The lawyer’s failure to file in a timely manner constitutes malpractice if you were harmed as a result.
Sometimes courts will relieve clients of any harsh consequences arising from the lawyer’s failure to file on time. However, sometimes the law requires that the prescribed sanctions for the lawyer’s failure to file be imposed on the client.
Without your attorney's negligence, you would have won your case. Keep in mind that if you think you may end up suing for legal malpractice, you should not delay, as attorneys love making the defense that you waited too long to sue.
Suing your lawyer for malpractice can be a helpful way to get compensation for your losses. However, these cases can be very difficult to win. To find out whether you have a case, and how to bring one, read on below. Lawsuits against lawyers usually fall under three categories: negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty.
You have been given some excellent advice. I wanted to add one point. Employees of the court and the MVA may have immunity from suit under the law while performing their official functions. The law in this area is complex, but under certain circumstances, public officials cannot be sued even if they make a mistake.
Anyone can sue for anything. A better question is whether or not you would be successful in a lawsuit against the MVA. In your case, it sounds like a lawsuit would be a waste of your time and money. There is no real legal basis for a suit. I'm assuming that your assertion is that the MVA was negligent in its maintenance of its records.
No. Or rather, you could try, but you will not win. If you want to waste more money attempting it, go ahead.
After both liability is accepted and coverage have been verified, only then will insurance discuss payment. Coverage creates confusion because the existence of a policy, and acceptance of liability, do not guarantee coverage, which means you can still be left without compensation even if the other driver is at fault.
After an accident takes place and a claim is filed, the insurance company first investigates the facts of the accident to determine which party was "at fault." Your claim is assigned to a person or team whose job it is to review the police report, talk to the drivers, passengers, and any witnesses to compare stories to figure out what happened. Sometimes, this analysis is simple, as in a rear-end impact claim; other times, the task is much more complicated, as when there is a dispute as to which vehicle had a green light signal. After concluding its investigation, the insurance company will make a decision whether it will admit that its insured caused the accident. If the investigation shows that the insured caused the accident, the company accepts liability, meaning it agrees and acknowledges that the insured was at fault. This is called "accepting liability."
Insurance companies want to deny coverage – this is one of the ways they get away with not paying fair compensation on claims. Insurance companies will justify their refusal
Coverage creates confusion because the existence of a policy, and acceptance of liability, do not guarantee coverage, which means you can still be left without compensation even if the other driver is at fault.
Thus, fault in an accident may be established merely by citing a statute that has been violated. A motorist presumed to have caused an accident by virtue of a statutory violation bears the burden of proving that this act of negligence was not a proximate cause of the injuries.
If you think that someone was at fault in an accident you were involved in, you should have the facts of your claim reviewed by an attorney as soon as possible . Contact an experienced car accident lawyer today to learn if you may be able to collect damages to cover your losses.
The simplest way to apply the concept of proximate cause to an automobile accident is to ask whether it would be true that, "but for" the violation, the accident would not have occurred. With respect to the motorcyclist example, the helmet would not have prevented the accident but most likely would have limited the motorcyclist's injuries. Therefore, the motorist may not be held liable for the motorcyclist's brain injury.
Many automobile insurance policies use the word "tortfeasor" to refer to people who are at least partly at fault for an accident.
For example, the motorcyclist who fails to wear a helmet suffers a serious brain injury after a motorist driving a car accidentally sideswipes him. The motorist may have been negligent, but so was the motorcyclist who didn't wear a helmet.
For instance, a motorist is seriously injured when another motorist cuts in front of her after turning onto the street. However, she may be found liable if she was speeding or made an illegal lane change prior to the collision. The decision of who pays for damages or injuries in car accidents rests primarily on motor vehicle statutes, ...
Negligence generally means careless or inadvertent conduct that results in harm or damage, which is quite common in automobile accidents. One can be negligent by failing to do something, such as not yielding the right-of-way to avoid an accident, as well as by actively doing something (such as running a red light).
Importantly, the comparative fault rules also provide that if you were at-fault in causing or contributing to your crash, then the amount of compensation you recover from your car accident lawsuit in Michigan will be reduced by the percentage of fault you were responsible for.
