports, and deposition testimony.

Expert report

A written opinion from a qualified expert used to prove injury, causation, permanency, reconstruction, engineering, or damages.

Settlement release

The document signed at settlement that ends the claim and releases the defendant or insurer from further liability.

Pain and suffering

Non-economic damages for physical pain, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment, and related human consequences of an injury.

Tortfeasor

The person or entity alleged to have committed the wrongful act that caused injury.

Spoliation

The loss, destruction, or failure to preserve important evidence after a party knew or should have known it mattered.

Auto, truck, and motorcycle accidents

New Jersey operates a no-fault auto-insurance system. After a crash, your own policy's Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage pays your initial medical bills and partial lost income under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-1 source et seq., regardless of fault. PIP does not, however, end the case -- it pays the early bills and gets you treating. The liability claim against the at-fault driver is separate, governed by the verbal-threshold analysis under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8(a) source , and is where pain-and-suffering recovery lives.

Many New Jersey drivers carry the verbal threshold because premiums are lower. Under it, you can recover non-economic damages only if your injuries fit one of six categories: death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement or significant scarring, displaced fractures, loss of a fetus, or permanent injury to a body part within a reasonable medical probability. Whether a permanent injury exists is often the central dispute in NJ auto-accident practice. The verbal threshold does not attach to a motorcycle itself (a motorcycle is not an "automobile" under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-2), though a rider's own auto-policy tort-option election under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8.1 source can still control -- different rules, different leverage.

• Rear-end collisions, intersection crashes, and highway accidents.
• Commercial truck and tractor-trailer collisions, where federal motor-carrier regulations (FMCSA) open additional avenues of liability -- see our truck-accident page for the FMCSA framework, evidence preservation, and multi-defendant liability.
• Motorcycle accidents -- the verbal threshold does not attach to the motorcycle itself, though the rider's own auto-policy election under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-8.1 source can still control. See our motorcycle-accident page for the PIP-coverage, helmet-evidence, and UM/UIM analysis.
• Pedestrian and bicycle injuries caused by driver negligence -- see our pedestrian-accident page for the N.J.S.A. 39:4-36 crosswalk-statute analysis, PIP for pedestrians, and multi-defendant claims including municipal crosswalk-design liability.
• Rideshare accidents (Uber, Lyft) where multiple coverage layers may apply -- see our rideshare-accident page for the three-period framework, the $1.5M TNC liability layer, and passenger/pedestrian/third-party claim analysis under N.J.S.A. 39:5H-1 source .
• Hit-and-run, uninsured, and underinsured-motorist (UM/UIM) claims against your own carrier.

Slip-and-fall and premises liability

Not every injury happens on the road. New Jersey property owners and occupiers owe a duty to maintain their premises in a reasonably safe condition, and the same negligence framework -- duty, breach, causation, damages -- governs what happens on someone else's floor, stairs, or sidewalk. The duty's scope depends on the visitor's status -- business invitees are generally owed the highest duty, and trespassers the most limited. When hazardous conditions (wet floors, broken stairs, uneven pavement, inadequate lighting, ice and snow) cause injury, the case turns on what the owner knew, when they knew it, and what a reasonably prudent owner would have done.

• Slip-and-fall on ice, snow, or wet surfaces -- including the New Jersey mode-of-operation rule for self-service retail. See our slip-and-fall page for the full Wollerman / Stewart / Yanhko analysis.
• Trip-and-fall caused by broken sidewalks or uneven flooring (commercial vs. residential sidewalk rules differ).
• Falling merchandise or improperly stacked inventory in retail stores.
• Inadequate security leading to assault or robbery on commercial premises.
• Swimming-pool accidents and drowning on residential or commercial property.
• Dog bites and animal attacks -- strict liability under N.J.S.A. 4:19-16 source . See our dog-bite page for the strict-liability framework, homeowner’s-insurance recovery, landlord-liability theory, and the Tort Claims Act path for public-entity dogs.

Product liability

The New Jersey Product Liability Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:58C-1 source et seq., is the core statutory framework for harm caused by a defective product. A product can be defective in three ways: a manufacturing defect (the unit you got differs from the design), a design defect (the design itself is unreasonably dangerous when used as intended), or a warnings defect (the manufacturer failed to warn about a non-obvious risk). For prescription drugs and medical devices, additional learned-intermediary and FDA-preemption analyses can also apply, depending on the product and the claimed defect.

