Personal injury claims are a once-and-done thing. Once you get paid for your case, it is usually over, but what if you haven’t been paid yet? Can you open a closed case?
Whether you can reopen a closed case hinges on what exactly you mean by “closed.” If the case was “closed” because it was filed after the statute of limitations, because you already settled, or because it was dismissed with prejudice, you probably cannot file again. If it was “closed” because the insurance company rejected your claim, negotiations fell through, or it was dismissed without prejudice, you may be free to refile. You may even be able to refile a claim with mistakes and appeal completed cases with legal errors.
For a free case evaluation, call The Carrion Law Firm’s New York personal injury lawyers at (718) 841-0083 today.
Can You Refile a Claim After the Statute of Limitations?
The statute of limitations is one of the strongest bright-line rules we have in the law. This almost always blocks cases filed after the deadline, but even this has exceptions.
New York uses a 2-year statute of limitations for most injury cases, but medical malpractice has a 2.5-year filing deadline, and claims for sexual abuse of a child must be filed before the victim turns 55 years old.
There are also four major exceptions that extend filing deadlines, though not indefinitely:
- The clock is paused until you turn 18 if you were injured as a minor.
- The clock is paused as long as you have a serious mental disability, as long as you already had it before the accident, and it was not from the accident itself.
- Fraudulent concealment of the cause can pause the clock until the victim did or reasonably should have discovered the true cause.
- The clock does not start on undiscoverable injuries until the victim did or reasonably should have discovered the injury.
These apply in limited situations, but you can always check with a lawyer. In any case, these hard deadlines are why you should always call a New York personal injury lawyer as soon as you can.
Can You Reopen a Settled Case?
Settlements can almost never be reopened. If you signed a settlement that lays out the terms and says you accept a certain amount of money in exchange for dropping the case, you will not be permitted to go back to court to get more money. This is why it is vital to review any paperwork with a lawyer before signing it.
Even if you accept money from the defendant or their insurance company without signing something, it may be understood as a settlement. Getting a case reopened after this can also be hard.
The only real way to overturn a settlement is if you signed the settlement under threat or duress. Here, a “threat” must be something like a physical threat or actual violent coercion. The threat of withholding money you desperately need unfortunately doesn’t count.
Can You Reopen a Closed or Dismissed Insurance Claim?
If you started your case by filing with the insurance company, and they closed or dismissed your claim without paying it, you can reopen that. There may be steps to take with the insurance company to have them reconsider it or reopen negotiations, but you can also just get a lawyer and take them to court.
Just because the insurance company denied your claim or said they won’t pay you doesn’t get them off the hook. Our lawyers can help you draw up a lawsuit and file it in court, where they have to answer before a judge and jury instead of doing whatever they want to.
As long as you still have time before the statute of limitations passes, you can still file. This is why you should usually call a lawyer early on in your case: insurance companies might drag out the case and deny you as close to the filing deadline as they can, potentially stringing you along for years, in hopes you have no time to file in court.
We can turn to the courts even before they fully finish the investigation if they are taking too long. However, this is more complex when you have to use your own insurance, such as in a no-fault car accident case.
Can You Refile a Case After Your Initial Filing?
If you file your case and then discover there are problems with it, you may be able to refile or amend the initial complaint. This is common in situations where new evidence – often obtained during discovery – reveals a problem with your case, such as these:
- It’s filed against the wrong defendant
- There are other defendants to add
- There are other claims to add
- You filed in the wrong jurisdiction.
In some cases, you may need permission from the judge to amend or refile, but as long as there has been no decision on the case yet and the statute of limitations has not run out, the judge will often grant leave to refile.
Can You Refile a Case After Dismissal?
Judges can dismiss cases at various stages of trial. For example, you may be dismissed on the pleadings if you have limited information or are missing facts that build out your case. You may also be dismissed after trial has started.
Generally, a judge will tell you whether you can refile or not by how they dismiss the case:
- Dismissal without prejudice usually allows you to file again.
- Dismissal with prejudice usually means you cannot refile.
Again, you should always talk to a lawyer about this right to refile, as the legal decisions are sometimes a bit confusing, and there often need to be changes to the initial case before a judge accepts a refiled claim.
Can You Reopen a Case After a Decision?
Some “endings” to a case do allow it to be reopened, while others do not:
Appeals
If the judge or jury makes a binding decision after hearing the case, it often cannot be refiled unless the decision is “vacated” (cleared) on appeal and the case is “remanded” (sent back) to the trial court for a new trial.
You can appeal any final decision in the hope of getting it overturned if you have a strong legal argument that there was a serious error.
Directed Verdicts and JNOV
Judges can also end cases in two other ways other than just “dismissal”: directed verdicts and judgment non obstante verdict, a.k.a. judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV). Both of these are judicial rulings that no reasonable jury could find in favor of the losing party.
The main difference is just when they happen: directed verdicts occur during the trial (usually after the plaintiff’s case wraps up), but JNOV actually happens after the jury gives a verdict if the verdict was essentially impossible or nonsensical.
Res Judicata and Issue Preclusion
Lastly, you usually cannot refile a case that has gone to a full jury verdict (or bench trial verdict) against you. This will be blocked either by a legal principle called “res judicata” (“a matter judged”) or a principle called “issue preclusion.”
Both of these essentially say there has already been a decision on this matter, so we can’t hear the case again. They are like the civil law version of double jeopardy and stop the same case from being tried over and over again.
You only get one bite at the apple, so make it count!
Call Our Personal Injury Attorneys in New York Today
For a free review of your case, call The Carrion Law Firm’s Long Island, NY personal injury lawyers at (718) 841-0083.