Many motorcycle accident survivors like you find that the cost of essential repairs and medical care starts rolling in within days, if not hours, of their initial crash. If you don’t have an emergency fund tucked away, or if your losses are particularly severe, you can take on debt at a terrifying and even paralyzing rate.
How are you supposed to recover from your personal injuries, let alone these bills? When in doubt, call on an Indiana motorcycle accident lawyer to help you negotiate a motorcycle settlement. Vaughan & Vaughan can connect you with representatives who can defend your right to support.
How long should you expect to take when settling a motorcycle accident claim? That depends on the nature of your accident and what help you have bringing settlement negotiations to a satisfying conclusion.
Preparing to Settle a Motorcycle Accident Claim
Before negotiating a motorcycle accident settlement, you must file a personal injury with Indiana’s civil courts. It’s that claim and the court’s approval thereof that gives you the right to summon a liable party for private negotiations.
When building a motorcycle accident claim, you need to address:
- The negligence that caused your accident
- What evidence you have identifying a liable party
- The value of your motorcycle accident losses
- What data you have establishing the value of your case
You cannot submit a motorcycle accident claim to Indiana’s civil courts without this information. What’s more, you need to get the complaint to Indiana’s civil judges within the state’s statute of limitations. If you don’t submit your complaint in time, the court may dismiss your right to both private negotiations and a civil trial.
Indiana Code section 34-11-2-4, the state’s statute of limitations, gives you until your accident’s second anniversary to act on your losses.
Factors that Contribute to the Length of Settlement Negotiations
As mentioned, each motorcycle case has a range of unique factors that contribute to the length of settlement negotiations. Those factors include:
Evidence of Fault
You have an obligation to bring evidence of a liable party’s fault forward if you want to negotiate for a motorcycle accident settlement. This means that both you and an attorney need to gather that data before scheduling a date to begin negotiations. The process of investigating your accident scene can take a lot of time, particularly if most of the evidence gets cleared away.
Fortunately, our team can reach out to our professional network for help establishing your right to motorcycle accident compensation. We can request documentation of your losses from medical professionals as well as a police report detailing the precinct’s opinions about accident fault. We can even call on accident recreationists and other experts to build your case.
The Nature of the Injured Party’s Losses
The more severe your losses are, the longer it will take to resolve your motorcycle accident claim. The reason for this is two-fold. To start, Vaughan & Vaughan wants you to prioritize your recovery. This means that we will give you the space you need to visit your general practitioner and recovery specialists so you can restore your previous quality of life.
What’s more, it can take time to gather the evidence needed to establish the value of all of your losses. A motorcycle accident entitles you, after all, to both economic and non-economic recovery. This means that our team needs to dutifully determine which losses you qualify for and how the state allows you to value them.
Accusations of Shared Fault
There is a chance that the party liable for your accident may accuse you of contributing to your own losses. Indiana allows the liable party to do so. If you and the liable party can’t agree on a distribution of fault, you may have to take your case to court. Indiana’s courts may then assign you fault for your accident under the state’s understanding of comparative negligence.
The Indiana Comparative Fault Act states that so long as you are less than 51 percent liable for your losses, you can continue to pursue legal action in Indiana’s civil courts. That said, the courts will deduct a percentage of your eventual settlement equal to the amount of fault you take on in a trial.
You can avoid having to contend with Indiana’s Comparative Fault Act if you settle your motorcycle accident claim in private negotiations. That said, disagreements about fault can delay the decision-making process and even motivate a liable party to take your case before a judge.
You can discuss this process in more detail with an Indiana motorcycle accident lawyer should the need to do so arise.
The Liable Party’s Attitude
Unfortunately, not every liable party gracefully accepts fault for a motorcycle accident. The party you accuse of causing your accident may prove belligerent and even obstructive when you initiate negotiations. That attitude can delay the rate at which you receive a settlement and may even drive you out of negotiations and into court.
The good news is that you can have an attorney on hand to mediate negotiations for you. While an attorney can’t change a liable party’s personality, they can enforce an air of professionalism and protect you from saying anything that might minimize or even compromise your right to compensation.
An Attorney Can Walk You Through Your Motorcycle Accident Settlement Negotiations
Indiana allows motorcycle accident survivors like you to represent your best interests in private negotiations. You can even fill out a personal injury claim without help. That said, doing so may see you make mistakes that either compromise your right to a case entirely or deny you some forms of compensation that you might otherwise deserve.
It’s with those risks in mind that we recommend meeting with an Indiana motorcycle accident lawyer. Vaughan & Vaughan does not make you commit to legal action after a single case consultation. In fact, our first case evaluation comes free of charge as we help you evaluate your losses and your next best steps.
Our attorneys do not claim to know exactly how long it will take to settle your motorcycle accident claim. Instead, we assess your case’s unique factors and can estimate your timeline. That said, we can keep you abreast of changes in that timeline while striking a balance between your need for immediate financial help and your opportunity to maximize your compensation.
Let’s Schedule Your Motorcycle Accident Case Consultation Today
No two motorcycle accident claims take the same amount of time to settle. Your case is rife with unique factors, all of which an attorney must consider when estimating your case’s timeline. If an attorney tells you that they can resolve your case in a set period, it may be time for you to look for alternative representation.
Fortunately, the motorcycle accident lawyers with Vaughan & Vaughan understand that every case is unique. When you bring your troubles to our firm, you can trust us to give your losses individualized attention.
Come learn more about our services today in a free motorcycle accident case consultation. You can contact us online or by phone to schedule your appointment.
