Today’s topic is going to be a personal injury lawsuit filing. Once we decide to proceed with the lawsuit there are several deadlines that we have to keep in mind.
Lawsuit in Missouri #
You have five years from the day of the accident to file a car accident lawsuit here in Missouri. That’s called the statute of limitations. It’s very liberal, to be honest with you, you have enough time to decide whether or not a lawsuit is the right option for you. But, once we decide to that, it’s usually we were not able to reach a settlement with the insurance company, or defendant driver, for whatever reason, and we are filing a lawsuit.
We can have that lawsuit prepared usually within a day or two because we’ve done so many of them and we know what goes into them. But, the very first step is obviously preparing the petition and filing it with a court that has jurisdiction over that case. The petition is very straightforward, we have to name all the parties involved, John Doe vs. Jane Doe. We have to let the court know how they have jurisdiction, and there is the statute out there that says, hey if the accident happened in St. Louis County, you kind of have to file in St. Louis county. There are some nuisance about that, but in most straightforward cases, if the accident happened in St. Louis County, that’s where would be filed. We mentioned that, and then we give general facts as to how the accident happened.
Our client #
Our client John Doe was on interstate 270 he was rear-ended by Jane Doe, and that’s how the accident happened. Then we have to mention negligence count and connect the facts to the law. So basically the defendant owed a duty to you not rear-end you, and by rear-ending on 270 she breaches that duty owed to you, and she caused damages to you. You were transported by ambulance and so on and so forth. We have to kind of connect those dots there as well. The last step in the petition is to ask for a remedy. We usually put out there the standard jurisdictional $25000 or more. That will get us into the circuit courts of St. Louis county. That’s basically what needs to go into the petition.
If you have any questions, call me at 314-352-6800. Thank you.
Bajric & Ramic Law Office
Nedim Ramic – Auto Accident Lawyer – Personal Injury Attorney