How long should my personal injury case take? part 1

I start this series about how long should my personal injury case take with your choice of your lawyer. I start here for two reasons, first this is the only aspect within your control and second it is the single most important factor in determining the speed of your case.

The first aspect of how long your case will take will depend upon how long it takes your lawyer to commence a lawsuit. In New York there is a three year statute of limitations for a lawyer to commence a personal injury lawsuit. That means the lawyer has three years from the date of accident to start a lawsuit or you will lose your rights even if you have a valid claim. (Note there are some exceptions ie infancy and insanity to name a couple.) Many lawyers will wait more than a year or even close to the three year limit before commencing suit. Theses lawyers may try to settle the case pre-suit to avoid the work and costs involved with bringing an action. If the case cannot be settled pre-suit then you have lost all that time the lawyer chose to wait. At Subin Associates it is our time tested philosophy to commence suit as early as possible. As soon as we have identified the responsible parties we will immediately commence a suit while we are simultaneously conducting our investigation. Frequently, we will be commencing a lawsuit within weeks of getting your case. (note we believe if the insurance company is willing to settle early it is still preferable to commence a suit as they know the have to pay or litigate). Just this aspect alone means a case handled by Subin Associates could be resolved 2-3 years faster than a case handled by another personal injury firm.

After a lawsuit is started the next step in a personal injury lawsuit is the defendant will respond to the lawsuit with whats called an answer. Along with the answer the defendant will serve discovery demands. These discovery demands will ask for HIPPA authorizations from you so the defendant can obtain your medical records as well as a document that will list all your injuries and claims you are making against the defendant. This document is called the bill of particulars. The case will not continue until the plaintiff's lawyer provides a response to these demands. Here again the speed of your case depends on the size of your lawyers firm and the amount of staff they have to do this work which is quite time consuming. A lawyer can let cases languish waiting to provide this discovery. We at Subin have dedicated staff to provide this discovery and generally have responses in less than two weeks.
Once your lawyer has provided discovery then the next step is depositions. Your lawyer needs to have the man power to have a lawyer available for your deposition. this is another reason why larger firm like Subin Associate can serve you better and resolve your case faster than many other law firms. Deposition delay can slow a case another year or more.

The next step is filing the notice of trial readiness this requires appropriate staffing and the lawyer to determine if the case is indeed trial ready. For example, has the lawyer retained all the appropriate experts or does he have to sue any additional parties that might be responsible for the accident? We at Subin prepare every case for trial from the beginning, although it is extra work for us week believe we get more substantial recoveries for our clients because insurance companies know if they don't pay what we want we are ready and willing to litigate every case.

The last step of this process is the trial itself. If your lawyer is not prepared to try the case they will continue to delay it in the hopes of reaching a settlement. If the lawyer cannot settle the case they will often refer the case to another law firm to try it. Many lawyers and law firms refer their cases for trial to Subin Associates. This switching of law firms adds additional delay. We believe it is better for the client to retain us initially as we process the case faster and more completely than non-trial related firms.

How long should my New York personal injury case take?

How long should my New York personal injury case take?

I am frequently asked this question by new clients so I am embarking on a series of blogs to explain the components of a personal injury case and why some cases take longer than others.

Here is an overview of the factors that effect the length of a personal injury case in New York.

1.The lawyer’s roll

2.The stages of a case

3.Where the case is brought

4.Who is being sued

5.The client’s roll

6.The judge’s roll

7.The need for additional parties

Please check in regularly as I update this blog.

We never quit until we deliver!

Perseverance leads to huge recovery for accident victim. JG our client was involved in a car accident on September 22, 2003. The driver of the truck that struck JG denied any contact with her car. JG retained personal injury lawyers, Subin Associates, to represent her for the injuries she sustained in this accident. Subin Associates commenced a lawsuit and served the driver of the truck and notified his insurance company. When the time expired for the defendant truck driver to answer Subin Associates made an application in court to win the case based upon the defendant’s failure to respond called a default. After this default application was made and submitted to the judge, lawyers representing the truck driver’s insurance company wrote a letter to the judge basically stating they did not want to be in default. We objected, as the defendant lawyers did not follow the legal rules relating to answering the complaint or opposing our application. Despite our objections the judge denied our motion and let the truck driver put in a late answer and defend our lawsuit.

As we were prosecuting JG’s lawsuit we also filed an appeal stating that the judge made a legal mistake in allowing defendant to defend the lawsuit. Our appeal was heard by the higher court and agreed with us and reversed the decision of the judge who allowed the truck driver to put in a late answer. This meant that JG would win the case. This was just the beginning.

About two months after the appeals court ruling the insurance carrier for the truck driver disclaimed coverage and stopped paying the truck driver’s lawyer. As there was no attorney opposing us we made another application to the judge for a default and this motion was granted. Then a trial on the amount of damages was held and the judge awarded our client over $1,000,000! Now we had this big judgment but no deep pocket to pay it because the insurance company disclaimed coverage.

Our next step was to start an action against JG’s own insurance company for uninsured motorists coverage this is coverage that protects people from being left with no recovery when they are injured by a vehicle with no or too little liability coverage). When we did this we knew the truck driver’s insurance company would have to show that their disclaimer was legally valid (we didn’t believe the disclaimer was valid).
This second action was an entirely new lawsuit to determine which insurance should apply JG’s $100,000 policy or the truck driver’s $1,000,000 policy. This new lawsuit had the same parties except this time the insurance companies for both drivers were parties to the lawsuit. This second lawsuit resulted in another trial in which the judge determined that the insurance company for the truck driver did not disclaim properly and that they were responsible to pay the $1,000,000 judgment. Despite this decision the insurance company refused to pay and appealed the ruling in this second lawsuit.
During the appeal of lawsuit number two, we started a third lawsuit against the insurance company for the truck driver. This third lawsuit was to allow us to get original judgment against the truck driver converted to be directly against the truck driver’s insurance company so we could collect the full amount from that carrier. We litigated this third lawsuit against a new law firm that specializes in these types of cases that are very rare. The lead lawyer for the insurance company swore we would never collect a penny for our client from the truck driver’s carrier. After much fighting we won this lawsuit too and now had a judgment against the truck driver’s insurance carrier. The insurance company continued to refuse to pay and appealed this decision also.
After three complete lawsuits and two appeals we hired the New York State Sheriff to go collect our client’s money. Unfortunately, this insurance carrier was a European Company and had no assets in New York.
After reading our Appellate papers the attorneys for the insurance carrier contacted us and agreed to pay JG on the judgment.