Sued over a collision you believe was staged: what a New York defendant does first

Attorney Answer

The first move is not to argue about the report. It is to put your insurer on notice immediately, in writing, so that the duty to defend attaches and a lawyer is assigned to you at the carrier's expense — and then to preserve everything, before the evidence that shows what actually happened is gone.

A lawsuit has its own clock, and answering it is not optional. A defendant who does not respond within the time the court's rules allow can have a judgment entered against them without the merits ever being examined, which is the single most common way a defensible case is lost. This is why notice to the carrier comes first: the liability policy generally obliges the insurer both to defend the suit and to indemnify within its limits, and a late notice is one of the few things that can put that obligation in doubt. New York's Insurance Law § 3420 is the section that governs an insurer's disclaimer of coverage and a claimant's direct rights against an insurer, and it is the framework a coverage dispute would run through.

On the report: a police accident report is evidence, not a verdict. An officer who did not witness a collision records accounts and observations, and reports are regularly incomplete or wrong about what happened, where the vehicles were, and who said what. It can be contested — with photographs, video, telephone and vehicle data, repair records and testimony taken under oath at a deposition, where a claimant answers questions about their story on the record for the first time. That deposition, together with an examination under oath conducted by the carrier, is where inconsistent accounts usually surface. Naming or attacking the officer is not the productive route; testing the claimants' account against the physical evidence is.

Staged-collision claims are a known category, and insurers investigate them through their special investigation units, which examine claim histories, medical treatment patterns, vehicle damage that does not match the described impact, and the relationships between occupants. Suspected insurance fraud is reported to the state's insurance fraud authorities. That machinery exists and your carrier can use it — but it is for the carrier and the investigators to reach a conclusion, and nothing here says that this particular claim was fraudulent. If anyone suggests that you are the subject of a criminal or fraud investigation, that is a separate matter from the civil suit, and you should speak with a New York attorney before discussing the incident with any investigator.

One more point that cuts your way. New York generally requires an action to recover damages for a personal injury to be commenced within three years — CPLR 214(5) covers "an action to recover damages for a personal injury except as provided in sections 214-b, 214-c, 214-i and 215" — and three years for an action to recover damages for an injury to property. If the suit was begun outside the applicable period, that is a defense, and it is one that has to be raised properly and early rather than mentioned later.

What you can do

1. Notify your insurer today, in writing, and send it a copy of the summons and complaint; keep proof of what you sent and when.

2. Confirm in writing that the carrier is assigning defense counsel, and get that attorney's name.

3. Preserve everything now: photographs, dashcam or phone video, the vehicle itself if it is still repairable, telephone records for the time of the collision, and any messages about it.

4. Tell the assigned defense attorney what you remember — the route, the speed, the sequence, the weather, who said what — and let them decide what is recorded and how; a narrative you write out yourself is not automatically privileged and can be sought by the other side or by an investigator.

5. Give the report and the video to the assigned defense attorney and ask that the discrepancies be raised in the answer and at deposition.

6. Say nothing about the collision on social media and give no recorded statement to the other side's representatives.

7. If a criminal or fraud investigator contacts you, speak with a New York attorney before answering anything.

⏱ Time limits apply. Two clocks matter here. The court's own schedule for responding to a summons and complaint is short and running now, and missing it risks a default. Separately, CPLR 214 sets three years for an action to recover damages for a personal injury and three years for an injury to property, measured from the date of the collision — if the suit came later than the period that applies, that defense must be raised properly. Neither deadline is calculated on this page. Get the summons and complaint in front of a New York attorney immediately.