Lincoln is a short drive from my Omaha office on I-80, and I regularly meet clients there rather than asking an injured person to make the trip. Lancaster County cases are heard in Nebraska’s 3rd Judicial District, at the Hall of Justice on South 10th Street.
The Deadline Problem Nobody Warns You About in Lincoln
Lincoln has an unusual concentration of governmental employers and governmental vehicles: state government, the University of Nebraska, the City of Lincoln, Lancaster County, and the public transit and utility fleets that go with them. That matters enormously for a deadline reason.
A claim against a governmental entity is not governed by the ordinary four-year negligence deadline. Political subdivisions and the State each operate under their own tort claims procedures, which require a written claim to be filed with the right body within a much shorter window — and failing to file it correctly can extinguish an otherwise strong case entirely, no matter how badly you were hurt.
If a city bus, a university vehicle, a state vehicle, a county truck or a public employee on the job was involved in your injury, or if you were hurt on government property, the clock you are on is not the one you have read about. That is the single most common way a good Lincoln case gets lost, and it happens quietly — people wait, assuming they have years.
Call someone quickly in that situation. Not because a lawyer needs to be involved in everything, but because the notice requirement is unforgiving and there is no way to fix it after the fact.
O Street, 27th Street and the Interstate Edge
The O Street corridor and 27th Street carry enormous local volume through dense commercial frontage — the classic setup for turning-movement and rear-end collisions. The I-80 interchanges along the north edge of the city mix interstate speeds with drivers making local trips, which produces merge and lane-change crashes at a speed differential that turns a fender-bender into a serious injury.
Game days are their own category. Memorial Stadium puts tens of thousands of additional vehicles and a very large number of pedestrians onto downtown streets in the space of a few hours, with alcohol in the mix. Pedestrian-strike cases and impaired-driving crashes cluster predictably around those dates.
Work Injuries in a Manufacturing and Rail City
Lincoln’s employment base includes BNSF and rail operations, Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing, food processing, healthcare and a large construction sector. Each carries its own injury profile, and one distinction is worth knowing.
Railroad employees are not in the workers’ compensation system. If you were hurt working for the railroad, your claim arises under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act — you must prove negligence, but the causation standard is very low, damages include pain and suffering, and the deadline is three years. Nebraska workers’ compensation pays nothing for pain and suffering, so the difference is substantial. See the FELA page.
For everyone else, the question worth asking on any work injury is whether a third party contributed — a subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer, a property owner, a negligent driver. Where one did, a separate claim may exist alongside the comp claim and be worth considerably more.
Lancaster County District Court
Lancaster County is Nebraska’s 3rd Judicial District, and district court sits at the Hall of Justice on South 10th Street in Lincoln. As the state capital and the second-largest county, Lancaster has a busy civil docket and a bench experienced in injury litigation — closer in character to Douglas County than to the rural districts.
Lincoln is under an hour from my office. I have never asked an injured client to make that drive when I could make it instead.
Related Practice Areas
This page covers what is specific to Lincoln. The pages below cover how the claims themselves work.
Your Attorney
Frank Younes
Every page on this site is written by Frank Younes, a Nebraska trial attorney with a published record of verdicts and settlements, selection to the National Trial Lawyers Top 100, and a practice that covers every county in Nebraska and Iowa. No case is handed to an associate — the lawyer you read here is the lawyer who works your case.
More about Frank → · Free consultation: (402) 378-9208
Frequently Asked Questions
A city or university vehicle hit me in Lincoln. Is the deadline different?
Yes, and this is the most important thing on this page. Claims against political subdivisions and against the State run under separate tort claims procedures with much shorter written-notice deadlines than the ordinary four-year rule. Missing that notice can end a strong case permanently. Call quickly.
Where is a Lincoln injury case filed?
Lancaster County District Court at the Hall of Justice on South 10th Street, in Nebraska’s 3rd Judicial District.
I was hurt working for BNSF in Lincoln. Is that workers’ comp?
No. Railroad workers are covered by FELA, not state workers’ compensation. You have to show negligence, but the causation standard is very low and FELA allows pain and suffering — which Nebraska workers’ compensation does not pay at all.
Do you actually come to Lincoln?
Regularly. It is well under an hour from my Omaha office, and I would rather drive than ask someone with a spinal injury to.
I was hit by a drunk driver after a game. Does that change the case?
It can. Impaired driving may support punitive considerations in how a case is valued and negotiated, and there may be additional avenues of recovery depending on where the driver had been drinking. It is worth examining rather than assuming the auto policy is the ceiling.
What does it cost?
Injury cases are contingency — no fee unless I win.
Free Consultation for Lincoln Injury Victims
Tell me what happened. The consultation is free and confidential, and if I take your case there is no fee unless I win it.
Call (402) 378-9208