Union County driving is defined by Route 22 — the divided commercial highway that splits the county in two — and by the web of corridors around it: Routes 1&9 and the Turnpike through Elizabeth and Linden, Interstate 78 and Route 24 across the north, the Garden State Parkway down the middle, and Morris Avenue, Route 28, and St. Georges Avenue carrying the local traffic between them. Serious crashes on these roads produce claims that are filed in Elizabeth and tried to Union County juries. This page is the hub of The Epstein Law Firm’s Union County car accident practice.

The firm’s Union County personal injury practice is long established — our Union County personal injury lawyers page anchors that cluster — and this car accident layer now matches it town for town: all thirteen communities in the cluster have dedicated car accident pages, linked below, from Elizabeth and Plainfield to Summit and Westfield. Our New Jersey car accident lawyers answer the county-wide questions here; your town’s page carries the local detail.

Why Union County NJ Car Accident Victims Choose The Epstein Law Firm

Union County claims are prepared for the Union Vicinage from the first day. That means the evidence is gathered the way an Elizabeth jury will need to see it, the medical record is assembled completely across the county’s hospitals and specialists, and the damages presentation reflects what Union County verdicts actually require — documentation, not adjectives.

The firm’s record includes a $13.585 million confidential settlement, a $10 million confidential settlement, and a $4.25 million wrongful-death motor vehicle settlement, listed in full on our verdicts and settlements page. Insurers keep their own scorecards on firms; a Union County claim carried by a firm with that record is priced accordingly from the first evaluation.

There is also a simpler point: this firm already does this work here. Our Union County personal injury pages cover every town in this car accident cluster, our attorneys appear in the Union Vicinage, and our investigators know the county’s corridors, hospitals, and records systems. A claim does not have to be educated into existence — it starts at working speed.

Where Serious Car Accidents Happen in Union County NJ

Union County’s serious-crash corridors:

  • Route 22 — the county’s central artery through Union Township, Springfield, Hillside, and Scotch Plains: high speeds, center-island retail access, and constant lane-changing produce the county’s signature rear-end, sideswipe, and U-turn crashes.
  • Routes 1&9 and the New Jersey Turnpike — through Elizabeth and Linden, where port, airport, and industrial truck traffic mixes with local commuters around the Turnpike’s exits 13 and 13A.
  • Interstate 78 and Route 24 — the northern tier through Springfield, Summit, and Berkeley Heights, high-speed commuter routes where the crashes involve the county’s most severe forces.
  • The Garden State Parkway — through Clark, Cranford, and Union Township, with its own rear-end and interchange patterns at exits 135–140.
  • Morris Avenue, Route 28, and St. Georges Avenue — the diagonal local corridors through Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway, Cranford, and Westfield, where signalized intersections and pedestrian traffic concentrate the county’s angle and turning crashes.

Serious injuries from Union County crashes are treated at Overlook Medical Center in Summit, Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Rahway — the records from those facilities anchor the medical side of the claim.

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Injured in a Union County NJ Car Accident?

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Car Accidents legal help in Union County NJ from The Epstein Law Firm

The Epstein Law Firm can review your car accident claim and explain the evidence, deadlines, and next steps that may apply.

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Types of Car Accidents We Handle in Union County NJ

Our Union County car accident practice covers:

  • Route 22 corridor crashes — rear-end, lane-change, and access-drive collisions along the county’s most distinctive roadway.
  • Highway and interchange crashes on I-78, Route 24, the Parkway, and the Turnpike, including truck and multi-vehicle collisions.
  • Intersection and turning crashes on Morris Avenue, Route 28, St. Georges Avenue, and the county’s other signalized corridors.
  • Rideshare accidents around the county’s NJ Transit stations and downtowns; the layered-coverage analysis is on our rideshare accident lawyer page.
  • Crashes injuring children, including school-zone and passenger claims covered on our New Jersey child car accident lawyer page.
  • Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims, pursued against your own carrier when the at-fault driver’s limits are exhausted.
  • Pedestrian and bicycle crashes in the county’s walkable downtowns — Westfield, Cranford, Summit, and Rahway among them.

