Forest Hills Personal Injury Lawyer

Our office is at 109-12 Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill, a short run south of Forest Hills. Get directions from Forest Hills Not a satellite address and not a mail drop — it is where we work, and it is a good deal closer than the firms advertising here from Manhattan.

We handle injury claims for people across Forest Hills: car accidents, slip and falls, construction injuries, and everything in between. We work on contingency, which means you pay nothing unless we win.

Call 718-659-5333, or come in. Open 7am to 9pm, Monday to Friday and Sunday.

Where your Forest Hills case will be heard

Most Queens personal injury cases are filed and heard at the Queens County Supreme Court, Civil Term, at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica. If your case goes to litigation rather than settling, that is the building you will be walking into.

It is a straightforward run down from Forest Hills, and our office is nearby. Motion appearances, depositions, compliance conferences and filings all happen locally, so the routine parts of a case do not turn into a day off work for either of us.

Queens Boulevard, and what actually changed

Forest Hills sits on the road that was called the Boulevard of Death for thirty years, and the honest version of that story is more useful than either the scare story or the success story.

The name was earned. Between 1993 and 2000, seventy-two pedestrians were killed on Queens Boulevard — eighteen of them in 1997 alone. At Yellowstone Boulevard, in Forest Hills, the road reaches sixteen lanes, and crossing distances on the corridor run to three hundred feet.

Then it was rebuilt. The city’s redesign ran from 2015 to November 2024 and covered seven miles from Queens Plaza to Hillside Avenue. Across the redesigned corridor, traffic deaths fell 68 per cent, all injuries fell 35 per cent, and pedestrian injuries fell 45 per cent.

But those are corridor-wide figures, and it would be dishonest to present them as Forest Hills numbers. What the city recorded for Forest Hills specifically is this: twenty-three people killed or severely injured on a single mile of the corridor between 2012 and 2016. Queens Boulevard at 71st Avenue and 108th Street — which is the main subway entrance — ranked in the 99th percentile for pedestrian crashes in Queens. Queens Boulevard at Yellowstone Boulevard produced eighty-five injuries between 2007 and 2011, nine of them to pedestrians over sixty-five.

The city designates Forest Hills a Senior Pedestrian Focus Area, and the 71st Avenue crossing a priority intersection. The road is far safer than it was. It is not a safe road.

What the redesign did not remove is the geometry. Queens Boulevard runs six express lanes separated by medians, with three-lane service roads either side. Right turns require exiting to a service road; left turns are allowed only at selected cross-streets. That funnels every turning conflict into a handful of intersections — which is exactly where people get hit.

The cases we see most often from this part of Queens:

• Pedestrian collisions crossing Queens Boulevard, particularly at 71st Avenue, Yellowstone Boulevard and Ascan Avenue
• Turning crashes where traffic moves between the express lanes and the service roads
• Injuries to older pedestrians, who are over-represented in the crash record here
• Slip and fall injuries along the Austin Street shopping strip
• Falls at the Forest Hills–71st Avenue subway station and at the LIRR station

On the LIRR station: it has been a live construction site since May 2025 and is expected to remain one into 2027, with platforms, ramps and walkways being replaced, temporary routing, and weekend service running in one direction only. Temporary walkways and altered boarding are a predictable source of falls, and a claim there carries the strict 90-day MTA notice.

The claims we handle in Forest Hills

Most of what comes through the door from this neighbourhood falls into a handful of categories.

• Car accidents on Queens Boulevard, Yellowstone Boulevard, Metropolitan Avenue, Woodhaven Boulevard and 108th Street
• Pedestrian and cyclist collisions, especially at the service road transitions
• Slip and fall and premises claims on Austin Street and in the apartment and co-op buildings along Queens Boulevard
• Construction accidents, which in New York carry protections most workers do not know they have — including ones that apply regardless of immigration status or whether you were paid off the books
• Truck and commercial vehicle crashes
• E-bike and e-scooter collisions
• Bus injuries and subway and LIRR claims, all subject to the 90-day MTA notice
• Hit and run, and crashes where the other driver had no insurance

Sidewalk falls in Forest Hills: three different answers

Since 2003 New York City has placed responsibility for most sidewalks on the owner of the building beside them, with one exception: owner-occupied one-, two- and three-family homes used purely as residences. For those the City remains responsible, and the deadline is a 90-day notice of claim rather than three years.

Forest Hills is unusually split on this, and where you fell decides which rule applies.

Along Queens Boulevard and Austin Street, the frontage is apartment buildings, co-ops and continuous commercial. None of that is a one- to three-family home. The owner — or the co-op corporation — is liable, and you have three years.

On the detached and semi-detached streets, the exemption may well apply, which puts you on the 90-day clock instead. But only if an owner actually lives there and the building has no commercial use. A professional office in a house takes it outside the exemption.

