What is the Value of Your Personal Injury Case?
Our law firm handles serious injury, accident and medical malpractice cases
and when a client of ours is seriously injured in an accident
they have a lot of questions understandably and we do the best
we can to answer as many of those questions as possible.
The one question that is in every client's mind is, "How much
is my case worth? What is the value of my case?"
A personal injury case is ultimately about money.
Now, our clients wish it was about something very different.
Our clients wish a personal injury case was about a erasing the harm
that was caused to them.
We have gotten clients you know verdicts of millions of dollars
and I have never once
seen a client say, "You know I would go through it all over again.
Now that you got me this 2.1 million dollar settlement I would
do it all over again for this money." It never happens,
but that is not an option. We can't erase what happened.
All we have under our system is money damages so how much money
am I going to get is a completely appropriate question for you
to be asking.
There is a formula that insurance companies use and ultimately
the jury is used that calculate what your case is worth
and a personal injury case is worth in its simplest form
is your medical bills, your lost wages they are related to the
accident to the harm that was caused to you. Plus
your pain and suffering.
The first two loss wages and medical bills, they are pretty easy
to get your mind around. We have battles with the insurance companies
over what bills were appropriate or where the bills were fair
or whether the time off was reasonable or whether the client
can go back to work again or whether they have a permanent injury.
It is pretty easy to sort of the battlefield is in the lines
are pretty easily drawn for those. Pain
and suffering damages are far more difficult
and juries when they are asked to calculate pain and suffering
damages aren't given a lot of guidance from judges either and
no one says this is how this is the formula you use to calculate
fame and suffering. The jury has to decide what the harm was
and when I am giving a closing statement to a jury I use the
scales of justice and harm.
Often great harm has been done to our clients to no fault of their own
and it is the jury's job and the insurance company's job too
to balance out those scales.
So the harm becomes balanced out by a certain amount
of money and the question is how much money is that.
And it is a hard question to answer for juries, for insurance
companies and for lawyers, but there are some things we can use
to sort of guide us and what the value of a case is.
There are values in
Maryland for wrongful death cases and they are already expected
range of values when someone loses a loved one as a result of
the negligence of somebody else. If you have a herniated disc,
there is a range of sum and values. There is an average sum and
value for herniated disc case and we have you know our website
is the preeminent source online for statistics it show what the
value of these types of cases are and you can prove well you
know what is the value of my herniated disc case or what is the
value of my wrongful death case. You are going to find you know
information from us as to the statistics on that. But truthfully
the statistics are limited value because every case is different.
So the first thing we look to in terms of trying to figure out
you know the damages is the permanency, is that a permanent injury.
Was there a death trying at the core of the pain and suffering
damages? The second thing is
you know the client themselves and what they went through from
the accident. For settlement purposes, that is mostly determined
by what is in the medical records? But if a lawsuit is filed
and case goes on further the insurance company is out to be able
to look at it, like a jury would. Look at that person go through
as it result to the accident. How did the accident change their
lives and what amount of money will balance it out so the harm is made equal.
The great -- the value of any case, the value of any personal injury case
is going to be greatest in those arms and there is pain
and suffering of how it impacted your life.
It is our job to explain to the insurance company to the opposing lawyers
and ultimately yet necessary to a jury
exactly what you have gone through as a result of the accident.