Injured? You Deserve Compensation
This article is by Bradley Wallace, director of marketing at Zooomr – a new tech startup that helps consumers get amazing deals on New Delhi used cars and ends car leases early. When you are involved in an accident, one of the biggest questions you have is how long you have to file a lawsuit if you want to recover any compensation for your injuries. It’s a tough situation in which to find yourself, because you do have much on your mind. When an accident occurs, you’re not expecting it to occur. You don’t leave your house prepared to make decisions regarding an accident, and you’re not thinking you’ll end the day with injuries that might change your life now or forever. It’s an accident, which means no one intended for it to happen. You’re unprepared, you have a lot to consider, and hiring an attorney to file a lawsuit is not the first thing on your mind.
First Things First
When you’re involved in an accident, the first thing you must do is call the police. They’ll come to the scene of the accident to create a police report. if you don’t have this, you might not even be able to file a lawsuit to recover compensation. The other driver who caused the accident might decide to deny ever being involved in the accident if there is no proof he or she was even involved or at-fault. You need the police report, and you need it now. Call them, ask them to come, and let them do their job.
Once they are finished, you must see the doctor. Sometimes you walk away from an accident with the assumption you’re just fine, but you’re not. You have injuries you cannot see, and that is never a good thing. While not all invisible injuries are life-threatening or overly dangerous, many are. If you leave them without medical attention, they get worse. This means you could be looking at a life of medical problems, health issues, and you might find your problems only grow from this point forward.
Lost Wages and Life Changing Injuries
Not all accidents are followed with life-changing injury diagnosis from the doctor. Many injuries heal easily and in no time at all, and others take much longer. If you are someone who has an injury that causes you to lose out on a paycheck, you might want to think about your financial future. Your injuries might require you spend time in the hospital, you might incur medical bills far more than you can afford to pay even with your health insurance as a backup, and you might find you have no choice but to forgo a paycheck.
Your boss is not legally permitted to fire you for being injured and unable to work while you recover, but he or she can make the determination to withhold your paycheck during this time. Now you’re left with medical bills and lost wages, and your financial situation could quickly become dire. If this is your reality, you’re going to find you have no idea what to do next.
Call An Attorney
If your injuries are bad enough you cannot function, you need to call a personal injury attorney. This is a person who will tell you what rights you have, what you can do, and what compensation you might be entitled to when you’re injured because someone else was driving negligently. It’s not always a quick process, but you will find out what kind of future you’re looking forward to if you file a lawsuit.
As far as the time line, it’s best to call an attorney as quickly as possible. There is no simple answer to how long you have to file a lawsuit against a driver who caused an accident. It depends on where you live, whether the accident was caused by a civilian, or whether it was caused by a government employee on the job at the time of the accident. The law differs in every state and in every situation.
While most people have many years to file a lawsuit, there are situations in which you have only months to file a lawsuit, or you don’t even have that long. It’s best to call an attorney to find out what rights you have right away. It’s not the first thing on your mind, but don’t let it sit for too long without taking action.
The Process
Once you make the decision to hire an attorney, you’ll want to know what to expect. Every case is different, and it helps to know what to expect from the start. The timeline for which you have to file a lawsuit differs in every state and circumstance, but the timeline in which the lawsuit might drag on is never easy to tell. Sometimes it’s quick when the at-fault driver’s insurance company wants nothing more to do than settle quickly. Sometimes it takes a long time when the case goes to court, and you never know what you might expect.
There is nothing wrong with waiting until you’ve seen the doctor and had time to process what’s happened to you to call an attorney. Just don’t wait too long or you might find you cannot sue the other driver for compensation to help you recover your lost wages, your medical bills, and other damages associated with your accident. You have rights, but it’s imperative you understand your rights expire at a different time in every state.
