TBI Case Timeline

Answer:

Here at Morgenstern & Herd, we handle traumatic brain injury cases. Just last week, one of our clients asked how long it would take to resolve her husband’s traumatic brain injury case. The difficult part of answering that question is it depends on the seriousness of the injury itself. Traditionally, mild traumatic brain injury cases are more difficult to resolve without going all the way to a trial because insurance companies don’t appreciate them. The worst thing about a traumatic brain injury is that the injured victim himself knows he’s different, but from the outside, he doesn’t look different. Expectations socially, work-related, workwise, aren’t all the same because you don’t look injured. When you have somebody in a wheelchair, we have a certain level of expectation for that, but when you have somebody who’s injured inside their head, that’s hard for somebody to deal with. There’s not any specific or average amount of time for a traumatic brain injury case to take. Some of them take longer than others, but generally, you’re going to need to file suit in a traumatic brain injury case. That’s not one that’s going to be resolved without filing a lawsuit. Once the lawsuit begins, 30 days to answer the complaint. Then you go into the discovery phase that takes at least three months, maybe four months paper discovery. Then you have dispositions. That takes usually another three to four months. Now we’re up to nine months, ten months. We should be able to mediate within the first year or so, but if we’re not resolved at mediation, and the patient isn’t far enough along to know the extent of the traumatic brain injury, that case may go into the next cue for preparation of a trial. Because of COVID right now, we’re not trying civil cases. There is an order out to streamline litigation cases to try to deal with that, but only a certain amount of juror pools are even showing up when we’ve tried to go back to trying cases. The Supreme Court guideline used to be two years from the filing of the lawsuit to get you to a trial. Before COVID, we weren’t needing that because dockets were backed up. You’re looking at least three, five years, three to five years if you have a serious brain injury and the insurance company isn’t being fair with you, the insurance company of the at-fault party. If the insurance company of the at-fault party fairly evaluates the case, it can be done in a much shorter period of time. What you need is you need a lawyer who’s familiar with traumatic brain injury cases and the insurance company respects. Your case can be done within that first year, two-year period, but it depends. It depends on the facts of your particular case.