Value of a Personal Injury Case
How Much Is My Case Worth?
Hopefully not a lot — and I don't say that to be funny. Personal injury cases with the highest value generally involve devastating injuries. You can't walk. You can't see. You'll never be able to work again or swing your children around. Those cases settle in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes in the millions.
If, on the other hand, you're dealing with neck or back pain that will persist intermittently, you're likely not looking at a million-dollar case. But the good part is, you'll be able to return to your normal life.
How Do You Determine the Value of a Case When Every Case Is Different?
As a personal injury attorney, my job is “restoration.” Restoring you to the pre-injury version of ‘you’ is the best we can hope for, as there is no turning back the hands of time. This is done through seeking monetary compensation. You'll hear attorneys use the words "justice" and "compensation" interchangeably — "justice" resonates more with people, but "compensation" is really what we are talking about. Money can never replace working legs that allow you to play soccer with your kids or reach items on the top shelf of your kitchen cabinet, but under our civil system, money is the closest tool we have to restore what an injured person has lost.
When someone calls my office and tells me they've been injured due to another person's or company's negligence, I'm going to look at several factors for the damage analysis:
Lost Wages: Have you missed work? How much time, and what would you have earned?
Future Earnings: Will this injury reduce your ability to do your job going forward?
Property Damage: Was personal or real property damaged in the accident? What was its value?
Permanent Scarring: Has your appearance been permanently altered?
Medical Bills: What has your medical treatment cost so far?
These are just a few. I call these "hard numbers" because we can demonstrate exactly how the injury has affected you with documentation. There are also "soft numbers" — factors that are real but harder to quantify — and I prefer to discuss those once the hard numbers are established. Among the most important considerations when negotiating with the liable party's insurance carrier:
Loss of Meaningful Life: What activities, routines, or joys will you no longer be able to experience because of this injury?
Pain and Suffering: How traumatic was your experience? How harrowing was the recovery process? What does your future suffering and pain levels look like?
Loss of Consortium: What impact has this injury had on your ability to spend meaningful time with your spouse? Your children?
How long is the process?
This is the most difficult question I get because there is simply no way to give a definitive answer. But I can tell you this much: it isn't something that should be rushed.
A typical car accident case where the damages are not severe and the facts are straightforward could resolve in six to nine months. However, in my experience, this varies greatly depending on the insurance carrier and the specific adjuster on the other side of your claim. Other smaller injury cases may take longer based on the length of treatment, how quickly medical providers can furnish records and bills, and whether litigation becomes necessary.
Catastrophic injury cases — wrongful death, major life-altering injuries such as burns, paraplegia, quadriplegia, or loss of senses — can take several years to resolve. Why so long? In a catastrophic case, there are often twenty or thirty different medical providers involved, and that's before you account for experts. We may need to engage a forensic economist to forecast the loss of future earnings, a physiatrist to explain why every treating provider's care was necessary, and a life care planner to project the ongoing medical needs for the remainder of the client's life and what those will cost. Retaining these experts and coordinating their opinions takes time — scheduling conflicts alone can cause delays, and each expert needs adequate time to research and study the case before rendering an opinion.
Because of the nature of catastrophic injuries, very often we will file a lawsuit shortly after engaging a client because we want to issue discovery and start collecting any evidence that we can. Pre-suit negotiations are not as effective in these cases as with smaller injury cases because insurance companies rarely grasp the seriousness of a catastrophic injury unless they are staring down the barrel of a jury trial. This means we will need to also prepare for depositions, mediation, and trial. Most cases resolve before trial but the time and expense of preparing for trial remain the same, regardless of if a trial is at the end of your personal injury lawsuit or not.
If you have questions about your personal injury case, or would like a free case evaluation, feel free to contact us and we would be happy to schedule a time with you to see how we may be able to help.
