The personal injury lawyers at Schiller & Hamilton Law Firm in South Carolina educate you on how long auto accidents take to be resolved. Watch the video below to get your questions answered.
How Long do Auto Accidents Take to Be Resolved in South Carolina?
The attorneys at Schiller & Hamilton explained that it can vary from two to three months to over three or four years. It depends on the nature of the injuries, the length of recovery, what treatment is going to be required, the county where the case must be filed, and so on. In some cases, liability may be in dispute and a suit needs to be filed. Once someone has recovered from their injuries and they have reached maximum medical improvement at that point the extent of damages is known. A demand can be made to the other party’s insurance company for settlement.
Prior to that time, it is very difficult to calculate what the damages are until it is known what treatment will be required and what treatment is completed. Therefore the length of time it takes to get a claim resolved largely depends on the nature and the extent of the injuries and the length of treatment. Typically after filing a lawsuit, before you can get on the trial roster the case enters a period called discovery. That period is essentially for one year.
During that time there is a mandatory mediation, in which both parties are required to mediate the case and try to get it resolved. If it does not resolve then it gets put on the trial roster. At that point, it could take anywhere from a year to 18 months to work its way up to trial. Therefore it could be a long process but the sooner an attorney gets involved the shorter that process should take.
That is why it is important to make sure that when an accident occurs and you are not at fault, to hire proper legal counsel. Talk with an attorney because every case is different. Every case is going to take a different amount of time and require different types of work to be done, but the sooner you get a lawyer involved the better.
For a free phone consultation contact Schiller & Hamilton in South Carolina today.