How Long Could My Miami Truck Accident Case Take to Settle or Resolve?
If you rush, you might get less than you need for your future care or lost income. It helps to know what can impact how long your case takes and why a bit of patience during the process can help you find real relief and not just a quick payout.
What affects the timeline of a Miami truck case?
People often want to know how long a truck crash lawsuit will take. There’s no simple answer because all cases are different. However, there are some common factors across all cases that can affect the timeline. Some of them include:
Liability. Who is at fault? Does the insurance company agree?
Some truck accidents are very straightforward. If a semi-truck rear-ends your car at a red light, the other side usually admits liability early. That speeds things up since there’s no fight about who caused the crash. Unfortunately, not all cases are this simple. Many of these accidents involve more than two vehicles, or more than one party is at fault. If insurance companies have to argue over who was at fault, this can extend the case.
Injuries and medical treatment. Are you at your maximum medical improvement (MMI)?
Settlement talks don’t usually start until you either heal or reach “maximum medical improvement” (MMI). This means your medical team believes you are as recovered as you’re likely to get. Until that point, it’s tough to know how bad injuries are or predict the long-term care you might need. This means the more severe your injuries are, the longer the case could take.
You deserve to get the best, highest offer you can. Don’t ever take a quick, cheap settlement unless the insurance company tenders or offers all of the insurance coverage. And you have to be sure that is all there is. It’s essential to be patient and ensure you get the damages you need for the future, or you’ll end up short-changing yourself.
Insurance layers. What insurance is out there?
Trucking companies rarely hold just one insurance policy. Coverage can come from the truck driver, the trucking company, the trailer’s owner, and sometimes others. There might even be uninsured or underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage involved.
Determining which insurer pays what amount and in what order adds to the complexity of the case. If these parties don’t communicate well with each other or if there are disagreements about fault, this can significantly extend how long your case takes.
Insurance policy limits
If you were seriously injured and your damages far exceed any available insurance coverage, it will be more difficult to get what you deserve. In these cases, you may have to take the case to court and fight for it.
On the other hand, if there is clearly enough insurance to pay for your losses, a settlement can happen much faster.
Where is the evidence? Does the truck have cameras? Does the truck have electronic data?
Truck accidents can involve a lot of evidence, like black box or Electronic Data Recorder (EDR) data, GPS data, cell phone data, dashcam footage, driver logs, maintenance records, and bills of lading (which trace what cargo was being hauled and for whom). Sometimes, we have to fight to get all of this data. Sometimes, that takes time.
More evidence generally means your lawyer has to take time to put it all together to make sure you get the right amount of damages.
Example of a typical timeline for a truck accident case
While there’s no set timeline for a truck accident case, there are similarities across cases. Below is an example of what a truck accident claim could look like and how long each step might take.
Immediate steps – up to two weeks
The first thing to do after a truck accident is to seek medical help and notify your insurance company. You’ll also want to reach out to a personal injury lawyer and schedule a free consultation so you can discuss your case with them. A realistic timeline for these steps is a few weeks.
Collecting evidence – weeks to months
After you speak with a lawyer and decide to move forward with a claim, they need to focus on collecting evidence to build your case. This could include the police report, dashcam footage, electronic logging device information, maintenance records, the drivers’ backgrounds, and anything else to help them determine fault. Depending on how much evidence is available and how cooperative the parties are, this could take a few weeks or a few months.
Negotiation
Once your lawyer obtains evidence and you are in a place with your health where you think you know what your recovery will look like, negotiations can begin. Your lawyer can present some of the evidence to the insurance company, showing them your current and future damages and demanding an amount that seems fair to you.
The insurance company can respond by agreeing to the demand, countering the demand, or simply refusing your request. If the insurance company is willing to take responsibility and pay what’s fair, this could take just a couple of months. If there’s a lot of back and forth, it could take significantly longer.
Litigation
Most truck accident claims settle out of court, but not all of them. If there’s no settlement, you and your lawyer will decide if you want to take the case to trial. If you do, there are a lot of steps that take place, including discovery, pre-trial motions, settlement conferences, and sometimes mediation. It could be more than a year before you even get to trial.
Ultimately, your case could be resolved within months or up to a few years, but it depends on a lot of different factors. Just remember that your patience can pay off.
Having the right lawyer can make this entire process much quicker and easier. Hickey Law Firm will do everything possible to quickly secure the amount of compensation you deserve. We have decades of legal experience and have helped accident victims recover more than $100 million for injuries like yours. If you’ve been involved in a truck accident and want help moving forward, contact us now to schedule a free consultation.
Attorney John H. (Jack) Hickey and his team handle a wide range of cases, including but not limited to cruise ship accidents, admiralty and maritime accident cases, medical malpractice, wrongful death, premises liability, railroad accidents and car accidents. We represent victims from all over the nation, the world and the state of Florida.
Read more about how Jack Hickey can help you.