In episode 13 of Jersey Justice™ Podcast Jerry and Mark dive into answering one of the most commonly asked questions, "How Long Do I Have to File a Case or Legal Claim in New Jersey"?

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Welcome to Jersey Justice, a civil law podcast that shares

practical tips and stories about personal and workplace injuries.

Join two of the brightest New Jersey injury attorneys.

Gerald Clark and Mark Morris of Clark Law Firm.

As they take you behind the scenes of.

Justice and civil law.

But first, a quick disclaimer.

The information shared on this podcast is for general information purposes only.

Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any

individual case or situation.

This information is not intended to create and does not constitute

an attorney-client relationship.

Hello everyone.

Welcome back to Jersey Justice, and today I'm here with Jerry and Mark.

I hope you guys had a great weekend.

Anyone do anything really fascinating?

Went to, I went to Philadelphia.

Okay.

I went on a, went on what was supposed to be a history tour, and all I

learned was that Betsy Ross was one of 17 children, I think, and she was

married three times and then, okay.

That was about all I got out of the tour.

Fascinating.

Jerry, what about you?

Well, on Thursday of last week, mark and I, we were at a memorial for an attorney.

His name was Tom Foley.

He was attorney in New Jersey.

He was a judge and he was big into lifeguarding at the beach.

And he used to compete through his sixties, and he passed away May 30th.

So Mark and I participated in like a paddle out for him on, at the

Jersey shore, the ocean, and it was more of like a row out and there

was a lot of lifeguards there.

And, and, uh, Tom's son was there and they, you know, committed

his remains to the ocean.

He loved the ocean, he loved surfing.

He loved riding waves and rowboats big waves and, and big paddleboards

and rowboats and everything.

So it was a good tribute to him.

And he had also founded the guards of Spring Lake, which is a local union.

It's a, it's a union for lifeguards in Spring Lake that's registered

with State of New Jersey.

So he helped unionize the lifeguards back in the early eighties.

And I remember I was a kid back then and there was actually a, I think

it was 4th of July weekend and he helped organize the guards 'cause the

lifeguards weren't getting paid a lot.

And I guess they, there was a lot of, you know, issues with the working

conditions and things like that.

So he had helped organize them.

They had tried to resolve it and there was some things that

the lifeguards wanted that.

The employer wasn't, wasn't willing to provide.

So Tom Foley actually organized a job action where on 4th of July weekend in

New Jersey, all the, all the lifeguards walked off the stands and walked off work,

and it was all over the news back then.

And then ever since then, the lifeguards.

In Spring Lake, they have, there's a union contract and they have

like this union representation, which I suppose is a good thing.

And yeah, and he started that.

So we were at a tribute for that, which was kind of cool.

I'm sorry to hear about the loss, but sounds like you guys, you know,

did an amazing tribute to him, so, so thanks for sharing that.

Jerry's being humbled too.

I participated.

Jerry organized it.

It seemed like he was really involved in putting the whole thing together, like

paddled the boat out, you know, with Judge Foley's remains in it, his, his son.

It really was an awesome event.

I, I think Judge Foley taught Jerry how to row now.

Jerry rows all the time.

He taught me how to row as well, and, Just an awesome, awesome guy.

Loved lifeguarding, and just a good, good human being.

That's really fascinating.

And I have to say, so for our audience, you know, lawyers are actually fun.

Okay.

They, they actually do things outside of just lawyering every day.

So there you go.

So we're gonna get down to business today because these two lawyers have a busy day.

And today we're gonna be talking about, you know, the official term.

They call it statute of limitations, but we're gonna talk about it

more in terms of like, if you're injured, What's the timeframe that

you have to actually file a claim?

And then, you know, a lot of people are not aware of that.

So we wanna bring more awareness to this topic.

And, you know, we're gonna start this topic off.

So, you know, Jerry, tell us about the importance of this and maybe a

little bit of background history with the statute of limitations, unless

we wanna put everyone to sleep.

There's not all that much to say about it, but, but basically the

statute of limitations is depending on what case there is, and.

What court you're in or what jurisdiction you're in.

The case has to be filed within a certain time period, and if

it's not filed within that time period, the case can't be brought.

That's the general rule in New Jersey, and it's a general rule, it's two years,

so within two years of the incident, the case has to be filed or you can't

bring the case no matter what happened.