What to Do After a Car Accident in Union County NJ

Get medical care, and do not skip the follow-ups. Overlook, Trinitas, or RWJ Rahway for the emergency phase; then the specialists and therapy those physicians order. In Route 22 and highway cases, insurers routinely argue the impact was survivable and therefore minor — the treatment record is the answer.

Report the crash and get the report number. Union County crashes are investigated by municipal departments, the State Police on the interstates and Turnpike, and Parkway units on the Garden State Parkway. The agency and report number drive every records request that follows.

Preserve the corridor evidence. Route 22’s businesses, the Turnpike’s systems, and municipal cameras along the arterials capture many of these crashes — on short overwrite cycles. Photograph what you can and let us send preservation demands in the first days.

Open your PIP claim promptly, and let counsel deal with the other insurer. Your own policy pays medical bills first, regardless of fault. A recorded statement to the at-fault carrier, given before you know your injuries, follows the claim for years.

Save the wage and expense proof as it accumulates. Pay records, employer notes about missed time, and receipts for everything the crash forced you to buy belong in one file. Documentation collected in real time is worth far more than reconstruction attempted later.

Evidence That Decides a Union County NJ Car Accident Claim

Union County evidence work begins with the corridor the crash happened on. Route 22 claims turn on business and municipal camera footage and on the access-drive sight lines that make the highway distinctive; Turnpike and I-78 claims turn on authority and State Police records and, in serious cases, vehicle event data. Intersection claims on the county arterials turn on signal timing and witness accounts gathered before memories are negotiated away.

The file is assembled the same way regardless: the complete police package, 911 audio, photographs of the vehicles before repair, the roadway documented as it existed, and the full medical record tied together by the treating physicians. It is the file we negotiate with — and the file an Elizabeth jury sees if negotiation fails.

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Questions About a Union County NJ Car Accident Claim?

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Car Accidents legal help in Union County NJ from The Epstein Law Firm

The Epstein Law Firm can review the evidence, insurance issues, and next steps that may matter in your car accident claim.

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(201) 231-7847
Schedule your free case evaluation

New Jersey Deadlines That Affect Your Union County NJ Car Accident Claim

New Jersey’s two-year statute of limitations (N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2) governs most Union County car accident lawsuits. Where a public entity may share fault — an NJ Transit vehicle, a county road condition, a municipal truck — the Tort Claims Act requires notice within 90 days under N.J.S.A. 59:8-8. Your PIP claim with your own insurer must also be opened promptly under your policy’s terms.

Union County cases are filed in the Superior Court, Union Vicinage, at the Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth — the NJ Courts Union Vicinage page lists the court’s details. The deadline review at your free consultation covers each clock that your particular crash has started.

One further timing point is routinely overlooked: your own PIP benefits depend on prompt notice to your insurer and cooperation with its medical-review process, and treatment authorizations can be delayed or denied when a claim is opened late. Getting the PIP file opened in the first days after the crash protects the medical side of the case while the liability claim is investigated and built.

Compensation Available in a Union County NJ Car Accident Case

A Union County car accident claim can include past and future medical expenses, lost wages and diminished earning capacity, pain and suffering, and disability and impairment, as described in New Jersey’s model jury charges (Charge 8.11A; Charge 8.11E). Permanent injuries require the future side of that ledger — care, treatment, and work limitations — to be proved with medical and economic evidence rather than estimated.

Two features of New Jersey law shape most Union County cases. The Limitation on Lawsuit (verbal threshold) option on your policy can restrict pain-and-suffering recovery unless the injury fits a statutory category, making the medical proof decisive. And comparative negligence reduces any recovery by your share of fault, which is why the liability investigation is built to the same standard as the damages case. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome; each claim is evaluated on its own facts.

Wage proof deserves its own emphasis in Union County, where so many residents commute by rail and car to Newark and New York. A documented earnings record — employer confirmation of missed time and reduced duties, pay history, and, for the self-employed, tax documentation — converts lost income from an assertion into arithmetic, and arithmetic is what gets paid.

How The Epstein Law Firm Investigates a Union County NJ Car Accident

Our Union County investigations begin where the proof is perishable: camera footage along the corridors, the complete police package from the investigating agency, 911 recordings, and truck-carrier records where a commercial vehicle is involved. Witnesses are interviewed early, and the roadway is documented before conditions change.

