What Happens After Your ERISA Law Suit has been Filed?
You purchased a long term disability policy to provide you with peace of mind. But, when you least can afford it, your disability carrier has denied your benefits and has rejected your appeal.
Your next and only recourse is to higher a long term disability attorney to sue your long term disability carrier. Your attorney will file what is called a complaint which outlines the facts of your case and why you are entitled to benefits. There generally is no activity for 60 to 90 days after a claim is filed. Why? The complaint is filed and then served on a defendant who, in turn, has to “answer” the complaint within 20 days after the lawsuit is filed.
There “answer” is nothing more than the formal denial of the allegations of the complaint.
After the answer is filed, the court will issue a scheduling conference order directing the attorneys to confer about the scheduling of events in your case including, taking depositions, disclosing experts, filing motions, mediation, pretrial and trial.
The scheduling conference takes place about two to three months after the law suit is filed and establishes a time table for the parties to complete the discovery, conduct mediation and have a trial date.
Each court has there own local rules. These dates might vary depending on where you live. In any event, it may seem that nothing is happening until the scheduling conference. And, quite frankly, that’s incorrect. Many ERISA long term disability attorneys are drafting what’s called interrogatories and requests to produce which they can file as soon as the scheduling conference order is issued.
You can learn more about the ERISA mediation process by contacting ERISA disability attorney Nancy Cavey who can help you with your claim regardless of where you live in the United States.