Settling a Personal Injury Case
The majority of personal injury cases do in fact settle before they go to trial. As well, many personal injury cases that do make it to trial often settle before the verdict has been decided. There is not one, blanket answer to the question of, how long it will take to settle a personal injury case. Even though there have been and will likely be many exceptions to these lengths of time, some personal injury claims are settled in as little as six months, while others take upwards of three years.
An experienced lawyer or other legal professional may be able to help you to understand the specifics of a claim you are involved in and the likely amount of time it will take to get you the compensation you are hoping to get. As well, they will likely be able to give you their professional opinion on whether it is in your best interest to settle your claim or to proceed with a trial.
Why People Settle Their Personal Injury Cases
The specifics and reasons for why people choose to settle their personal injury claims rather than going through with a trial, or rather than waiting for a trial to complete and the verdict announced, are typically based on the specifics of their individual case.
A common reason people decide to settle their personal injury case is akin to the old saying, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. If you were hunting birds, even though it technically would be nicer to go home with two birds, it would better to go home with only one if trying to get the two birds means risking coming home with no birds. In this sense, even though a settlement, is just that, an agreement that solves a dispute but not exactly what either party involved wants, for many people, knowing that they are going to get something is better than to risk getting nothing- even if what they are going to get is not as much as they think they are entitled to.
Another common reason that people settle their personal injury claims is when they have a case that it is going to be hard to prove liability in. Product liability cases are notoriously hard to prove because there are many different parties whose negligence may make them liable for a person’s injury, and each party will try to claim that the other party/ies’ are liable, not them. These cases often take a long time to try and it can be very expensive to do so. There are many other kinds of cases where it is hard to prove liability, and many others that are costly and take a long time to try.
Be informed with Legal Claims Solutions.