A construction worker is injured on the job site and there are both short-term and long-term consequences to their accident. Unfortunately, this scenario is a sad and familiar one. Adding to the confusion of the moment is the fact that while the employee will be able to file for Worker’s Compensation, there may also be grounds for a Personal Injury suit as well.

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Sometimes we hear in the media about multi-million dollar lawsuits being filed in court and have to wonder to ourselves if there is really any limit to the amount that an individual may ask of from the courts. It can seem almost outrageous at times the amounts that some people feel that they are legally entitled to. However, you should note that many states do in fact have limits on the amount that a person may sue for in a personal injury lawsuit. The reality is that many of those multi-million dollar lawsuits are settled for a lot less money than that.

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Personal injury claims become necessary when one party is injured and believes a second party is responsible for the injury. In order to seek compensation that helps to cover medical expenses and replace the income that the injured party has lost, filing a claim and possibly pursuing a lawsuit becomes necessary. This is especially true when the accused party denies responsibility and expresses no interest in attempting to settle the claim.

There are time limits that apply to filing any type of personal injury claim. Much depends on where you live and who you are claiming caused the injury. Here’s some basic information that will help you understand how long you have to file your claim before seeking legal redress is no longer possible.

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The end of the rainbow for any personal injury case is a payment of some kind (at least in the cases that are successfully won). However, plaintiffs have to decide if they would like to receive a lump sum payment or perhaps get a structured settlement as available in certain cases. Now, most of the time the lump sum payment is going to be the only option that the plaintiff has, but there is at least some chance that a structured settlement may be in the works. You should know how each works so that you may determine which is best in your particular circumstances.

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This is probably not the answer that most people want to hear, but it makes a lot more sense to try to settle a case that you have before the court instead of going to trial. Going to trial gets all of the press and makes watching legal dramas fun, but trials are rarely the way that the real world works.

In the event that you end up being the victim of a medical malpractice or personal injury situation, you are probably going to want to settle your case anyway. The truth is that any liable party is going to stretch things out as much as they possibly can before getting dragged into court. You probably do not have the time to sit around and wait for your money to arrive. Instead, you need some kind of action to be taken right now. This means that you will need to have a lawyer who can work on your case immediately help protect your position in court and make sure that you are the one who ends up winning your case.

A settlement does not mean that you are throwing in the white flag of surrender. It means that you and the other party have come to an agreement that allows them to pay you some set amount of money in order for this entire situation to go away. You do not have to continue to slog through the court system, and you are also able to get at least a little bit of compensation for the things that have happened for you. In this scenario, everyone wins.

There are some cases in which the other party is being stubborn and does not want to settle with the individual that they have done some harm to. If you end up in the unfortunate situation where that individual is you, then you need some options opened up to you right away. You might have to end up taking this thing to trial simply because the other side is not willing to be fair about things. It is to be noted that these situations are rare, and you probably will not run into this.

The best thing to do is listen to your attorney each step of the way. The honest truth is that he or she has had plenty of experience working in these types of cases in the past and is more than happy to educate you on what they think the most likely outcome for you is going to be. You can listen to what they have to say and completely disregard it if you really want to, but the better option for you is to take their advice and run with it. You are probably going to fare a lot better if you just listen up when a qualified attorney is speaking. Make sure that you run some figures at least in your head and figure out how much it is worth to you to really run this thing through its course. You might just be better off taking the settlement now.