A car accident lawsuit in Michigan requires you to prove two important things. First, the other driver was at-fault, meaning he or she violated the traffic laws or was not reasonably careful. Second, you must show that your injuries have caused you to suffer an impairment that affected your ability to lead your normal life.
You must be able to prove that the driver was 50% or more at-fault in causing the crash that injured you. If the other driver was less at-fault than that, then you will not be able to sue for pain and suffering and other compensation. Under Michigan’s comparative fault law, a crash victim who was “more than 50% at fault” cannot sue. (MCL 500.3135 (2) (b))
Every case is unique, so it’s difficult to say how much money you can expect from a car accident lawsuit in Michigan. But insurance industry research shows that cases will settle for 3 to 4 times as much when you have an experienced lawyer. Cases will settle faster and for more money.
The at-fault driver’s auto insurance company is who pays in a car accident lawsuit in Michigan. However, if the pain and suffering compensation, excess medical and lost wages and other economic damages exceed the driver’s liability insurance coverage, then the driver may also have to pay.
In Michigan, you have three years after an automobile crash to sue for pain and suffering compensation, excess medical benefits and excess economic loss and one year to sue for incurred No-Fault insurance benefits. Any car accident lawsuit filed after these statutes of limitation will be dismissed.
Surveillance – Expect that your No-Fault insurance company and the at-fault driver’s insurance company will conduct surveillance. Expect that they will hire private investigators to take photos and videos of you. Expect that they will attempt to do this at several different times throughout your car accident lawsuit. This is just a very smart investment by the insurance company defending your case. Before they pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more, it makes sense to spend a few thousand dollars on an investigator and hope they “catch” you doing things that you have said you cannot do. See Mistake #1 above. Everyone can have a good day. Everyone can have a day where they want to try something that they previously haven’t been able to do because of pain and restrictions. If you have tried to do something, that’s fine, as long as you can admit that you have tried it. People will understand if you admit and explain something, such as that you were having a good day or you were taking strong pain medication when you attempted to do something. On the other hand, no one understands when a crash victim denies something that is later caught on surveillance video. If you’ve tried to do something – even just once – and you are ever asked about it, you have to assume that you are already on film doing it. Always tell the truth, explain the circumstances, for example that you tried it once and you paid a price for trying it because your pain flared up and you never tried it again. But if you deny something and you’re on surveillance video doing the thing you denied, you will ruin your car accident lawsuit.
If the plaintiff won, a defendant's appeal could dramatically extend the time it takes for the plaintiff to receive his or her money. There's also the chance of losing on appeal. This means a plaintiff may be happy to settle for a smaller amount than what the plaintiff won at trial to get paid more quickly and avoid a possible appeal reversal.
If the court denies the entire motion, a trial is usually the next step in the civil suit. A motion for summary judgment is often the defendant's last chance to avoid a trial. So this is when a defendant may be most eager to settle should they lose on the motion for summary judgment.
Settlement talks often begin before the personal injury lawsuit process even starts. But when those pre-litigation negotiations breakdown, a client and his or her personal injury lawyer may feel like they have no choice but to take legal action.
But because an insurance company is often the entity that will write a check if the plaintiff wins or the case settles, the defendant's insurance company often gets involved in negotiations.
After each side signs the settlement agreement, the defendant or the defendant's insurance company will write a check to the plaintiff's attorney, and the case is complete.
After both sides agree to settle, they will confirm the terms and prepare a settlement agreement. The exact provisions included in the agreement will vary from case to case, but the defendant agrees to pay a certain amount of money in return for the plaintiff agreeing to end the lawsuit and give up the right to sue the defendant again for the same claims.
One of the key factors in settling a case is timing . There are several moments during the life of a lawsuit where settlements become more common.
Lawsuits against lawyers usually fall under three categories: negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty . Negligence. Negligence is the most common grounds for a malpractice lawsuit. It happens when your attorney fails to use the skill and care normally expected of a competent attorney. For example, you might have grounds ...
It happens when your attorney fails to use the skill and care normally expected of a competent attorney. For example, you might have grounds for a negligence suit if your lawyer missed an important deadline, failed to prepare for trial, or failed to follow court orders. Breach of contract. Breach of contract occurs when a lawyer violates ...
