How Long Does A Personal Injury Case Take?
Posted in Personal Injury on October 28, 2020
If you or somebody you care about has been injured due to the careless, negligent, or intentional actions of another individual or entity, you may be entitled to significant compensation for your injuries.
However, securing this compensation typically means you will have to go through the personal injury claim process. Sometimes, this simply involves working with insurance carriers.
This could also mean that you will need to file a personal injury lawsuit in Nashville, TN in order to successfully recover compensation.
Here, we want to discuss how long a personal injury case may take, depending on the route your claim is on.
Understanding various timelines of a personal injury case
The vast majority of personal injury claims are resolved through settlements with various insurance carriers involved after a demand letter is sent. When cases are resolved through insurance carriers, it is unlikely that a personal injury lawsuit will need to be filed.
Cases strictly involving insurance carriers will take much less time to reach resolution than cases involving personal injury lawsuits.
However, it is important to point out that it is never recommended that the injury victim accept a settlement in their case until they have reached maximum medical improvement.
It is impossible to know the true costs of a personal injury claim until after the injury victim has finished their medical treatment.
Thus, the timeline for claims involving only insurance carriers largely revolves around the course of treatment that the injury victim receives.
If a personal injury lawsuit is necessary
There are times when injury victims need to file personal injury lawsuits against the alleged negligent party.
This is going to be the case if the insurance carrier of the other party refuses to offer a fair settlement or denies the claim altogether.
When a personal injury lawsuit is filed, this means that it has officially entered the court system and will most certainly take longer to resolve.
The first step after a lawsuit has been filed is pre-settlement negotiations. Even after the personal injury lawsuit has been filed, most cases are settled before they go to a full jury.
Attorneys for both sides will continue to negotiate and hopefully reach a fair settlement agreement. This negotiation process can still take months, and negotiations will continue even as the case progresses towards a trial date.
Unfortunately, it can take one or more years for a personal injury lawsuit to come upon the docket in the court system. That is one reason why most cases are settled before they go to trial.
The simple truth is that injury victims are usually placed into precarious financial situations and need the payment for their injuries sooner rather than later.
However, by accepting an early settlement, an injury victim could be giving up the chance to obtain a much larger payment for their injuries in a jury case.
That said, there are no guarantees in a jury trial, and the jury could rule for the plaintiff (the injury victim) or the defendant (the alleged negligent party). The unpredictability of a jury trial is one reason why both sides of a personal injury case regularly opt for a negotiated settlement.