Product-liability cases are document-intensive and expert-driven -- design files, engineering reviews, internal communications, recall data, prior-incident reports. We preserve the product itself (in the same condition as the injury), demand the manufacturer's internal documents, and retain qualified engineering or medical experts who can establish what a reasonable manufacturer would have done differently.

• Defective consumer products -- appliances, tools, sporting goods, children's products.
• Defective vehicles and vehicle components -- airbags, seatbelts, tires, brakes.
• Defective medical devices -- implants, surgical hardware, drug-delivery systems.
• Pharmaceutical injuries -- undisclosed side effects, mislabeling, manufacturing impurities.
• Industrial and workplace equipment -- guarding defects, control-system failures.

Comparative fault under New Jersey law

New Jersey follows modified comparative negligence under N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1 source . An injured plaintiff can recover damages even when partially at fault, but only if the plaintiff's fault is 50% or less. At 51% or more, recovery is barred entirely. Where comparative fault applies, the plaintiff's damages are reduced by the assigned percentage -- a jury finding $100,000 in damages with 20% plaintiff fault produces a $80,000 recovery. Insurance carriers often allocate fault to the injured party to reduce payouts; our work is to establish the defendant's share of responsibility through scene investigation, expert reconstruction, and timely evidence preservation.

For a broader explanation of damages categories, proof, insurance limits, comparative fault, punitive damages, and treble damages, see our New Jersey damages guide.

Wrongful death and survival actions -- wrongful death guide

When negligence results in death, New Jersey's Wrongful Death Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:31-1 source et seq., allows the decedent's dependents to recover pecuniary losses -- financial support, loss of companionship, guidance, and services. A separate survival action under N.J.S.A. 2A:15-3 source permits recovery of damages the decedent would have been entitled to had they survived, including pain and suffering experienced before death. Both actions are generally brought by the personal representative of the decedent's estate, and the wrongful-death claim must ordinarily be filed within two years of the date of death.

How fees work in personal-injury cases.

Personal-injury work is contingency-fee work. There is no upfront attorney fee; the attorney fee is paid from a recovery if one is obtained, under the written contingency-fee agreement. New Jersey Court Rule R. 1:21-7 source caps contingency fees on a tiered schedule: 33⅓% on the first $750,000 recovered, 30% on the next $750,000, 25% on the next $750,000, 20% on the next $1,000,000, and reasonable fees on the balance.

• Initial intake -- complimentary and confidential, subject to firm review; please do not send sensitive documents until the firm confirms it can discuss the matter.
• Case evaluation & strategy -- no charge.
• Expenses advanced -- we pay until we collect.
• Our fee -- capped per R. 1:21-7 source ; payable only if we collect.

What to do in the next 48 hours.

If your accident just happened, the next two days matter more than most people realize. Six things to do -- and one thing not to.

1. Get medical care, even if you "feel fine."

Adrenaline masks symptoms for 24 to 72 hours. Concussions, soft-tissue injuries, and internal bleeding can present hours or days after impact. The ER or urgent-care visit also creates a contemporaneous medical record dated to the accident -- without it, the carrier will argue your injuries came from somewhere else.

2. Photograph everything.

The vehicles, the scene, the damage, your injuries, the road conditions, the weather, traffic signals, any visible debris, and the license plates of every vehicle involved. Phone photos embed timestamp and GPS metadata automatically -- that data matters at trial.

3. Get names, contact information, and insurance details -- including witnesses.

Witnesses disappear. Memories fade. Their statements to a police officer at the scene are not preserved. Their phone numbers are. Get them.

4. Call the police and make sure a report is filed.

The police report is a sworn, contemporaneous document. NJ insurance carriers rely on it heavily. Without one, your version of the accident is an after-the-fact account.

5. Preserve everything -- clothing, shoes, helmet, bicycle, the damaged item.

Physical evidence becomes case evidence. The cracked helmet that saved your life is also the exhibit that proves the impact's force. Don't wash it, throw it out, or replace it until your attorney has examined it.

