Medical Malpractice Settlement Timeline

Answer:

A young man came into our office and believed he was injured through a doctor’s medical negligence. He had a large hiatal hernia and the hernia burst, and it caused a lot of problems and damage. He wanted to know how long it would take his case to resolve. I explained to him medical malpractice claims are a little different than average claims in that you have to file a suit within one year. For most personal injury claims you have two years, but for medical malpractice actions, you only have one year. You also have to put the doctors on notice that you are filing the claim against them.
Additionally, many doctors have arbitration agreements in the papers that you sign with them, so instead of going to court and having a trial in a courtroom, quite often, many of these cases are sent to what’s called arbitration. Arbitrations can be a lot quicker or a lot slower than a regular trial, depending on the arbitrator, the number of parties, and how quickly discovery can be conducted. There’s no hard and fast rule, although most claims can and should be resolved somewhere between one and four years.