If you have faced injury at the hands of someone else due to their negligence, recklessness, or inaction, then your case false under a personal injury claim. You can claim personal injury if you have been a victim of any kind of accident, medical malpractice, defective products, nursing home abuse, or worker’s compensation.
Personal injury lawsuits have a statute of limitations that varies across all states of the United States of America. You should both keep yourself aware, as well as hire an expert of personal injury law if you are looking to file a claim. Here are a few things you can read about to get started.
Statute of Limitations
Statute of limitations refers to the period in which the plaintiff has to file for damages. You should file your personal injury claim in a timely fashion, to uphold the validity of your claim.
Usually, you will find that the statute of limitations extends from a period of one year to three years. However, there are exceptions to this rule. One is if you are looking to file a claim against the government. In this case, you are typically expected to file your claim within 30 days to a year from the time of injury.
The statute of limitations generally begins from the time of the injury. However, for some medical malpractice cases, you may not identify the malpractice as a reason for your injury right away. It sometimes takes weeks or even years to link the symptoms of injury to the medical procedure. In such cases, the statute of limitations begins from the time the cause of the injury is identified.
Filing a Lawsuit for Personal Injury
You must be able to prove that the person you are filing against for personal injury is guilty of the action before you file your claim. Without proof, you will not be able to establish that the defending part had some legal responsibility to you that was not met, which is the basis of personal injury claims. You can only file claims against people who have injured you; for example, you cannot charge a doctor with medical malpractice if they have never treated you.
When you are filing a claim, there are a few ways in which you can establish personal injury.
Negligence is when the defendant failed to prevent you from suffering the injury, and therefore is legally responsible for causing it.
Strict Liability applies to situations when you have been sold a faulty product and suffer injuries due to it.
Intentional Wrong is when someone purposely causes you either physical, emotional, or mental harm.
How can filing a personal injury lawsuit help?
Once you file your suit within the statute of limitations, you will be entitled to some form of damages. This means that the defendant could be punished or you could receive monetary compensation. The type of damages you will receive depends on the type of crime, but be sure to consult a lawyer to have a clearer picture of what you are entitled to!