When you were looking for a New York City wrongful death attorney, there are a lot of things that are probably swirling around your head at that time. And this is understandably so because there was probably some tragic accident or some thing or a series of events that led to the reason why you are seeking somebody to assist you with a wrongful death. And wrongful death is not a fun time to talk about by any means and it is a very emotionally sensitive topic for most people if not everyone on the planet. This is because typically when we’re dealing with the wrongful death, we were dealing with someone who had died in a wrongful way or in an inappropriate way and there is somebody responsible for that death. And what makes it even more tragic. I’m more upset when it involves a very young person or someone who has not yet been able to live their life fully to the extent that they were meant to be, and it was cut short for the reason of the fault of another.
When you were looking for a New York City wrongful death attorney, you are looking for an attorney who is very strong emotionally, and who is able to for better for worse separate the emotions tied with the loss of human life to a more rigid set of facts to get the recovery for compensation for the wrongful death. And when this happens, there is typically no amount of money that can compensate any human being for the loss of another human being, particularly wanted as a close loved one. There are processes to follow when those processes follow. It is most efficient, and it leads to typically the best result. And when everything is in place all the facts are in order then the record is very clear. It makes sense for the parties to have a discussion about potential out of court settlement, because when there is an out of court settlement, things get dealt with quickly and efficiently and consensually.
When a New York City wrongful death attorney needs to go to court then it typically takes a lot of time to resolve the case. This is because there could be a factual dispute as to what happens in terms of the facts that are leading up to the wrongful death and it isn’t an unfortunate wrongful death, of course, and under any circumstance where you have a wrongful death action. And once the action gets in court it is typically governed by procedural rules, and those procedural rules in New York are the CPLR. And because New York City is a part of New York State, the New York State rules applied to actions that are commenced to New York City. And what the CPLR does is, it talks about the rules and regulations with respect to filing a lawsuit in New York City. And there are five burrows in New York City; those burrows are Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan. Manhattan is the one that is known as the big apple and has Times Square.
Once a case is commenced by your New York City wrongful death attorney, it is served upon defendants. Just one quick note before we talk about service on the defendant, the summons and complaint is filed online on what’s called the nice F system NYSCEF, which is the system online that is the court system that you can access all of the court filings online and it is open to the public. Once a case is filed on NYSCEF, it is then served upon the defendants. And of course, the defendants are the ones who are going to be alleged to have caused the injury or here in this instance, the wrongful death of the we would say wrongfully departed. And once the case is filed on NYSCEF, the plaintiff typically has 20 days to serve the case or the lawsuit on the defendants. Once the case has been heard under the defendant, then the defendants have 20 to 30 days to file their responsive papers.
Your New York City wrongful death attorney should tell you that the responsive papers to the filing of the summons and complaint can be either a motion to dismiss, or an answer. This is what the defendants have the right to do, and this is governed by the CPLR. The CPLR is the rules like we stated above the Goven, the filing and the maintenance and how cases and losses proceed in New York State. And because again New York City is part of the state, the cases follow the requirements of the CPLR. In addition to the CPLR, there are what are called part rules. And Hart rules are the rules that any particular judge within the New York State Court system has and can implement or promulgate in order to make the cases, including wrongful death cases in their heart proceed in an orderly fashion. The part rules typically have provisions on how to contact chambers, and what the particular rules would be for discovery disputes, or what the motion practice rules are, or appearance rules, or adjournment rules. This can be any combination of these as well.
An attorney that files a lawsuit and commences a lawsuit and serves a lawsuit has to be ready for motion to dismiss that the defendant would file. Now, when you’re talking about motion to dismiss, the analysis is limited to the four corners of the complaint. This is because the courts wanna see if the plaintiff has properly played the causes of action and have made a case for which relief can be granted and has met other procedural rules like the pleading rules in terms of how they play the elements and if the elements match what is required by the law. This is a very technical motion and a lot of defendants filed these, regardless of what the summons and complaints say just as long as they have a colorful or arguable basis for making such an emotion. These types of motions can often delay cases significantly, because the court system is quite cluttered, and the dockets of the judges are very full.
What a New York City wrongful death attorney will also tell you is that the judge’s instances did not even publish part rules, which is interesting for the party to try and navigate what the judge specifically wants under any specific circumstance. This actually can make it a little bit more cumbersome for parties to litigate because they don’t have clear guidelines for that particular judge on how to proceed with the lawsuit. But no harm no foull a lot of times those types of judges are very flexible with how they proceed and it can be a blessing in disguise and more of an opportunity that one would think.