How Long Does a Personal Injury Case Take in San Diego?
I always get asked, "how long will my San Diego personal injury case take?"
My answer: It all depends on the types of injuries you sustained and how long your body will need to heal. Other factors apply as well, such as what type of injury-producing event caused your injuries? Was it a car collision, bicycle crash, slip and fall, dog bite, or pedestrian accident? The biomechanics of each of those injury-producing events are different.
The way biomechanical forces to cause injury that were applied to your body also affects how you were injured and how long it will take for your body to heal. For example, falling 16 feet to concrete from a defective ladder will injure you much more differently than if you were injured in a rear-end wreck where the other vehicle was traveling at 30 mph.
When you complete your medical care from an injury-producing event, you need to calculate the time your lawyer will need to get all of your medical records, and the time it will take your lawyer to draft your settlement demand package, mail it to the insurance company, and then give the insurance time to review before entering into settlement negotiations. This time needs to be added to the time it takes for your body to recover from the injury-producing event.
In this video, I generally explain the different types of injuries you typically see from a car collision injury by using a cascading effect of injuries from the most minor to the most severe. Typically, a muscle sprain injury is the less severe injury a person can receive and is the most common type of injury in a car collision.
Different Types of Injuries
It is also known as "whiplash" or "soft tissue injury." When it comes to these types of injuries, the way you were seated at the time of the collision can make a difference in your recovery time. For example, were you looking to the right or left when you were hit? If you were, that "load" or "tension" in your neck can make your injuries worse. That is why the insurance companies will scrutinize how you were seated at the time of the collision.
Sometimes a "whiplash" injury can get worse by the injury going beyond muscle to bone, ligament or nerve. If this occurs, then your recovery time will be extended. If a typical "whiplash" injury case takes 2-4 months to heal, an injury affecting a ligament or nerve can easily more than double that recovery time. In order to prove this has occurred, an extension X-ray or MRI will need to be utilized to either rule in ligament interference or the like. So timeframes of your case would be affected.
Did you have any pre-existing injuries or medical conditions that were affected in the injury-producing event? If so, those factors can and will affect your recovery time. Sometimes these factors are overlooked, but they are very important. If you had a medical condition that was aggravated by an at-fault party, the aggravated injuries become part of your overall injury claim.
If, after about 8 months of medical care, and you still have discomfort or symptoms, then pain management analysis will come into your medical protocol. You might get prescribed injections from cortisone to epidurals. This can easily extend your medical care past one year. If pain management therapy fails, then you would be considered a surgical candidate. The analysis then goes into what type of surgical candidate will you be?
Are you going to be needing a decompression back surgery, or a full fusion surgery? This will also affect your recovery time as those surgeries are different, and you need to factor in post-surgery physical therapy (PT). You need to consult an experienced injury lawyer as he or she will know how long your case will generally take, depending on what type of injuries you sustained.
If you found this post helpful, but still have questions, then consider reaching out to me directly. You can call me anytime at 619.813.7955 as I take questions like yours each and every day, and I would be more than happy to see if I can help you. Stay strong, Attorney Mark
