Steps To Take When Filing A Personal Injury Lawsuit

If an insurance company has failed to make a decent offer during the negotiations, a claimant has the right to file a personal injury lawsuit. Still, not all claimants understand how to undertake the completion of a such an action.

The first step: Filing papers with the court

Prepare a complaint/petition. It should state the basis for the lawsuit. In addition, it should identify the court in which the complaint/petition is being filed.The court will want to see mention of the legal theories behind each allegation. One piece of information should be of interest to the defendant; that is the amount of money sought by the author of the complaint, the plaintiff.

The plaintiff may need to file a summons. That is a document for the defendant. It should explain why the defendant is being sued. Personal Injury Lawyer in Barrie is prepared to pay a filing fee. It could fall between $100 and $400.

Get copies of all the documents, before filing them with the court.

Serve those copies on the defendant. The court usually asks that the defendant be served those copies no more than 30 days after the filing of the complaint/petition. Still, if you have a lawyer, you can request an extension of that time.

Get all the documents filed before the deadline, which has been stated in the statute of limitations. Understand, though, that the court appreciates the fact that a claimant might need to wait for all of those that were involved in the accident to obtain the final opinion from their treating physician. Consequently, the court can arrange for the filing of alternate documents.

A waiting period follows the filing of the documents and the serving of papers on the defendant.

At this point the plaintiff must wait for the defendant’s response. Ideally, the defendant chooses to acknowledge the basis for the lawsuit. That would mean that the court could schedule the next procedure, which would be a discovery session.

Still, the defendant has the right to question the soundness of the allegations made by the plaintiff. When defendants feel that the plaintiff has failed to present a sound reason for filing a lawsuit, then their belief gives them reason to file a motion to dismiss the case.

That motion gets filed with the court that received the plaintiff’s complaint/petition. The judge in charge of the case must study the defendant’s motion. If the judge agrees with the points made in the motion, then the process that was initiated by the filing of a lawsuit comes to an end.

Still, the judge might not agree with the defendant’s argument. When that proves to be the case, then the process moves forward, and a discovery session is scheduled.