Damages work runs in parallel — complete treatment records from Overlook, Trinitas, RWJ Rahway, and every other provider; wage documentation from employers; expert support for permanent injury. The assembled file is the demand package, the mediation package, and the trial file, in that order as the case requires.

Nothing in that process is templated; the investigation plan for a Route 22 access-drive crash looks nothing like the plan for a Turnpike truck collision, and your case gets the plan its facts require.

Tell Us What Happened

Tell us where in Union County the crash happened and what your treatment has looked like so far. The consultation is free, the deadlines are reviewed on the spot, and there is no fee unless we recover for you.

Bring whatever you have from the crash — the report number, your insurance information, and your first medical paperwork are enough to begin, and anything missing can be gathered as the case is built.

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Discuss Your Union County NJ Car Accident

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Car Accidents legal help in Union County NJ from The Epstein Law Firm

Tell The Epstein Law Firm what happened and get clear guidance about your injury claim and legal options.

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Union County NJ Car Accident FAQs

Below are answers to common questions about car accident claims in Union County, New Jersey. This information is general and not legal advice — contact our office for guidance about your specific situation.

How long do I have to file a car accident claim in Union County NJ?

New Jersey’s statute of limitations gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit, including car accident claims arising in Union County. Missing that deadline almost always means the claim is barred, no matter how serious the injuries are.

Different rules can apply to minors, to claims discovered later, and to crashes involving public vehicles or public roads, which carry a much shorter notice deadline. Because the clock starts with the crash itself, an early review of your dates is one of the most valuable steps you can take.

Sources: N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 (statute of limitations); N.J.S.A. 59:8-8 (Tort Claims Act notice)

What is my Union County NJ car accident case worth?

There is no formula that prices a case from the crash report alone. Value depends on the severity and permanence of your injuries, your medical costs and future care needs, lost income, the clarity of fault, and the insurance coverage available to pay the claim.

The Epstein Law Firm evaluates Union County cases from the medical records, the wage documentation, and the coverage picture — and prepares every case as if it will be tried, which is how full value is established with an insurer.

Sources: NJ Courts Model Civil Jury Charge 8.11A on medical expenses; NJ Courts Model Civil Jury Charge 8.11E on disability and impairment

Can I still recover if I was partly at fault for my Union County NJ car accident?

Usually, yes. New Jersey follows modified comparative negligence: you may recover as long as you were not more than 50 percent at fault for the crash. Your compensation is reduced by your share of fault, so a driver found 20 percent responsible recovers 80 percent of the damages.

Insurers use fault percentages aggressively, especially in intersection and lane-change crashes. The police report is not the final word — an independent investigation of the scene, the vehicles, and the witnesses often changes the allocation.

Sources: NJ Courts Model Civil Jury Charge 5.10A; NJ Courts — Rules of Court

Who pays my medical bills after a car accident in Union County NJ?

In most cases, your own auto insurance pays first. New Jersey’s no-fault Personal Injury Protection (PIP) covers medical treatment and certain other losses up to your policy limits, regardless of who caused the crash, and it applies to crashes anywhere in the state.

Which policy applies — yours, a household relative’s, or the vehicle owner’s — and whether your health insurer steps in after PIP depends on the elections on the policy. Sorting that out early keeps treatment bills from going to collections while the liability claim is built.

Sources: N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4 (Personal Injury Protection); NJ Department of Banking and Insurance

What if my Union County crash involved NJ Transit or a county road?

NJ Transit’s Northeast Corridor and Raritan Valley lines cross Union County, its buses serve every corridor, and the county maintains many of the roads where serious crashes occur. When a public entity may share fault, the Tort Claims Act requires a formal notice of claim within 90 days of the crash — long before the two-year lawsuit deadline.

The notice must reach the correct entity in the correct form; serving the county when the responsible body was NJ Transit (or the reverse) does not count. Identifying every public body involved is part of the first review in our Union County cases.

Sources: N.J.S.A. 59:8-8 (Tort Claims Act notice); NJ Courts — notice of tort claim form

Where will my Union County NJ car accident case be filed?

