Have you or a loved one suffered a personal injury and wondering how to file a lawsuit? There are more than 400,000 personal injury lawsuits filed each year in the United States.
A lawsuit allows you to seek justice in court after suffering injuries and other damages because of another’s negligence. You only have one chance to collect your claims, which means you need to do it right.
Read on to learn how to file a personal injury lawsuit against someone else in court!
Pick Parties and Causes of Action
Before you file a personal injury lawsuit, you need to decide who you will sue and for what causes of action. For example, if you are injured because you tripped over the uneven portion of a parking lot, you may have causes of action against more than one party.
You may be able to choose the tenant that’s renting the building, the owner of the property, and the company that did work on the parking lot surface. You might want to consider hiring a personal injury attorney. Your attorney can tell you why you should or should not file a lawsuit against each party.
Prepare and File a Complaint
The document that you use to make factual allegations against other parties is called a complaint. The complaint must include your jurisdictional basis for why you are entitled to file a lawsuit in a particular court.
You will also identify each party that you are seeking to recover damages from. For each party, you will need to plead a factual basis of each element for a cause of action. For example, on a negligence claim, you will need to allege that the defendant breached a duty it owed to you and that this breach caused damages.
Request Summons
At the time you file your complaint with the court, you will also request the issuance of a summons. The cost to request a summons, but is often less than $25 and is charged in addition to a filing fee. Each court in a state will have set costs for filing a lawsuit.
A summons is a document prepared by the court that summons a person or company to court to defend a lawsuit.
Service of Process
After you file a complaint about your personal injury claim and you receive a copy of the summons, you must then serve it on each defendant. Service of process is a crucial part of filing a lawsuit because a defendant is entitled to notice and a right to be heard in court before judgment is entered against it.
In jurisdictions like Florida, a party has 20 days from the date of service to file a response to the Complaint.
Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit
Filing a personal injury lawsuit is an important part of seeking recovery of damages caused by someone else. Before you prepare a complaint and file your lawsuit, you should consider speaking with an experienced personal injury attorney.
They can help you navigate through the unfamiliar world of the civil justice system. Check out our blog section for great posts with tips and tricks to use in and out of court! Before you file a personal injury lawsuit go here and check this out.
