How Long Will My Personal Injury Case Take?

Personal injury cases can take anywhere from months to years to come to an end. Of course, all of this depends on the complexities of your case, the severity of the injuries, and many, many other factors.

Generally speaking, any personal injury case can be settled sooner than later — but you will have to be willing to take a lower payment for your suffering. The question you will have to ask yourself is: How much money are you willing to give up to get a check faster?

Why Do Personal Injury Cases Take so Long?

Personal injury cases can move at a snail’s pace for several reasons, the main ones being:

• There are questions about facts and/or legalities of your case – What kind of issues? It could be that it is increasingly difficult to prove which party is liable for the damages, which means that insurance companies are going to hold off on offering a decent settlement amount for as long as possible. If there are legal problems – i.e. the defense is arguing that you are not entitled to go after damages – then once again, the insurance company will not make a decent offer until a judge or jury has weighed in. In some cases, there can be conflicting reports about the actual damages, such as whether the accident was the cause of the injury. This is another instance when insurance companies will be hesitant to offer a fair amount.

• The amount of money in question is a very large sum of cash – No matter how obvious the negligence is, if the settlement amount is extremely big, no insurance company will cut such a large check without first exploring every single avenue for paying you less. If they cannot find a legitimate reason to pay you less money, sometimes the insurance company will delay the case repeatedly, just to wear the plaintiff down in an effort to get you to accept less money. This is why it’s so important that you have an experienced personal injury attorney.

• Your status has not reached “maximum medical improvement” – Maximum medical improvement is when a doctor determines that a person’s medical condition cannot improve anymore than it already has, or the injured person has reached a plateau in the process.

If any of the above factors are at play, you’re just going to have to be patient and wait for things to be resolved. If not, you will be forced to settle for “pennies on the dollar.”

Don’t let the complexities of your personal injury case get in the way of getting the amount of money you deserve. If you or someone you love has been injured, contact Robert Armstrong’s office today.