IN INJURY SETTLEMENTS, UNLIKE JURY VERDICTS, IT’S OVER WHEN IT’S OVER

Even though the Coronavirus scare has kept jury trials on hold (as my partner Mary Beth Ramey explained in our Ramey & Hailey blog post last week), the process of investigating and pursuing personal injury lawsuits certainly has not. We are as busy as ever, using written and emailed correspondence and online resources deposing witnesses, planning strategy, and helping victims and their family members get the financial resources needed for rebuilding their lives.

Although often it’s the big jury trials that make for headline stories, we emphasized that only a tiny portion of personal injury cases ever reach the stage of a jury trial. The rest are settled out of court. One of the main reasons, we went on to explain, is that the process simply takes so long that litigants want to reach a settlement and “have over with it”.

But there’s an even more important reason that you might be better off with a settlement than a jury verdict, and that’s the point I want to emphasize today. As New York- based Jesse Minc Law Group points out, even after a jury has reached a verdict awarding a sum of money to the plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit, things aren’t over. In fact, Minc explains,“while past-trial motions and appeals are pending, the defendants do not have to pay any compensation no matter how much was awarded by the jury.”

In contrast, although delays can happen, most injured victims receive their settlement funds within about six weeks from the end of negotiations! (Compare that to the years it might take to receive compensation if a jury verdict is challenged.)

You can see why, with more than forty years’ experience with personal injury cases, at Ramey & Hailey we are urging those considering filing personal injury claims not to concern themselves with the headlines about jury trials being on temporary hold.

Jury trials may be on hold, but personal injury lawsuits are certainly not. Let’s talk.