Regardless of how familiar any victim of an automobile accident might be with the procedure for filing a personal injury claim, that same individual should plan to have a personal injury lawyer. That warning comes from a victim that relied on the assistance of a paralegal, and overlooked a specific deadline.
Deadlines for filing a personal injury claim get set by the statute of limitations. Normally, that deadline falls on the final day of the limited amount of time for filing. A good injury lawyer in Edmonton has a calendar, and marks the deadline for each client’s case on his or her calendar.
What is the time span for a given statute of limitations?
It varies from state to state. It can be as long as 6 years or as short as 1 year. Some states apply the discovery rule. Under that rule, the statute of limitations does not start until the injury has been discovered, or until the cause of the injury has been discovered.
Possible reasons for extending a state’s statute of limitations:
Need to apply the discovery rule. The victim did not discover the injury until well-after it had caused some harm to his or her body. Alternately, it could be that the victim noted the injury’s presence, but could not immediately identify the event or action that caused the same injury.
The defendant has left the state. The court always tries to provide the defendant with an adequate amount of time for preparing a defense. If the defendant’s departure had not been announced, the court faces a challenge, when trying to get in touch with the out-of-state resident. As a result, the court stands ready to extend the statute of limitations.
The defendant is either a minor, a disabled person or a mentally ill individual. Someone that fits in any of those 3 categories lacks the ability to carry-out the filing procedure. In other words, if any one of them has a personal injury claim, some adult will have to file that same claim.
Normally, the court will assign to some adult the job of filing a claim for the minor, the disabled or the mentally ill plaintiff. Later, after the same minor, disabled or mentally ill plaintiff has won his or her personal injury case, the court assigns to a different adult the job of overseeing the distribution of the awarded funds.
The designated adult usually bears the title of trustee. Still, a parent or guardian should not feel compelled to trust him or her. Indeed, the plaintiff’s parent or guardian has the right to question the wisdom behind the distribution scheme suggested by the court’s appointed trustee. If questioned, the court may appoint a new trustee.