Answer:
We’ve had a lot of success pursuing cases on behalf of victims involved in trucking cases, cases involving 18-wheelers or tractor trailers or other commercial vehicles, where our clients or a family member have been injured or killed. A question that gets asked a lot in those types of cases is how long a typical tractor trailer or commercial trucking case takes to bring to conclusion. The reality is there’s no simple, one-size-fits-all answer to that. The length of time that a case like that will take has a lot to do with just how complex a case it is, and that’s going to depend on the types of injuries that are involved.
For instance, not to be macabre, but a case where a person was killed on the scene in an accident that was caused by a tractor trailer, there’s no ongoing medical treatment in that situation. The damages are done, it’s over with. Typically, oddly enough, a death case is a case that frequently can be taken to conclusion faster than a case of, say, someone who was injured who is now paralyzed or someone who is hospitalized for a long period of time who’s having to go through extensive rehab and physical therapy and is impacted for the rest of their life by that event. Those cases are most likely going to take longer.
In all likelihood, it’s probably going to take two to three years to work to conclusion. This is because you ideally want the victim to get to a point of maximum medical recovery, they’ve improved as much as is possible under medical treatment. It’s only at that point that you get a sense of what their needs are moving forward, including what type of ongoing treatment they might need and what impact those injuries will have on their life moving forward. Once you know those answers, it still takes a little bit of time to work the claim through the system and before you can get an appropriate verdict and/or settlement.
The time period that a tractor trailer case takes to resolve, here in Mississippi or any other state for that matter, again, is just going to depend on the complexity of the case itself, and that is largely dependent on what type of injuries we’re dealing with, what type of long-term impact on the victim we’re dealing with and, also, just the circumstances of the event itself. Some crashes are straightforward; some require more extensive study in terms of building a reconstruction of the event itself.
Regardless, the most important thing is that you have competent, experienced, knowledgeable legal help throughout that process. That’s why it’s so important to have an attorney, especially in these tractor trailer or commercial vehicle cases. You want an attorney involved early on in your case, who can work the case up the appropriate way so that the case is in the best position to get resolved once you’re at the point where it should be moving forward. Only people who have worked extensively in personal injury and trial lawyers with actual experience in tractor trailer cases are going to be in the best position to do that and to get you fair value for those types of claims.
If you have a tractor trailer claim, where you or someone you love has been injured or someone you love has been killed, the Brad Morris Law Firm is available for a free consultation on those claims. We’ll do our best to answer this question and others that you may have about it. I hope this answers at least some of your questions here today.