Again, generally speaking, general rule.

That's pretty much all I can say about statute of limitations

without putting people to sleep.

Now, you could teach a whole class in law school on statute

of limitations, but again, I.

You'd fall asleep.

But more important than, than just statute of limitations, the point is that if

something happens and you want to consider bringing a case, do not wait two years.

Do not wait a year.

Don't wait six months.

Don't even wait a month.

As soon as something happens, it's really important to try to find

a lawyer to seek out the lawyer that knows how to handle the area.

That you're talking about and get a lawyer involved as soon as possible.

It's really important because it's not like, oh, it happened

and now we can just file the case.

There's a lot of work that's done behind the scenes and there's a lot

of lead time that's needed up until that deadline, depending on the

case, depending on the circumstances.

So it's super important to to go find a lawyer like as soon

as possible after an incident.

And have you seen instances where, you know, you've gotten a lead and you

know, someone's called the firm and they actually did miss that opportunity,

but it actually could have been a real case had they acted in time?

Yeah, it, it ha it happens frequently.

So if you take, for example, a medical malpractice case, you can't just call up

a lawyer and be like, Hey, I was hurt.

Medical malpractice.

I mean, there is so much time and money that goes into preparing a

medical malpractice case before it's even filed that no one's gonna

call and take your case right away.

There's a lot of investigation that has to be done.

There's digging up stuff that has to be done.

You gotta like find experts and talk to experts.

And in New Jersey there's a thing called an Affidavit of Merit, where

the expert has to swear under oath that the case has merit before it's filed.

If you have a case that is in federal court, Well like double that because

federal court is even more strict with the pleading and the complaint has to be

supported and there's a lot more rules.

So it happens frequently where people will contact us or contact

other attorneys, but it's too close to the statute of limitations.

Sometimes it could be six months before, but it's still too close a

month before, a few weeks before.

God forbid a few days before it's, you know, because people think, oh, it's

easy to get a lawyer and contingency lawyers and you can find 'em.

It's not always easy because lawyers, it's, it's a lot of work

and you know, we have found that there's more cases than there are.

You know, ready, willing and able, able lawyers, A lot of times, I mean,

our firm, we only take a really small percentage of the people that come to us.

'cause we kind of really weeded out and take the cases, you

know, that have a lot of merit.

So we reject many, many cases every year.

Hundreds of cases.

I.

There, there's a ton of examples of situations where the person probably

could have gotten a lawyer to take their case had they had, they gone to

a lawyer a lot earlier and gave the lawyer a lot more lead time before

that statute of limitations expires.

Yeah.

Temple.

Sometimes what we'll see too, what Jerry said about going to an

attorney, it's also important to go to the right type of attorney.

We've seen plenty of cases where.

Somebody does go to an attorney early on when that statute's running, but the

attorney's not really qualified to run the case or isn't comfortable with it.

So what they'll do is they'll sit on the case for a year, a

year and a half, sometimes almost right up to the two years, and

then end up projecting the case.

And, and when that happens, the, the person's really left scrambling.

So it, it's a combination of going to an attorney right away, going to the

right type of attorney right away, and then yeah, that, that two year

window, there's not much you can do.

Each state's kind of unique, like I think New York, it's three years,

new Jersey's two, but that statute of limitations, it's pretty black and white.

You got file your case within the two years.

Yeah.

Thanks for sharing that.

And I think that's the thing, like normal people, I mean, they don't, they

don't know about this stuff, right?

They don't even know there's such a thing and.

They just, then they realize, oh my God, I have this back pain from this

accident I was in many years ago.

And then maybe they realize, oh, someone will say, you

should've, did you go to a lawyer?

Then?

They go to a lawyer.

But the statute of limitations has passed the time period that they have.

They're kind of in a bad situation at that point because they can't

get any justice for their injuries.

So Jerry, in terms of like.

This time period that happens, what would you say to someone?

'cause a lot of times people are injured and they don't really

feel like they're injured.

They go get checked out, they think they're fine, but then, you know, a

month later they have like severe pain and their body and things like that.

What's the importance of actually going and getting checked out by a

medical professional if you're injured and documenting all of that as well?

So when clients come to us and they talk to us, a lot of times I don't, and I don't

know where these clients get this from, but a lot of people, sometimes people

come to us and they'll say, should I work?

