If you have been injured in an accident, you cannot afford to take it easy, and seek some form of compensation at a time that suits you. An injured victim must meet certain deadlines, in order to go after a possible monetary reward.
In Ontario, an accident victim has 2 years in which to file a personal injury claim, following an accident’s occurrence. Still, victims cannot relax for 2 years and then appear at a courthouse, expecting to file such a claim. During that 2-year interval, those injured victims need to meet certain other deadlines.
Certain types of accidents call for attention to a specific deadline.
If a victim’s injury was sustained during an automobile accident, the company that sold the driver or vehicle owner a car insurance policy has the right to demand notification of that same collision. That notification must be provided to the insurance company within 7 days of the incident that caused any reported damage or injuries.
Residents of Ontario that have been involved in a motor vehicle accident have the right to seek the benefits provided by the Province. Still, that right remains in force for only a limited amount of time. The injured resident must apply for the offered benefits no more than 30 days after the date of the collision.
A driver that intends to sue the at-fault driver needs to make his or her intentions clear to that same driver. That means sending a notice of intentions within 120 days of the date when the recipient of that same notice became the at-fault driver.
How to proceed if the government has played some part in the unfortunate incident?
If the incident took place on property belonging to a given municipality, that municipal government should be made aware of any intended legal action within 10 days of the accident’s occurrence. If the incident took place in an area that belongs to the Province, then again, the victim or the personal injury lawyer in Chatham has 10 days in which to send a notice, regarding any plans to take legal action.
Any such notice needs to provide the government authorities with an adequate amount of information. In others words, it should include the time, date and location of the incident that is being reported. That information helps the government authorities to determine how strong a case the plaintiff might make.
If the government knows that it took some specific action, to make that one location safer, and did so before the date in the notice, then the plaintiff does not have a strong case. On the other hand, if the government had ignored a known hazard or had failed to act, following another accident, then the plaintiff’s case would be stronger.