Originally Posted by
bearkatt
the attorney did well giving this to channel 2. the first 5 minutes of the 10 o'clock news for a 2 year old story. I would be more sympathetic if the case had been files 2 years ago. looks like a money grab to me.
Civil cases like this are usually not filed until close to the end of the statue of limitations, which is typically 2 years. There are many valid reasons for this.
1) The amount one of damages is not known right at the time of the incident. It often includes medical costs, which can take a long time to be known. There could be rehab that goes on for months, for example. And insurance plans may require you to pay them back out of any settlement or court judgement, so anyone suing will need / want to be able to recover more than their insurer paid.
2) Depending on the nature of the injuries, the long term effects (pain, loss of function) can take months to years to be well understood. How do you sue right away for damages when you don't know what they are?
3) As someone else pointed out, if there's a criminal case, you'd want that to be resolved first because it makes the civil case much easier.
Separately, airlines, and United in particular, are earning themselves a really bad reputation. How many customer service oriented companies and take these kinds of incidents coming up repeatedly and not suffer consequences?