What’$ Your Personal Injury Case Worth?

By Adam Handler
Personal Injury Attorney, The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein

Everyone’s different. We experience pain differently. We are affected by injuries differently.

But what all my clients have in common is this: They want to know, “What’s my case worth?”

It’s a question, while perfectly understandable, that positively plagues personal injury attorneys, since the dollar-figure is virtually impossible to predict.

Depends on the quality of the evidence.

Depends on the facts of the case.

Depends on the knowledge and dedication of your lawyer (which won’t be an issue if I’m your lawyer).

There are these key things to consider:

Liability - This is the “how did it happen?” or the “Who did what wrong?” part aspect of a case.

In my experience, cases involving clear-cut liability on the defendant (also called a tortfeasor) yields a higher case value than those cases in which the defendant’s involvement in the accident is limited or the injured party (aka the Plaintiff and/or Claimant) has in some way contributed to the accident themselves.

Damages – The ability to prove damages is a vital aspect of obtaining full compensation for one’s injuries.

Case value depends heavily on the amount of medical treatment, how soon after the accident the medical treatment was obtained and the future prognosis of the patient.

In addition, the same injury to some may be different to others. For example, I recently settled a case for a beautiful young lady that sustained a permanent scar below her bottom lip. Our office was able to obtain a six-figure settlement for her injuries, but was advised by the insurance company that had the same injury occurred to an older gentleman, the settlement would have been significantly lower.

Again, we are all individuals and have our cases scrutinized and valued on a case by case basis.

Insurance – Here’s the big one: 99% of claims are resolved through insurance companies of the defendant.

In the State of New York, a driver must carry a minimum liability policy of $25,000.00. Therefore, if you are one of the unlucky ones (and trust me there are many of you out there) that get his by one of these people, most likely your maximum recovery will be very limited. It doesn’t matter if you have a scratch on your arm or you lose your legs, you are usually bound by the amount of insurance the other person has.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule such as private assets of the defendant and/or your own insurance paying the difference (it’s called Underinsured Motorist Coverage….go out and buy it!!!).

In the end, there’s never a single answer to the question: How much is my personal injury case worth?

Unless, of course, that answer is: “It depends.”