For a personal injury claim to be valid and legal, it has to be made within the statute of limitations according to whichever state you live in. The length of time between the different authorities varies, but what remains the same is that you have to act within the stipulated period or else risk forfeiting your right to file at all. So, if an accident takes place, and you feel the need to seek compensation through a personal injury claim, here is some valuable advice about the Statute of Limitations.
The Statute of Limitations: In Detail
The statute of limitations is a set period in which a claimant can bring forward a motion to file for a suit against the perceived perpetrator. Anything filed once this has passed becomes invalid and will be dismissed by a judge in the official courts. Any and all legal proceedings must be made within this timeframe, and it is essential to know when this is for your area to be able to act accordingly.
Why Does it Exist?
The statute of limitations was put into motion to protect a case from all of the following factors.
Lost Evidence
While evidence may be essential in any personal injury case, it can always get lost along the way. Things like medical records will be important at some point in the process, but there is no way of telling whether a medical institute will be able to provide the goods when the time comes. The bigger the distance between the incident, treatment, and claim being filed, the more opportunity there is for administration and human errors leading to a loss of crucial evidence.
False Memories
When there are multiple participants at play, there are an increased number of victims and witnesses. Therefore, if these take too long to come forward between the time of the incident and making a claim, there is a bigger chance that memories will become false and hazy. The statute of limitations avoids this by insisting claims are made within enough time since the accident so that everything is fresh in the mind.
To Mitigate Invalid Time Frames
It makes sense to file a claim close to the event in question. It makes less sense to wait over a year, for example, to start the process because everyone involved will be asking why you waited so long. This law means that you have to act within a considerate timeframe so that the process remains fair across the board. A winter car crash ignored for a year, for example, will never be taken seriously because twelve months is a long time when it comes to ascertaining damages and the extent of injuries.
A Matter of Fairness
In principle, it is not fair to hold someone accountable after a certain amount of time for something that happened years ago. That is why the limit exists as well, to make sure people are not being dragged over hot coals for incidents that occurred ten years ago when they’ve started to move on with their life.
The statute of limitations exists for a clear purpose, but it is worth remembering that there is a difference between each state.
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