North Carolina Product Liability Lawyer Blog
In litigation, there are several harsh and punishing deadlines. The worst one is the statute of limitations (“SOL”). The SOL is a statute in state or federal law that limits the time you are allowed to file a lawsuit. In North Carolina, for example, the SOL for bringing a personal injury claim against a person or company for negligence is three years. This means if a guy runs a red light and “T-bones” your car, causing you to break your leg, you have three years from the date of the car crash to file a lawsuit. This may seem like a reasonable amount of time; as the injured person you certainly have an obligation to pursue valid claims in a timely manner, but it can also lead to unintended and unfair results.
The SOL is just one unforgiving deadline that a person faces in the bumpy wagon ride of civil litigation. There are also discovery deadlines, deadlines to respond to motions, scheduling order deadlines, and others. One deadline may involve a settlement deadline. A settlement deadline is a date negotiated by both sides in a large-scale litigation requiring plaintiffs to take certain actions by a specific date or lose the right to participate in the settlement. In “mass tort” product liability cases, courts want to resolve hundreds or even thousands of cases as efficiently as possible. And settlement deadlines are a valuable tool in getting large numbers of plaintiffs to take quick action. Let’s look at one example:
The DePuy ASR Hip Settlement Deadlines