Legal Question in Personal Injury in Pennsylvania

Re: ATV Accident

You may have a claim but if you're in Pennsylvania you probably missed the statute of limitations for a claim for negligence. There may be exceptions to the statute of limitations based on your age or a few very limited circumstances but if you don't fit into the exceptions you will be barred from pursuing a claim.

Re: ATV Accident

Hello! Thanks for the question.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you probably cannot sue the driver of the ATV for the injuries you suffered in the 2006 accident. In Pennsylvania, the Statute of Limitations for negligence is 2 years from the date of the incident. So let's say your accident was September 30, 2006. You would had to have filed your lawsuit by September 30, 2008.

A more thorough answer to your question requires a brief discussion of the Discovery Rule. The Discovery Rule states that if a plaintiff either knew or through reasonable inquiry and diligence could have found out A.) that they were injured AND B.) who injured them, the Statute of Limitations will begin to run from the moment of the injury. However, if the plaintiff did not know and couldn't reasonably find out that they were injured AND who injured them, then the Discovery Rule allows the Statute of Limitations to be tolled (imagine a stopwatch that has been stopped...that's what we mean by "tolled") until the plaintiff finds out (or could have reasonably found out through due diligence and inquiry) that they were injured AND who injured them.

For example, let's say a person goes in for surgery. In the course of the surgery, the doctor negligently sews a scalpel inside the patient. The patient goes on for 5 years with no symptoms. Suddenly, they are in excruciating pain and go to the ER, whereupon the scalpel is discovered. In that case, the person can sue the surgeon for malpractice, even though it has been longer than 2 years since the date of the operation. Why? The Discovery Rule would probably come into play here, and the courts would find that since there were no symptoms and since people cannot look inside themselves, there was no knowledge of the injury nor any way the plaintiff could have discovered the injury.

Your case is much trickier. Even with the lag time between the accident and when you first started noticing problems with the leg and knee, given that you DID suffer some injury immediately after the accident and that you knew exactly how that injury occurred, the Discovery Rule would probably not help you. It's not a 0% chance mind you, but it would be an extremely difficult case to make.

Hope this helps!