Deadlines On Making A Personal Injury Claim in Michigan

Hi. My name is Jim McKenna and I am a personal injury lawyer at Thomas, Garvey & McKenna located in Macomb County, Michigan and I want to talk to you today about time deadlines on making a personal injury claim. It’s very important that you know what to do after you’ve been involved in an injury accident.

For example, you need to gather as much information as possible at the scene of that accident. You need to take photographs, whether it’s in a camera or from a cell phone, and preserve as much of the information from the scene as possible.

What I would like you to do is call me right after you’re in the accident, so that we can make sure that you meet all of the deadline traps that exist for you to be able to file a personal injury claim and to successfully pursue that personal injury claim.

For example, if you have a governmental personal injury claim against a governmental entity, whether it’s a state, county, or city, even though you have a 2-year statute of limitations, you only have 120 days after you’re injured to give them written notice, that you were injured, where you were injured, what caused your injury, who was a witness, and what the nature and extent of all the injuries are. Failure to meet that requirement within 120 days will result in any personal injury claim in Michigan you have being dismissed.

There’s also a notice requirement if you’re involved in an accident on a public transportation bus, train, etcetera, of 60 days. If you do not file a personal injury claim, written notice, within 60 days, even though there’s a statute that gives you 2 years to file a suit, your personal injury claims would be dismissed.

With respect to first-party no-fault benefits, sometimes referred to as PIP, Personal Injury Protection, you have one year from the date that you’re in the accident to file written notice with your insurance company.

If you don’t meet the requirements for any of these a problem will exist that will result in your claims not being compensated and being dismissed from court. You cannot trust that a governmental agency or an insurance company that owes you benefits is going to inform you of all of these. It’s extremely important that you contact us as soon as you have been involved in an accident involving a trip and fall on a sidewalk , or a public roadway ,or if you’ve been involved in a bus accident or a car accident.

We do not charge money to advise you of your rights. The only time we will charge you is if there’s a personal injury claim in Michigan that we will be able to pursue. And then, our charge is one-third. We don’t charge you any money up front. We don’t charge you an hourly rate.

What you need to understand with respect to all of these deadlines is that failure to match the requirements of these statutes and of the conditions within the policy of insurance, will result in a dismissal or refusal of your personal injury claim.

It’s not going to cost you anything to give us a call. In the 26 years since I have been doing personal injury claims in Michigan we don’t charge people to give them advice on how to do these things.