How long will it take your personal injury case to go to court or settle? Every case is different and there is unfortunately no easy answer to this question. We’ve resolved cases in as quickly as a couple of weeks and some have taken years. While we work hard to get your case resolved as quickly as possible, how long your case will take to settle or go to trial depends on a number of factors. Here’s a general timeline of what you can expect, according to our Athens personal injury lawyer.
How long medical treatment lasts
One of the main factors is your injuries and how long it takes you to recover from them. If you recover quickly, your case may resolve quickly. If your injuries require lengthy treatment, your case will usually take longer.
We typically advise clients to wait until we know the full extent of their injuries and what medical treatment they’ll require in the future before making a settlement demand or filing a lawsuit. This ensures that we’re including all of your injuries in your claim and lawsuit. We do this because once you settle your case or the jury returns a verdict, the case is closed and there’s no way to obtain additional compensation. For instance, if we settle your case and six months later your doctor tells you that you’re going to need surgery, it’s too late to include the surgery in your claim.
Requesting medical records
Once you’ve finished treating, the next step is requesting your medical records and bills from your doctors, hospitals and physical therapists. This usually takes 30-45 days but can often take longer as some facilities are very slow to provide medical records and bills.
Sending a settlement demand
Once we have all of your medical records and bills we will prepare a settlement demand to the defendant and their insurance company. It usually takes a week to prepare a settlement demand, though it can be shorter for simpler cases and longer for complicated cases. The law gives the defendant and the insurance company 30 days from the date they receive the demand to respond. If the insurance company does not accept the demand and you decide to negotiate with them, negotiations can take several weeks or months.
Filing a lawsuit
If we cannot reach a fair settlement offer with the defendant and their insurance company, the next step is filing a lawsuit. It usually takes the sheriff or a process server a week to two weeks to serve the defendant with the lawsuit. Once the defendant has been served with the lawsuit, they have 30 days to file their answer to the lawsuit.
Discovery & evidence gathering
After the defendant files their answer to the lawsuit, the discovery and evidence-gathering phase of the lawsuit begins. The law sets the discovery period at six months and the judge usually extends it longer. The discovery period is where both sides request information and evidence from each other through written questions called interrogatories and written requests to produce documents and evidence. Both sides take depositions, which are statements under oath, from the other party and witnesses. Each side can also use subpoenas to request evidence from other people, companies and government agencies like the police.
If you have a complicated case like a medical malpractice or defective and dangerous product case that requires lots of expert witnesses, your case is likely to take longer than usual.
Motions
After the discovery period, the defense may file a motion for summary judgment asking the judge to rule in their favor and dismiss the case. We have 30 days to respond to the motion and then the judge will schedule a hearing, which can be in a couple of weeks or several months. Some judges rule very quickly on motions while others do not. I have had judges rule on motions in less than a week and others take many months to do so and it depends on the judge the case is assigned to.
Trial
If the defense does not file a motion for summary judgment or the judge denies the motion, the case will be scheduled for trial. The case goes on a list of cases called a trial calendar and judges have trial weeks every month or every couple of months. The case usually starts at the bottom of the list and it may take several trial calendars before your case goes to trial. Some of the courts in the metro Atlanta counties are very busy and have lots of cases and it may take much longer than you want for your case to go to trial.
How much insurance does the defendant have
One additional factor that can determine how long it will take your case to go to court or settle is how serious your injuries are and how much insurance the defendant has.
If you have serious injuries and your case is worth more than the insurance the defendant has, your case should resolve quickly because the insurance company usually will not want to fight the case.
However, if the defendant has a lot of insurance and you have very serious injuries, the insurance company will probably fight your case longer and harder. Defendants and insurance companies do this because they want to delay paying you as long as possible and they want to try to wear you down and try to get you to take a settlement that is less than fair.