Inside Forest Hills Gardens, the answer is different again. The streets and sidewalks there are privately owned and maintained by the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation rather than by the City. A fall on those walks is not the ordinary city-sidewalk analysis at all, and it is the kind of distinction that gets missed — including by lawyers. If you fell anywhere inside the Gardens, say so specifically.

Forest Hills Stadium nights

The stadium at the West Side Tennis Club holds around fourteen thousand people and runs thirty or more concerts a year, and the crowds leave onto those same privately owned residential streets. Access, security and rideshare pickup arrangements there have been contested between the residents’ corporation and the City, with litigation that only settled in March 2026 and an agreement requiring the police precinct to consult the corporation on street closures and pickup zones.

None of that is trivia. If you were hurt in a crowd, on a private street, at an event, on a night with a bespoke security arrangement, then who was responsible for the space you were standing in is a real question with a real answer — and it is not the answer you would assume on any other street in Queens.

Where you were treated matters

The hospital in Forest Hills is Long Island Jewish Forest Hills on 66th Road. It is private, part of Northwell Health, and a claim against it follows ordinary rules. Note that it was renamed in 2016 — older records and directions still say Forest Hills Hospital, and before that LaGuardia Hospital.

Serious trauma, though, does not usually go there. The nearest Level I trauma centre is NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, which is a city hospital — so a claim arising from care there carries the 90-day notice requirement and has to be served on the right entity. A bad crash on Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills is therefore quite likely to end up in a public hospital, even though the local hospital is private.

If you were treated anywhere after your accident, bring the paperwork to your first appointment.

What to do after an accident in Forest Hills

Get medical attention the same day, even if you feel fine. A gap between the accident and the first treatment is the first thing an insurer uses against you.

Call 911 and get a police report. Forest Hills is covered by the 112th Precinct on Austin Street. If the police do not attend, file a report yourself.

Photograph the scene before anything is moved — the vehicles, the road, the hazard, your injuries. If you were hit crossing Queens Boulevard, photograph the crossing itself: which lanes you had cleared, where the refuge island is, and the signal. On a road this wide, exactly where you were standing decides a great deal.

If you fell inside Forest Hills Gardens or at a stadium event, note the precise location and keep your ticket.

Take names and numbers from witnesses. Do not give a recorded statement to the other side’s insurer — you are not obliged to, and it is rarely used to help you.

Watch the deadlines. Three years from the date of the accident for most personal injury claims in New York. Ninety days for a notice of claim if the City, the MTA or a public hospital is involved.

Forest Hills injury claims — common questions

Where will my case be heard?

Queens County Supreme Court, Civil Term, at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, for most personal injury matters.

How long do I have to bring a claim?

Generally three years from the date of the accident in New York, and two and a half years for medical malpractice. If a city agency, the MTA or a public hospital is involved, a notice of claim has to be filed within 90 days. Call early rather than waiting to see how you heal.

Isn’t Queens Boulevard supposed to be fixed now?

It is much better than it was — deaths across the redesigned corridor are down by more than two thirds. But the Forest Hills stretch still recorded twenty-three people killed or severely injured in a single mile over five years, and the crossing at 71st Avenue still ranks among the worst in the borough for pedestrian crashes. A safer road is not a safe one, and being hit on it is not your fault for using it.

I fell inside Forest Hills Gardens. Is that the same as any other sidewalk?

No. Those streets and sidewalks are privately owned and maintained by the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation rather than the City, which changes who is answerable. Tell us it happened inside the Gardens — it is the first thing that needs establishing.

What if I was partly at fault?

Yes, and it is worth calling sooner rather than later, because the rule changed in 2026 and it now depends on what kind of accident it was.

In a car accident case, you can still recover if you were up to half at fault, and what you recover is reduced by your share. If you were more than half at fault, you recover nothing for pain and suffering.

In other injury cases – a fall, a construction accident, a dog bite – your share simply reduces what you recover and does not bar the claim.

Either way, the percentage is argued rather than obvious, and it is usually lower than the other side’s insurer first suggests.

What does it cost to start?

Nothing. We work on contingency, which means we take a percentage only if we win. If we recover nothing for you, you owe us nothing.

Do I have to come to the office?

No. We can take the details over the phone or on WhatsApp, and if your injuries make travel difficult we will come to you. But we are close — 109-12 Jamaica Avenue, a short run south.

It’s Time To Win Your Case, Big.

Michael D. Ribowsky and his accident lawyers handle claims for physical and psychological injuries caused by someone else’s negligence. A great deal turns on timing and on detail — what was photographed, when treatment started, who was spoken to and when. Those are the things that decide what a case is worth, and they are decided in the first days rather than at the end.

We take every case seriously and we do what it takes to recover the most the facts will support, which depends on where and how you were injured and what it has cost you. Forest Hills is one of many neighbourhoods we cover. See injury representation across Queens and how we work across the whole borough.