What is the process for filing a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act, or FTCA?
Hi, I'm Paul McConnell, a veteran and trial attorney with The Doctor Lawyer Team. In short, the process is that you need to file an SF95 form. And it needs to be served to the appropriate agency, whether that's the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States Postal Service, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, and the like. And it needs to be served within two years of the date of injury or discovery of the injury.
In most cases. There's some exceptions to that. Now, in a separate video, we talk about whether it makes sense for you to do it on your own. For example, you want to save attorney’s fees, so you do it on your own, but do you give consideration to how compelling it is—the package that you put together—or what it looks like on the other side as compared to having an experienced attorney help you? And again, with respect to attorney’s fees, there's only attorney’s fees if and when there's a recovery or settlement. In which case, under the administrative process, those fees are capped at 20%.
