yeah. for the corporation, maybe. though 95% of cases all settle out of court and get dropped. Some of that is because they got dragged along. but a lot of that also is that if the corporation deems they're at fault they're going to want to settle every time... and usually try to do that before you get a lawyer telling you how much the claim is worth.

Outback is the defendant, not the plaintiff. There's not much motive for a plaintiff to delay by a year or more outside of recovering/rehab, and trying to settle out of court before filing. that said, you generally have a couple of years at most before the statute of limitations kicks in.

prior to filing a claim against them, there's not a whole lot the corpos can do to slow down a claim from being filed. It's not like you're obligated to go through arbitration, or to seek settlement before hand, or even inform them that you're doing so. (and frequently it's better to not.)

"Slip and Fall" claims are very well established already so they have plenty of information as to how the outcomes going to go, and that means they have an idea of where to put the settlement to minimize their costs. (and your lawyer will have a good idea how to maximize your gain, so, yeah. they really want you to take that lowball before you talk to one.)