Your Injury Case Isn’t Over Even If It Seems Over

Whether it comes in the form of a settlement, or at the end of a full blown contested trial that, hopefully, has ended with adequate compensation for your losses and injuries, either way, it means that your personal injury case is finally over.

Or is it?

Although settlements and verdicts seem to signal the end of a long journey, what many injury victims aren’t aware of, is that these milestones often are not the end of the case, or of the road to get the compensation that you need.

That’s because there are a number of steps and hurdles to overcome, before your case can be considered truly over.

Post Trial Motions

Courts do provide parties that lose cases the chance to file post trial motions. Some of these motions allow a Defendant to request that the court lower the amount of the jury verdict, and some ask the court to completely throw out the jury’s verdict. While these motions are rarely successful, they nonetheless need to be defended against, and can take time to resolve.

Settlement Agreements

If you settle your case, you don’t have to worry about a post trial motion, but you still will need to negotiate your settlement agreement, which may contain non-monetary terms and conditions that you may not want to agree on. Hammering out the details of the written settlement agreement may take some time, just as negotiating any contract does.

What About an Appeal?

If you did have a trial, and you won the case, and perhaps even won the Defendant’s post-trial attempts to vacate or lower the verdict, you still aren’t done, because the Defendant can still appeal your case.

It is true that the larger the verdict, the more likely it is that a Defendant appeals, but that isn’t always the case. There is no way to know if a Defendant will opt to appeal their loss in trial, but Defendants do have time, usually between a few weeks to a month, to actually file their appeal.

If they do, your attorney will need to preserve your verdict by defending against the appeal. A full blown appeal from start to finish can add months to even a year before you ever see funds from the jury verdict, although you can always opt to settle your case, while the appeal is pending.

Negotiating Liens

If you settled your case, and even agreed on a settlement agreement, you still aren’t done. Your injury attorney may need to negotiate liens that medical providers, healthcare companies, or even the government through Medicare or public hospitals, may have.

The less you owe these entities the more of your settlement you get. So, while it takes time, it is in your best interest to allow your attorney the time needed to try to lower these entities’ claims on your settlement money as much as possible.

Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 today for help with your injury case, from start to the very end.

Sources:

cms.gov/medicare/coordination-benefits-recovery/beneficiary-services/recovery-process

uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/types-cases/appeals