NC Personal Injury, Settle or Trial? - Part Three

This is the final episode discussing issues with settling or taking your NC Personal Injury case to trial. You can find out more information on the trial process at https://www.disabilitylawfirmnc.com/raleigh-personal-injury-lawyers/#Litigation_-_Starting_the_Lawsuit. 

Litigation – Starting the Lawsuit

If you are unwilling to accept the insurance adjuster’s offer, your next move is to file a court case. This is accomplished by filing a complaint in the NC county court in which the accident occurred. Superior courts handle matters in excess of $25,000. Any lower dollar amounts are held in District Court. You do not have to know the exact dollar amount to know where to file. You simply have to allege what is in your best belief. In this case, you are the plaintiff and the at-fault party is the defendant.

In addition to a complaint, you need a civil summons and discovery to get your court case going. After you file your Complaint and pay the $200 filing fee to the Clerk of Court and $30 service fee to the county Sheriff’s office, the sheriffs will attempt to achieve service on your defendant. They have 30 days to serve the Complaint on your defendant. If service is not completed in 30 days, you will have to find a new address, refile the civil summons, and pay the $15 service fee in order to direct the sheriffs to the correct place to attempt to serve your defendant with the Complaint.

After the defendant has been served (essentially meaning that they have been informed that you are suing them) they have 30 days to reply with their defenses to your complaint. Depending on what is in the defendant’s responses you may have to reply to their responses in 30 days.

Deciding to file a court case is not a simple or straightforward matter. A NC Personal Injury Lawyer can help you decide if settling or going to court is right move in your county. Counties in NC can have extremely different demographics, political affiliations and economic classes. These and other factors will affect how a jury will view your claim in your county.

Litigation – Discovery

In the Discovery phase, both sides share information before trial. There are four main ways to pass this information: Request for Admission, Interrogatories, Request for Production of Documents and Depositions. You must respond to the defendant’s requests and they must respond to yours. You are allowed to ask for clarifications of their answers if their meaning is not clear.

Litigation – Mediation

For District court cases, mediation is voluntary. If your case is filed in Superior court, mediation is mandatory. The mediation is called a “mediated settlement conference.” Hopefully, you and the defendant can agree on a mediator (a neutral attorney). If you cannot, the court will assign one to your case. If your case settles or does not settle at mediation, the mediator files a report with the court. If you settle, you are done…if not you have to proceed to trial.

Ligation- Jury Trial

We have all seen jury trials on television. Fortunately, real life trials are not full of angry judges, attorneys, jurors and clients but trials are complex none the less. Jury selection, motions and postponements are all important aspects of your case that should be discussed with a lawyer.