Personal injury / Why timing matters
Why timing matters
A personal injury claim doesn’t run to one deadline. It runs to a web of them; set off by different events, falling due at different times, and carrying very different consequences.
Miss an early due date, and there’s often a way back. Miss the last one and there usually isn’t. Which time limit you’re up against depends on how you were hurt and when, and it’s worth finding out today rather than next month.
The clock does not always start when you think
It is natural to assume the clock starts on the day you were hurt. Often it does. But not always, and the exceptions are common rather than obscure.
Depending on the claim, the relevant date might be:
- the date of the incident
- the date your symptoms first appeared, which can be much later
- the date a condition was diagnosed, or the date you first connected it to what caused it
- the date you first instructed a lawyer about the claim
That last one surprises people. In some claims, seeing a lawyer starts a short clock of its own. It is not a reason to delay seeing one. It is a reason to see one and then move.
What changes the answer
Whether a claim is in time depends on facts that are not always obvious. Any of the following can change the analysis:
- whether you have already spoken to a lawyer about the claim
- whether the vehicle or party responsible was identified
- whether you were a child when it happened
- whether you were under a legal incapacity at the relevant time
- whether it is a workplace claim, which runs on a separate track with its own steps
- whether your symptoms appeared long after the incident
- whether something material to the claim only came to light later
This is why we would rather you rang than worked it out from a website. Not because the rules are secret, but because which rule applies to you turns on details you may not know are relevant.
Being late is not always fatal
If you think you may have missed something, that is a reason to get advice quickly, not a reason to give up.
Some periods can be extended. Some claims are not subject to a limitation period at all. Failing to give notice on time does not automatically end a claim. In some circumstances the claim can still proceed if the delay can be explained.
What is true in every case is that the position gets worse with time, and that the options available to someone who is three months late are better than those available to someone who is three years late.
What to do now
Ring us, or send an enquiry. Tell us what happened and roughly when. That is usually enough for us to tell you which clocks are running and whether anything needs to happen immediately.
This page is general information about how the law works in Queensland. It is not legal advice, it does not take account of your circumstances, and it should not be relied on as a substitute for advice about your own claim.