Breach of fiduciary duty. Lawyers owe certain fiduciary duties to their clients, such as the duty of loyalty and duty of confidentiality. Your lawyer must act in your best interests and must keep your communications confidential.
Report the lawyer to your state’s disciplinary board. Every state has a board that disciplines lawyers for ethical violations. If your lawyer isn’t communicating with you or listening to your wishes, this might get his or her attention. In some cases, the board might order the lawyer to compensate you for a clear financial loss—for example, if your lawyer took fund from your client account. (To lean more, see our article on reporting a lawyer for an ethical violation .)
Your lawyer owed you a duty to competently represent you.
The time limit for filing a legal malpractice case can be as short as one year.
If you’re not happy with your lawyer, you can: Switch lawyers. If you haven’t suffered much damage yet, you may want to consider simply hiring a new lawyer. You’re free to switch lawyers at any time, except in rare cases.
If your lawyer fails to file such a motion, there is no penalty other than the cost and delay of a potentially unnecessary trial. However, if an opposing party files a summary judgment motion against you, your lawyer must file a written response within the time set by court rules or by the trial judge.
The consequences of a lawyer’s failure to file documents on time can be severe. Not only can you suffer a financial loss, but you may have to wait a year or more before you receive compensation from the lawyer who failed to properly represent you. If you believe you have a case against a former lawyer, you should reach out to an experienced, full-service law firm with expertise in a wide range of legal practice areas and a proven track record of success.
To recover for malpractice, in addition to showing that your lawyer breached a duty owed to you by failing to file, you will also need to convince the court hearing your malpractice case that it was the lawyer’s failure to file—not any failure on your part or weakness in your case—that caused the har m you sustained .
Legal Malpractice. Much of the work lawyers do involves filing various documents. Often, there are deadlines by which documents must be filed. Even when there are no fixed deadlines, a lawyer’s delay in filing certain documents can permanently impair a client’s rights. You might wonder why a simple failure to file a document “on time” could destroy ...
However, some tort claims—notably legal and medical malpractice—have shorter, one-year time limits for filing.
However, your lawyer must file a notice of appeal within 30 days after the judgment is final. Failure to appeal within 30 days terminates your right to appeal, regardless of how strong your case may be.
Summary judgment is a relatively common procedure for eliminating seemingly weak claims based on a written motion in lieu of trial. If you have a strong case or defense, you may avoid the time and expense of trial if your lawyer files a motion for summary judgment on your behalf.
If you think that your attorney has not been working diligently on your case, you can always request your case file from your attorney. You can either go to the attorney's office and read the file there or request that the attorney make copies of everything and send them to you.
Consider Mediation . One common method that many people are turning to instead of legal malpractice claims is mediation. Mediation is something both you and your lawyer may benefit from, and could even lead to a better attorney-client relationship.
You should keep in mind that your nonbinding arbitration outcome could become binding if you do not challenge the result in court within 30 days.
If you receive a bill that looks like the one above, you should demand an itemized accounting of all the time that your attorney spent on your case. Where exactly did those 50 hours go? For example, if your attorney claims that he wrote a letter to opposing counsel for 4 hours, and the letter turned out to be 2 paragraphs long, you may want to seriously question your attorney's time management.
If, after many attempts to communicate with your attorney are met with silence, write your lawyer a firm letter asking why they are not responding to you. You should not threaten legal malpractice claims in your letter.
If everything has failed and you still cannot get your attorney to respond to you in a timely fashion, you may have to fire your lawyer and find a new one.
One of the best things that you can do if you feel that your attorney is not doing a good job is to get another law firm to look at your situation. These second opinions do not have to cost very much as it will probably only last an hour or two.
Sometimes delays in cases (especially a case that has only be going for about 6-7 months since the date of the accident) are just a normal part of the litigation process. You should probably skip the phone conference and just make an appointment to meet with the attorney in their office. Ask them to have the file ready to be reviewed.
I suggest that you write to your attorney and request a face-to-face meeting at his office within the next 10 days to discuss the status of your case. If you do not receive a satisfactory response, you may want to consider switching attorneys.
I agree with Mr. Guralnick. You should schedule a face-to-face meeting with your attorney. If you feel that he is not handling your case properly, you should inform you that you will be seeking new counsel. He has an ethical responsibility to move your case along and communicate with you.