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Scranton Personal Injury Lawyer > Blog > Personal Injury > In Your Pennsylvania Injury Lawsuit, a Delay Can Potentially Be Catastrophic to Your Case

In Your Pennsylvania Injury Lawsuit, a Delay Can Potentially Be Catastrophic to Your Case

Your injury case can get derailed in many ways. One of the keys to success is making sure that you have retained knowledgeable Pennsylvania premises liability counsel who can guide you around these potential pitfalls and lead you instead to your day in court. With the help of diligent representation, you can ensure that your case meets all of the law’s requirements and that each step is completed on a timely basis. These things can be extremely important because, in some situations, non-compliance or delayed compliance can defeat your case entirely.

One example of this situation was a lawsuit filed by a roof worker named Douglas. Kevin had hired Douglas to do some work on the roof of his home. At the end of one day’s work, the men noticed that a sweater and a hat remained on the roof. Douglas allegedly offered to retrieve them. Kevin placed a ladder in position, and Douglas started up. As Douglas reached the roof, the ladder slipped, and he fell all the way to the ground. The fall caused Douglas to suffer serious and permanent damage to his right ankle and heel.

As someone who has been hurt in a trip-and-fall or slip-and-fall accident, you may be wondering what a case like Douglas’ case has to do with a case like yours. The reality is that, sometimes, the issues that prove to be “make or break” in a case can be things that have little to do with the facts underlying your injury. Instead, they may center on procedural rules and have implications for a wide variety of civil cases, including yours.

In Douglas’ case, the lawsuit was originally filed in May 2015. Kevin was not served right away. By August of that year, the assistant for Douglas’ lawyer knew that Kevin had never been served. Despite this, no action was taken in Douglas’ case until the following spring. The law requires that you, as an injured plaintiff, make a “good faith” effort to serve your opponent in a timely manner. The Court of Common Pleas concluded that the delay in Douglas’ case was too long and displayed a lack of good faith. That meant that Kevin’s statute of limitations argument was meritorious and that Kevin was entitled to summary judgment in his favor. In other words, Douglas’ case was dismissed without a hearing on any of his factual evidence.

Certainly, a successful injury case requires strong factual evidence supporting the causes of action you assert in your complaint. A successful outcome requires more, though. It requires an in-depth knowledge of the rules of procedure and an attention to detail to ensure that every step and every process, from filing a complaint on time to serving notice on the defendant to serving discovery requests on the defendant to responding to the defense’s discovery requests to expert witness disclosures to everything else that goes into a civil trial, is done promptly and on time according to the rules. The knowledgeable Pennsylvania premises liability attorneys at Needle Law Firm have been proudly providing our clients with diligent and skilled representation for many years. Our clients count on us for personalized service, effective advocacy, and attention to detail.

Contact us today for a free, no-obligation consultation by calling (570) 344-1266.

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