i was hit by a car on my bike when i was 8 I'm now 27

i was hit by a car when i was 8 years old wound up in a coma and recived a head injury insurance company offered 20,000 plus medical bills. my mother never accepted it fearing long term effects, i am now 27 years old can i do anything to try and recive this settlement?

dustin.darval:

i was hit by a car when i was 8 years old wound up in a coma and recived a head injury insurance company offered 20,000 plus medical bills. my mother never accepted it fearing long term effects, i am now 27 years old can i do anything to try and recive this settlement?

Probably not.

If there was no lawsuit filed and the statute of limitations ran out (typically age 18 + 2 years) then there is no leverage against the other driver or his insurance company because a lawsuit could be easily defeated by raising the statute of limitations as a defense.

If a lawsuit had been filed, you'll have to find out when and what the results were. One way to check that is on your superior court website case search by looking up your name to see if there were any lawsuits filed in the past.

I agree with AJ on this one. If your mother did not accept the proposed settlement, what the heck did she do?

Either she dropped the matter or she sued the other driver. Most people who do not agree to some kind of settlement wind up suing.

You are going to have to dig deeper to find out what actually did happen.

Please note that court websites may not list every law suit that was ever filed in that county.  Given that this happened nearly 19 years ago, you might have to do some actual digging at the county court house that likely had jurisdiction.

Or talk to your mother. Find out if she has any kind of paperwork explaining what went on and ask her to show it to you.

In what state did the accident occur and in what state did the driver reside, if different? That matters because the law for this is state law, and each state's law is different. Note that you'd need to find out what the laws were at the time of the accident. Simply looking at the current statute may not give all the information you need. Your screen name info says you are in Colorado now. If that's the state law that applies, then I can tell you it's too late now. The statute of limitations is gone in Colorado and any lawsuit your mother might have filed years ago, even if timely then, would have been dismissed long ago for failure to prosecute the claim. This will be true in most, if not all, states.

Your mother made a mistake if she simply did nothing out of fear that maybe she could get more later. Her lack of action meant that a settlement that would have reimbursed her the medical expenses and gotten you $20,000 slipped away and instead you got nothing for it. Even if the settlement was low, it would been better than getting nothing. 

You're kidding, right?

Even if the statute of limitations did not start to run until you turned 18, that was nine years ago.  No state has a personal injury statute of limitations longer than six years.

And the incident happened 19 years ago.  Even if it were not way too late, how could you possibly prove any element of your claim.  Do you even know who the driver was?  Or where he/she is living now?  How would you prove negligence?

Sorry.

I think you ship was sunk several years ago ---

There might be a super unusual fact pattern to stay the tolling of the statutue if for example you had been in a coma for 19 some years and just now came out of it....but thats NOT what you posted.

You and Mom snoozed far far too long......

so if I understand you correctly?

you want to go back to 19 years ago?  And attempt to sue the person that hit you in a car when you were 8?

Do you even know who this person is?

Do you have information from your mom as to what she really and actually agreed to?

I hope you are ok, and I'm very very sorry.  However, I think you have a better chance buying a lottery ticket this afternoon than being successful at this.

I am no lawyer, and I could certainly be wrong.  But you want to walk back 19 years ago?  Where were you when you turned 18 years old?  21?  Now we are at 27 and you want to find this person who I doubt you even know who and pin this on them?  There's very little chance.  

However, stranger things have happened.  Perhaps you can.   But you need to stop posting here and pony up your bucks and talk to a lawyer.  It's a solid maybe.  But I really doubt it.

Let me know.  I'd be interesting if I can dig back into my past and get people to pay me.

While he CAN sue anyone he likes (even me) for anything under the sun, there is no viable lawsuit here I can see.  (I *suppose* there's an argument in terms of possible case law that if he'd been in a coma since he was 8 that the SOL had been tolled, but...nothing he's said indicates that's what happened.)

I'm afraid if you knew about this when you became a legal adult, that's when the clock started ticking at the very outside (and in however many states, such a thing would need to be addressed sooner as it relates to your mom's causes of action).  In all but a very few states, age of majority is 18. 

I would agree that the Statute of Limitations would have expired, long ago.  No doubt Colorado allows you a defined time frame to file a suit, after you reach the age of majority, be that 18 or 21, but I would anticipate that time frame would  not to exceed 5 years.

The only lifeline I can throw your way is somewhat of a long shot.

The Insurance Fair Claims Practices Acts in many states require insurers to notify claimants and inform them of impending statute of limitations deadlines.  Whether this would apply for a long tail minor's statute is anyone's guess.  Additionally, it is possible the insurer would have had no clue on where to find you.

I'd echo the previous comments that you should bounce your question off of a personal injury lawyer.   If the answer is simple, there shouldnt be a charge for the advise, especially if it is adverse.

ashkicker:

The only lifeline I can throw your way is somewhat of a long shot.

The Insurance Fair Claims Practices Acts in many states require insurers to notify claimants and inform them of impending statute of limitations deadlines.

Long shot is right.

There is no such requirement in the Colorado statute:

http://www.kaudylaw.com/Insurance-Disputes-Bad-Faith/Colorado-Law-Regarding-Unfair-Claim-Settlement-Practices.shtml

Nor was there such a requirement in any of the dozen or so states I was licensed in where I had to be familiar with their respective acts.

I'd be interested in seeing a citation from any state that actually requires that.

Even if there is such a thing, I'd be willing to bet that it isn't required to be sent certified mail (and such things can be manufactured regardless), so ... this sort of (in my view) toothless ("get folks off our back so we can claim to have gone out of our way to 'protect' them") statute won't stop the insurer from claiming to have sent such a notice.

ashkicker:

The Insurance Fair Claims Practices Acts in many states require insurers to notify claimants and inform them of impending statute of limitations deadlines. 

I don't know about it being required by "many" states. There may be one or more states that have such a requirement, and without knowing which state's law applies here it is impossible to give a definite answer as to whether the SOL is gone. However, I do know that Colorado insurance law does not impose on the insurance company any obligation to inform anyone of the SOL. So that will be of no help here if Colorado law is the law that governs this.

Drew:

There might be a super unusual fact pattern to stay the tolling of the statutue if for example you had been in a coma for 19 some years and just now came out of it....but thats NOT what you posted.

If he had been mentally incompetent that would toll the statute of limitations (SOL) in Colorado unless there had been a court appointed guardian or conservator for him. If the SOL was tolled for that reason, he'd have 2 years from the time that mental incompetence ended to pursue the lawsuit. I would have expected him to mention something like that in his post, however. Apart from this very slim possibility, the SOL in Colorado has run on this claim, as I mentioned before. 

Mea culpa, of sorts for my previous comment.

The Fair Claim Practices Act provision I referred to delt with the requirement that insurers inform unrepresented claimants of the SOL, if active negotiations were ongoing.

This situation would not apply to the facts as presented.