Personal Injury Settlement Timeline

Answer:

One question we always receive from clients is how long it will take to resolve their personal injury case. The answer is that it can vary greatly. In smaller car wreck cases, where the client heals from his or her injuries and it’s not a significant life-changing case, those claims can often be resolved fairly quickly. If you have a medical malpractice or negligent security case, those cases can often go on for three to five years. What’s important to note is that until you have fully healed from your injuries, you can’t go about pursuing your case.

The statute of limitations for a personal injury claim in Georgia is two years from the date of the incident. If you have a car wreck or you have a negligent security issue, you have two years from that date to file a lawsuit. In that time, you will be treating for your injuries and going through the process of recovery. With a car wreck case, if you take four months to heal from your injuries, then, at that point, we can go ahead and submit a demand and try to get the claim settled before having to file a lawsuit. If the claim won’t settle before we file a lawsuit, then we must litigate and work that through the system. From the point that we file a lawsuit, it’s generally – for more minor claims – six months to a year before we can get a resolution to the claim. On claims that involve significant injuries, the person may treat for two years with their doctors and not be able to get better, and we need to make sure that they’ve gotten as much treatment as possible before we file a lawsuit. Those cases often get filed close to the end of that two-year period. Once those types of case are filed, they usually take a lot longer in litigation. They can take two to three years on their own. From the date of the injury, those cases can often last somewhere from two to five years.