Or they'll say, should I go to the doctor or should I get the treatment?

And I always say to them, well, Can you work?

And if you can work, you should definitely work.

And they'll say, you know, should I go get the treatment?

And I say, I don't know.

Do you need the treatment?

So the short answer to all that stuff is people should treat and they should

go to work pretending they have no case, that there is no lawsuit involved.

So that's what we tell them because when you bring a case before a jury,

you have your deposition taken.

It's super important to be honest.

The difference.

In many ways between a plaintiff's lawyer and a defense lawyer is if

you're a defense lawyer working for the insurance company at a law firm and.

If they put a case on your desk, you have to go defend it.

It doesn't matter what the facts are.

You have to defend the case, which means you have to minimize

the plaintiff's injuries.

You have to make it sound like what happened is the plaintiff's fault.

You have to send 'em to doctors for the medical exam.

Who's gonna have.

The opinion that the injury is not related or it's minimal, so you have

to do that no matter what, no matter how bad the facts are against you.

But as a plaintiff, we can select the cases that we bring,

and if we don't believe in the case or the facts aren't there.

We don't have to take the case.

So that's why we insist that the cases be go down the, the, the path

of true what's true and, and factual.

We don't choreograph things and say, oh, don't work, because

then you know, it'll minimize.

You know, because then you'll have a better wage claim.

If someone can work and they don't work, it's going to hurt their

case because at some point that's gonna come out, they just won't

be believable in front of a jury.

And it's the same thing with treating with a doctor.

You know, if you need the treatment, you should go get it.

That assumes the person can afford it.

But what happens in these cases a lot of times is they don't treat, or you've

had someone who's had prior injuries and they're just sick of going to doctors.

But with the defense and the insurance company, you can't win any either way.

So what happens is if there's an auto crash, for example, and the

person doesn't go to the emergency room right away, they wait a week.

They wait a month, they wait.

Even if they wait a few days.

The defense attorney in the case and in the trial is gonna jump all over that

and say, ladies and gentlemen, he didn't go to the doctor for four days later.

He must not have been that injured.

Or you know, he didn't go to the emergency room.

He went home and he was fine.

And it wasn't till a month later.

And they'll jump all over that and say, see, he's not injured because he

didn't go to the doctor right away.

But again, you can't win in front of the insurance company because in the cases

where they do go to the emergency room right away, the def the defense and their

doctors will say it doesn't mean anything.

So we'll actually have reports from defendants from this doctor, a certain

defense medical exam doctor in a case that will jump all over the fact that

they didn't go to the emergency room right away and therefore they weren't injured.

And then we'll have reports in other cases where, Went to the emergency

room right away, got a, got treatment right away, but it didn't matter.

They're still not injured, so you can't win.

Regardless.

It's important to go to a lawyer right away and it is stronger if they treat

right away as long as they need it.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

Mark your thoughts.

I.

It, it's the same thing.

I get those same questions, you know, should I go see a doctor?

Should I work?

There's no guarantees with these cases.

Like they're really complicated.

They're really difficult cases.

Even the ones that seem like they're, they're straightforward.

The same way we're working for our clients to try and get them compensation.

There's someone on the other side that's working to try and pay out as little

money as possible or, or pay out no money.

So you should never do something because you think it, it helps the case.

You know, I tell clients like, listen to their own bodies.

Listen to their medical professionals, what they have to say.

You know, you'd hate to see someone go out and just get treatment that's not

necessarily necessary, just 'cause they think it could, it could help the case.

There's a lot of risk with things like that and I've never personally

seen that in any of my cases.

I think, and that's probably a product too, of like we've talked about

throughout these podcasts, we're very selective about the cases we take on.

Number one, whether we're prepping a client for a deposition, just doing an

intake or what, it's just, just be honest.

Just tell the truth.

Like we can deal with good facts in a case, we can deal with bad facts.

But if there's something that comes out where, you know, they told us

one thing and then they changed their story and later on in the,

that, that could be a huge problem.

I'll just give you a small kind of vague example, but last

week I did a a client intake.

And the person was describing how he got hurt and he said that, you

know, I, I dropped an object and then this happened and I got hurt.

And I said, okay, can you gimme some more details?

He's like, yeah, I just dropped it then.

