How Do I Determine The Value Of My Personal Injury Case?
Your personal injury case value is determined by many, many things. However, just because you were severely injured does not mean that you will automatically receive a large offer or award from an insurance company, judge or jury. This is because Virginia, unlike nearly every other state in the United States, still recognizes the antiquated defense of contributory negligence. In Virginia, if you contribute just 1% of negligence, and this negligence was a proximate cause of your injuries, then even if the defendant is 99% at fault, you will collect nothing! So, if liability is not in your favor, you never get out of the starting gate!
Severity of Injuries And How Your Chances Of A Full Recovery Affect Case Value
The biggest indicator of your case value (assuming there is clear liability on the defendant) is the severity of your injury and your recovery. Obviously, if you were left with multiple broken bones, complex and costly surgeries, or horrible scarring, then you will have a valuable case. The limit on your case may be the amount of available insurance and the ability of the defendant(s) to personally pay money beyond that.
Compensation Awarded For Minor Injuries
You are still entitled to compensation even if you were not horribly injured. You will still be entitled to the cost of your medical treatment (past and potentially future), past lost wages (and potentially future), as well as non-economic damages like pain, suffering, inconvenience, and embarrassment. You will be entitled to your lost wages, even if you were able to use your vacation or comp time and incurred no financial loss.
How Jurisdiction Can Affect The Value Of Your Case
What else can affect the value of your case? You will be entitled to file your lawsuit where the crash occurred or where the defendant lives, or conducts substantial business. These various locations, or venues may offer varying outcomes based on the judge or jury pool in those areas. Your attorney should be able to determine which venue is best for your case. These can greatly affect the value of your case.
Consistent and Timely Medical Treatment
Gaps in your medical treatment can work against you. If you delay in seeing the doctor or following up with the doctor, that provides the defense with ammunition that you were injured through some other means during that gap, or that you are exaggerating your injuries as evidenced by your failure to timely follow up per doctor’s instructions.
Communicating Pain Levels To Medical Providers
Your attorney should thoroughly review your medical records. Unfortunately, we have had cases where physical therapists put very detrimental comments or opinions about clients in writing in the client’s medical records. These comments have ranged from opinions that clients were not exerting full effort, were exaggerating pain or were showing no pain in other similar movements (looking down while texting or up while drinking) when unaware they were being watched. Some physicians may state that certain symptoms or conditions were pre-existing to the incident at issue. These negative comments can greatly lessen the value of your case.
Relating Medical Treatment To The Accident
Your attorney may need to meet with your physician or surgeon to confirm that your treatment or surgery was necessitated by the crash versus another event or normal wear and tear. Some physicians are not willing to relate such things. If that happens to you, that can greatly lessen the value of your case.
Punitive Damages
The defendant can impact the value of the case. If the defendant was driving while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and that can be proven; or the defendant company has a history of bad conduct related to the defective product that severely injured you or killed a family member, or the dog that bit has bitten several people before, those things can increase the value of your case, even with injuries that are not severe.
Presenting Your Personal Injury Case
Likewise, if you don’t present well (poor eye contact, mumbling, nervousness etc.), that can lessen the value of your case. In short, your attorney should be able to evaluate all of these variables, including others and help you make an informed decision as to your case, and whether you should go to trial.
Hiring a skilled personal injury lawyer is key to obtaining the maximum amount of compensation for your personal injury lawsuit. A personal injury lawyer will not only speak for you, he will investigate, analyze, document, and review all of the circumstances of your case to give you the upper hand when it comes time to negotiate a settlement or go to trial.
Paul Thomson of The Thomson Law Firm represents victims injured in car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian accidents and many more. Prior to law school he attended Virginia Tech. After graduating from Virginia Tech, he worked for an insurance company for three years. While working for a major auto insurance carrier, he saw many unfair practices and decided to go to law school so he could “fight the good fight”. Learn more about what he can do for you here.
