How Long Do You Have to File a Truck Accident Lawsuit in Kentucky?

When you are in the process of recovering from a serious truck accident, you may want to think about possibly filing an insurance claim or a personal injury lawsuit. Unfortunately, time does not stop for you or anyone else. Both the law and the insurance company have strict deadlines that must be followed by anyone seeking financial compensation for their injuries.

Kentucky Law Defeats Truck Driver’s Underinsured Motorist Claim

Of course, knowing what deadline applies to your specific accident may not always be so obvious. Take this recent case, Jackson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. This personal injury lawsuit arose from a commercial trucking accident in Alabama. Yet it was due to Kentucky law that the Alabama courts ended up dismissing the case in favor of the plaintiff’s insurance company.

Here is a brief explanation of what happened. The plaintiff, a Kentucky resident, was a commercial truck driver. In December 2020, while driving his truck through Morgan County, Alabama, another tractor-trailer hit him. The other truck driver’s insurance company admitted fault and agreed to pay the plaintiff out the limits of the liability policy. As this was not enough to fully compensate the plaintiff for his injuries, he then sought coverage from his own insurance company, State Farm, under his underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage.

State Farm denied the claim. The accident itself fell within the scope of the UIM coverage. The problem was that State Farm said the plaintiff waited too long to make his claim. The plaintiff filed his personal injury lawsuit against the at-fault truck driver in Alabama state court in April 2022 and later amended it in October 2023 to name State Farm as an additional defendant for purposes of seeking UIM coverage. But State Farm maintained that since the plaintiff purchased his policy as a Kentucky resident, his UIM claim was governed by Kentucky law. And in Kentucky, an insured driver has 2 years from the date of an accident to file a lawsuit seeking UIM benefits. Here, the plaintiff added State Farm as a defendant after the two-year deadline passed.

In response, the plaintiff argued his lawsuit should be governed by Alabama procedural law, which gives a party six years to file a lawsuit arising from an alleged breach of contract. The Alabama Supreme Court, however, held that under Alabama law, parties to a contract–including an insurance contract–can decide which state’s law applied to their agreement. In this case, the plaintiff and State Farm agreed the insurance policy was governed by the substantive law of Kentucky. As such, the plaintiff was required to name State Farm as a defendant within Kentucky’s two-year deadline.

Contact a Madisonville Truck Accident Lawyer Today

An important lesson here is that you should not put off seeking legal advice following an accident–especially a commercial trucking accident where the laws of multiple states often come into play. If you need to speak with a qualified Madisonville truck accident lawyer, contact Whitfield Crosby & Flynn today to schedule a consultation. We have offices in Madisonville, Kentucky; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Indianapolis, Indiana.

Source:

publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/F93783B5-3CD6-4567-A7DA-542506EDE891/docketentrydocuments/EDB84C1C-A09B-4302-9A6B-F7458DE63094