I don't know what happened.

I got hurt.

I asked him a second time.

He gave me a little variation to that.

Then I asked him a third time, and he basically admitted that

what he did was just a mistake.

He screwed up and he hurt himself.

And I was like, okay, well, that's not a case.

The, and again, I'm being vague just because.

It's a case we ended up rejecting, but long and the short is this guy gave me

three different versions of what happened.

And I was like, that's not a client that, that I would want.

That's not a case that I'm gonna take on.

Like I have to believe in the case and stand up there in front

of a jury and say, ladies and gentlemen, this is what happened.

And if my client hasn't been honest with me, how can I feel like everything's true?

There's actually a jury instruction.

We may have mentioned it already, but it's, I don't remember the

Latin for it, but it's false in one.

False in all.

If somebody lies about something, if a witness, you know, a client lies

about something, the jury can presume that they're lying about everything.

So to Jerry's point earlier on, you know, if the guy's like,

Ooh, you know, should I work?

Shouldn't I work?

And they can really work, and they say, oh, I'm gonna try and stay

home and not work, and that comes out, A jury could be like, well, I

don't believe he's actually hurt.

And that could really, really hurt the case.

So it's just important to be honest, and that factors in big time to

whether we take on a case or, or don't.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

Any last thoughts before we wrap up, Jerry?

Oh, I'm gonna say one more thing real quick, just because I know the, the

theme was statute of limitations.

A lot of times I, I feel like it's, the law tries to get it right,

that tries to be about fairness.

And the idea is isn't just to, you know, screw over people who don't

act quick enough and file their case.

It's a balancing act where you can't have a claim that's open indefinitely.

Like say I get rear-ended by someone and I'm in a lot of pain and I don't, don't do

anything for year after year after year.

The defendant who, the person that hit me, and I hate that I'm sitting here

speaking up for them, but like they would have a right to know what the time window

is, when they could be sued, whether they can move on with their life or

whether there's going to be litigation.

It avoids claims being opened in perpetuity where anything that had

happened ever, you can just get sued for.

So two years, it sounds like a long time, but it's not in this business.

It goes really, really quick and it's one of the few advantages that we have,

is that when someone comes to us, before we have to file a lawsuit, there's

things we can do behind the scenes.

To build up the case.

'cause once we file that case, things we get, you know, things we find

out, we usually have to produce that.

So it's a huge advantage and one of the few advantages as plaintiff's

attorneys we have is to work the case up before we file a lawsuit.

So go to an attorney early, go to the right, kind of attorney early, and make

sure you file a case within two years.

I mean, I've heard, I've heard from so many people like different stories

where someone got hurt when they were younger and they never went to a lawyer,

and, and they're dealing with the same thing like 15 years later in their life.

It could have gotten a lot of money for, for what happened,

and they just never went to, I.

A lawyer or a good lawyer.

And I feel bad for people like that 'cause they're dealing with really

difficult things and they just never will.

Oh, I don't wanna sue.

You know?

And then a lot of times people are like, well it's a friend of mine or,

you know, I know the person's house I was at, or you know, they were driving

the car so I don't wanna sue them.

But what they should know is most people have insurance,

homeowner's insurance in New Jersey.

It's like relatively speaking, it's not even that expensive.

And the most, your friend or acquaintance that you might have to

sue would be, would be damaged by it is maybe $500 premium or something.

'cause the, it's really the insurance that you're going after that's the

real party and interest in those, in those cases for the most part.

So, you know, I would, I would jump on it right away and, and it's important to

find a good lawyer that knows the area.

That's that issue because the other problem too is if you go to a lawyer and

they don't want your case and you go to another lawyer and they don't want your

case, it becomes like a house that sits on the market too long and the value goes

down or the more, because it takes a lot of time for a lawyer to look at a case

and decide whether or not they want it.

That can take a lot of time.

And the more law firms that looked at the case and don't want it, the more

likely it is the next lawyer's not gonna want it either because they may

think, well, that lawyer didn't want it.

Why would I want it?

So it's important not only to go to a lawyer right away, but go to a good

lawyer that knows the area in question.

So thanks.

Great points.

Thank you so much.

I think it's a wrap you guys.

We will see you next time.

And if you have questions, make sure you send your questions in to

questions@jerseyjusticepodcast.com to be featured.

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