6. Write down what happened, in your own words, within 24 hours.

A two-paragraph, timestamped account written while everything is fresh becomes a powerful exhibit at trial -- and protects you if your memory shifts under the stress of the months that follow.

And the one thing not to do -- don't talk to the other party's insurance company.

They will call within days. They will sound friendly, sympathetic, and helpful. They will ask "just a few quick questions" -- recorded, transcribed, and used against you later. Tell them politely you have an attorney handling this and to direct further questions to our office. That's the entire script.

Focused Personal Injury Pages

Each of the following pages covers the specific legal framework -- statutes, case law, insurance layers, and procedural rules -- for that injury pattern. Cases often involve more than one framework; we coordinate across the pages that apply.

Frequently asked questions

Your personal-injury team

Our personal-injury practice is handled by Erik Frins, Esq. and John E. Malchow, Esq., who together carry decades of New Jersey trial experience across auto, truck, premises, wrongful-death, and product-liability matters. Both attorneys handle cases from intake through trial, supported by an investigator and a medical-record team. Pairing two trial attorneys on the practice is deliberate: it means the lawyer who learns your file at intake is the one who values it, negotiates it, and is ready to try it, rather than handing you off to a different desk at each stage. The team strategizes together, with cross-practice input applied when your matter benefits -- a workers'-compensation lien, a Social Security Disability claim, an estate to open after a death -- and attorney oversight throughout the engagement.

Talk with a New Jersey personal-injury attorney.

Critical evidence can be lost in days. Statutes of limitations are unforgiving. Call (800) 709-1131 or use our contact page to request a case evaluation. We will tell you in language clients understand whether you have a case, what it may be worth, what the realistic timeline is, and how the fee structure works before you decide whether to retain us.

Personal injury representation, town by town

We handle accident and injury claims for clients across central and northern New Jersey, filing in the proper venue for each matter. Find your community below.

Bergen County

• Alpine
• Englewood Cliffs
• Ridgewood
• Saddle River
• Tenafly

Hunterdon County

• Alexandria
• Clinton Township
• Flemington
• Frenchtown
• High Bridge
• Lebanon Borough
• Lebanon Township
• Milford
• Oldwick
• Raritan Township
• Readington Township
• Tewksbury
• Three Bridges
• Whitehouse Station

Mercer County

• Hopewell Borough
• Hopewell Township
• Lawrenceville
• Pennington
• Princeton
• West Windsor

Middlesex County

• Cranbury
• Plainsboro

Monmouth County

• Colts Neck
• Fair Haven
• Holmdel
• Middletown
• Rumson

Morris County

• Chester
• Harding Township
• Long Hill
• Mendham
• Mountain Lakes
• New Vernon

Somerset County

• Basking Ridge
• Bedminster
• Bernards Township
• Bernardsville
• Bound Brook
• Branchburg
• Bridgewater
• Far Hills
• Franklin Township
• Green Brook
• Hillsborough
• Manville
• Montgomery
• Peapack-Gladstone
• Raritan Borough
• Somerset
• Somerville
• Warren Township
• Watchung

Consult

Personal Injury Case Evaluation

Answer a few questions and choose how you want the firm to follow up. Your request goes straight to our intake team for prompt, personal review.

Consultation request. There is no charge to send this form or to talk through your situation.

First Name *

Last Name *

Phone *

Email *

Address

Use your mailing address. It helps the intake team understand the county, urgency, and follow-up logistics.

Street Address *

Apartment, Suite, or Unit

City *

State *

ZIP Code *

What injury or incident do you need help with? *

A short summary is plenty — we’ll request documents at the right time.

Preferred follow-up * Phone call Text me Email

I agree to receive text messages from Simon Law Group about my request. Consent is optional, and message frequency may vary. Reply STOP to opt out. See the SMS terms . I understand that submitting this form is governed by the Terms of Service and Legal Disclaimer, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and should not include confidential documents before the firm confirms it can discuss my matter.

Website (leave blank)

Company website (leave blank):

Loading security check… This is a quick security check to keep automated spam off the form.

Submit Case Evaluation

Sending this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. Please do not include confidential documents here.