Medical Care & Liability Confirmation Matter in California
It is in your best legal interest to never wait too long to speak with an experienced San Diego personal injury lawyer after you have been injured by someone else. First of all, you need to both secure your medical care effectively and confirm liability (fault) of the other person(s) on a solid legal foundation. If you procrastinate on either, you unwillingly affect your injury case as a whole negatively. This is why speaking to an injury lawyer early on in the case, can place both of those foundations on "solid ground."
I cannot tell you how many times a year I get a call from someone who has a case, and everything sounds good, but then they tell me their two-year statute of limitations is up in three weeks! The problem is it is very difficult for a lawyer to find out what this person was doing in the past 23 months with both their medical care, and liability, in one phone call. It becomes risky for the lawyer to "jump into" the case blindly on the 23rd month. There are rare exceptions to this, but in general, it is a bad idea to wait until the last minute to start calling lawyers about your particular injury case.
Statue of Limitations Matter
Another reason to call an injury lawyer early on is to secure all liable (at-fault) persons early on in your case. For example, did you know that you may have been injured by a government entity that carries a six-month statute of limitations of filing your injury claim as opposed to the normal two-year statute? If you wait to speak to a lawyer after six months beyond the injury date, and you did not properly file a government claim, you have just unwillingly lost your legal right to bring a monetary legal claim for bodily injury against that government entity!
A good example of this is a typical car crash case where the at-fault vehicle is a state, county or city vehicle. However, the vehicle does not "look like" a government vehicle. I have had people call me up in the past with this exact situation happening to them, and sadly there is nothing that can be done. This is just another reason not to procrastinate in speaking with an experienced personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.
Prompt & Consistent Medical Care Matters
The longer you wait to obtain medical care impacts your case negatively in many different ways. Remember, the insurance company does not hold your best interest first, so they will use ways to devalue your injury case whenever possible. One way they attack your injury case value is by scrutinizing your medical care. Whenever they detect that you missed medical visits, or had what they call "large gaps" in your medical care, they will argue that you must have not been that injured; or worse, they will start saying you must of injured yourself doing something else in those gap periods. This is why procrastinating on your medical care is a bad idea.
Also, you don't want to begin medical care, only to stop, wait a while, and then start up again. This too looks odd and the insurance company can argue later that you did not have "consistent medical care" which means you must not have been that injured, etc. Don't help the insurance company devalue your injury case by not obtaining prompt and consistent medical care. If the medical care matters to you, which it should, it will matter to a jury later if your case goes that far.
Well, I hope I have given you some insight as to why procrastination in your personal injury case is never going to help you later in your injury case.