Car accident lawsuits from crashes in Union County are filed in the Superior Court, Law Division, Union Vicinage, which sits at the Union County Courthouse in Elizabeth. The vicinage manages the case through discovery, motion practice, and trial.

Many cases settle before trial, but a claim that is filed in the right court, on time, and prepared for a jury is the claim an insurer has to take seriously. Venue and deadline questions are answered at the first review.

Sources: NJ Courts — Union Vicinage; NJ Courts — Rules of Court

How do I choose the right car accident lawyer in Union County NJ?

Look for a firm that actually tries cases in the Union Vicinage, that can show verdicts and settlements in serious-injury cases, and that will explain your claim’s strengths and weaknesses plainly before you sign anything.

The Epstein Law Firm offers a free consultation for exactly that evaluation. Bring the crash report, your medical paperwork, and your insurance information, and you will leave with an honest assessment of the claim and the deadlines that control it.

Sources: NJ Courts Rules of Professional Conduct, including RPC 1.5 on fees; NJ Courts — Rules of Court

What should I bring to my free consultation?

Bring whatever you have: the police or crash report, photographs of the vehicles and the scene, your auto insurance declarations page, medical records and bills, and any letters from an insurer. Missing pieces can be gathered later — do not wait for a complete file to ask for a review.

The consultation is free and carries no obligation. Its purpose is to identify who may be responsible, which insurance applies, and which deadlines — including the two-year filing deadline and any 90-day public-entity notice — are already running.

Sources: N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 (statute of limitations); N.J.S.A. 59:8-8 (Tort Claims Act notice)

Will my Union County NJ car accident case go to trial?

Most car accident cases settle, but the settlements that reflect full value are the ones the insurer believes would survive a courtroom. Cases that cannot be settled fairly are tried in the vicinage where the crash happened or the defendant is located.

We prepare every case for trial from the start — preserving evidence, lining up medical and economic support, and meeting every court deadline — so that settlement talks happen from strength rather than hope.

Sources: NJ Courts — Rules of Court; NJ Courts — vicinages

How much does it cost to hire The Epstein Law Firm for my Union County NJ car accident case?

Nothing up front. Personal injury and car accident cases are handled on a contingent fee: the firm’s fee is a percentage of the recovery, set by New Jersey court rule, and you owe no fee if there is no recovery.

The fee agreement is in writing before work begins, and the costs of building the case — records, experts, and filing fees — are explained at the same time, so there are no surprises about what representation costs.

Sources: NJ Courts Rules of Professional Conduct, including RPC 1.5 on fees; NJ Courts — Rules of Court

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Communities We Serve in Union County NJ

Our union county car accident lawyers also serve drivers and passengers in every community in the county. Select your community for local information about car accident claims:

For claims anywhere in New Jersey, see our New Jersey car accident lawyers page.

Notable Results

Selected case results obtained by The Epstein Law Firm:

$13.585 Million · $10 Million · $4.25 Million

$13.585 Million — Confidential Settlement

Flagship Result

The Epstein Law Firm obtained a $13.585 million confidential settlement — the largest result listed on the firm’s verdicts and settlements page.

$10 Million — Confidential Settlement

Negligent Care

The Epstein Law Firm obtained a confidential $10 million settlement in a case exposing critical lapses in training and oversight within the home health care industry, holding the negligent organization accountable.

$4.25 Million — Confidential Settlement

Wrongful Death — Motor Vehicle

The Epstein Law Firm obtained a $4.25 million confidential settlement in a wrongful death and survival action for a Teaneck husband and father who died after a tire fell off his car, causing it to flip and catch fire. A major mechanic operations company was at fault for failing to attach the tire properly.

View all verdicts and settlements →

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is different and must be evaluated on its own facts.

What Our Clients Say

“Michael Epstein is a wonderful, smart, caring and intelligent attorney. He was always responsive, supportive and got me dismissed from a high stakes lawsuit. I highly recommend him and the firm.”
— Leslie, Google review

“I was extremely pleased with the Epstein law firm. Michael Epstein and his co-worker Evelyn were so helpful. They answered all my questions in a timely manner and made me feel at ease from day one. They continuously kept me informed by email and phone calls.”
— Janice, Google review

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$13,585,000

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