Amount of Time to claim for Personal Injury Claims
There is a time limit for the claiming of compensation when suffering an injury due to an accident. The Limitation Act of 1980 states the amount of time you have from the date of the accident to make a personal injury claim. A successful claim may fail to be dealt with if it does not fall within the set limitation period. This Act has been clarified over time and varying case laws have shown the sort of problems which can occur. If the injured party is older than eighteen, there is a three year period available from the time of the accident. For any child this period begins on their eighteenth birthday. This date can be either the date of the injury or the date when the injury was first known to the claimant. If no proceedings have been started when this three year period has expired, the claim will become statute barred. There is a very limited discretion for claims to be allowed to commence outside of this time. This ruling is included in the Limitation Act of 1980 which also states the amount of time you have from the time of the accident to make a personal injury claim.
Pursuing a claim
Any lawyer needs time to collect the necessary evidence, including obtaining medical reports, before they can start any proceedings. It is therefore important and advisable to get legal advice as soon as possible. This also means that information is easily accessed as events are fresh in your mind. The sooner claims are therefore made, the better for your case. Pursuing a claim after the three year time limit can only be done if there are certain special circumstances. These include if a claimant dies within the three year time limit, when the claim period can be amended to three years from the date of death. This allows any relatives to claim on behalf of the deceased. It also covers any person claiming who is a patient under the 1983 Mental Health Act. In this case the claim period does not commence until after they are discharged under the act. The three year period can be extended by a court but it is rare that this happens after the circumstances of the case have been examined. If a claim is taking some time to be settled, issuing court proceedings may quickly persuade the insurers to settle the claim more quickly
