How long will it take before my motorcycle accident claim is resolved?
As a motorcycle accident lawyer, there are two questions we get asked frequently. These are:
- How much is my motorcycle accident claim worth? And,
- How long will it take to settle my motorcycle accident case?
Questions like these are inevitable, especially when you’re pursuing compensation for your injuries and financial losses. Furthermore, you may want to know whether it is worth your time to file a claim in the first place.
Honest Answer To You
Lawyers pride themselves in their honesty with clients, and when it comes to telling you how long it will take to settle your motorcycle accident claim, they must say there is no formula to tell you, nor is there any codes, laws, or legal schedules that can help. Therefore, it is impossible to provide you with a sum, value, or estimated period of time when you call for your case review. If any lawyer or other legal professional has promised to resolve your claim by a specific date, it may be in your best interest to walk away and find a new motorcycle accident lawyer.
Until your attorney knows all of the facts and elements of your case, they believe it is unethical, impossible, impractical, and even misleading to suggest a guaranteed or “probable” estimate for settling your case. Rather than discussing with you dates and timeframes that have no real meaning, a reliable motorcycle accident lawyer Charlottesville, VA offers should discuss your case details to identify all potential factors that could result in delays, obstacles, challenges, or your overall eligibility for compensation. Examples of these factors may be:
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Statute of Limitations – All states have statute of limitations to file a personal injury claim, which includes motorcycle accidents. These laws set a specific period of time you have to file a claim or lawsuit. The time limit you have will largely depend on the type of accident and your damages. In general, you will have 2 years to file a claim from the date of your accident. If the crash caused a death, the statute of limitations begins on the date of the accident rather than the date of the death (if this date varies). Filing past the statute of limitations could result in the court dismissing your case. Bare in mind, if any government entity was involved, there could be notice provisions that require you to provide notice of a claim in a much shorter period of time than the statute of limitations.
Negligence – Regardless of whether you are filing a personal injury or wrongful death claim, the outcome of your case will depend on the cause of the accident and the percentage of liability the alleged at-fault driver is found to have. Sometimes it will take extensive amounts of time and investigation to identify the at-fault party, and their reason for being negligent.
Court Orders – Between 85% and 95% of all motorcycle accident claims are settled out of court. In fact, some jurisdictions we practice in require that victims and their defendants participate in out of court negotiations before a trial occurs. If negotiations fail, a judge may order additional mediation or conferencing. If still an agreement cannot be found, a trial may be scheduled. In the later scenarios, the time to settle your case may be significantly prolonged.
The main issues that impact how long a case will take to resolve depend on how severely you were injured in the crash, the identity of the party (and their insurance company) that caused the injury, and how much you wish to obtain to resolve your case. Stated simply, you can resolve the case quickly if you have a minor case and you are willing to accept an amount that is considerably less than the true case value. After all, insurance companies may jump at the chance to settle a case for a fraction of its true value, and they will be happy to pay you that meager amount at pretty much any time.
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But if you have significant injuries, the defendant has a large insurance policy, and you wish to obtain as much of the insurance as you can to cover your extensive injuries, you should expect that your case may take well over one year to resolve. This is especially true if the defendant was driving for a company like Amazon, Walmart, UPS or some other major corporation at the time the crash occurred.
When a major corporation is involved in the crash and they are self insured or are represented by a massive commercial insurance company, you can expect they will fight hard. They will deny that their driver or employee did anything wrong, and they will likely try to blame you for the crash that occurred. They will try to make you think that you could have and should have done something different to have avoided this crash in the first place. If they do eventually admit that they were at fault, it will be only when trial is quickly approaching and they will want to be able to tell the jury that they are accepting responsibility for the harms they caused.
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But, even then, they will question all of your injuries. They will question whether the medical treatment you received was to treat those injuries. They will try to blame your injuries and symptoms on previous conditions and injuries even though there is little evidence connecting them. They will spare no expense in hiring highly decorated experts who will cherry pick facts to try to undermine your injuries.
So to answer the question in a roundabout way, you need to be willing to fight if you have a significant motorcycle crash that causes life-altering injuries. Our attorneys have experience handling those fights-of-a-lifetime and will fight to get you all of the compensation you deserve to make up for the harms and losses you suffered.
Contact MartinWren, P.C. if you have been involved in a motorcycle crash and would like a free consultation.
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