The Length of Time to Settle Your Case May Not Affect the Award
Transcript:
Hi, my name is Jared Richards. One of our readers has asked, does the amount of time taken to settle a personal injury claim have any bearing on the amount of money that I should expect? The answer is maybe. The two can be related, but there are a lot of factors. Although the factors are related, they do not necessarily control either side.
The amount of money you should expect in a settlement should hopefully be the fair amount of money. That’s determined by the nature of the injury, the size of the injury, how much you’ve actually lost, whether it is in medical bills or whether it’s in lost wages, or whether it’s just in the value and enjoyment of your life.
However, if there isn’t much insurance to go after, then sometimes a quick settlement will give the entire insurance policy, but it’s still not going to be very much money, or it may be only a fraction of the true value of your claim. Sometimes really complex injuries take years to resolve. Those can be very significant claims because they’ve had a significant effect on your life.
There are times, however, when the two sides are close together but they can never see eye to eye. The plaintiff and the defendant … just their offers are close but not close enough. Litigation goes on for a long time in that case. You might take years to settle and not actually receive anything more than you would have a year or two before. It’s just the two sides can’t see eye to eye.
While the length of time to settle can be related to the size of the settlement, taking more time does not necessarily in every case mean that you’re going to get more money. You should talk to your attorney about this, and you should talk to them about the length of the litigation and whether you should perhaps compromise some value of your claim in order to settle it quickly, or you should really take the long haul and go for every penny of the true value of your claim even though it might take a long time.
That’s something that you need to decide with your attorney. Anyway, if you have any questions, give us a call. We’re happy to help.