Watch the news long enough, and you’ll likely hear about a jury awarding large sums of money to a personal injury victim. Most personal injury cases don’t end in a high-profile trial, though. It’s far more common to settle behind closed doors, often with a nondisclosure agreement.
If you’ve been injured and someone else is at fault, you need to know what to expect during the settlement process. There are a lot of factors that can go into the negotiation and the final settlement amount.
What Factors Go Into a Personal Injury Settlement?
Medical Expenses (Past and Projected Future)
Before going into a personal injury negotiation, you will want to gather information on any medical expenses related to that injury. Your personal injury attorney will negotiate based on your total related medical bills, even if your insurance paid most of the cost.
You will also want an estimate of any future medical expenses related to your injury, including the cost of ongoing treatment. Your lawyer can help you estimate expenses or otherwise determine a compensation amount for a complicated or uncertain situation.
Property Damage
Property damage is common in car accident cases, but it’s rarely a factor in most other types of injury claims. Expenses from accident-related repairs should go into your settlement negotiation.
If your car or property was damaged beyond repair, you can use the value of the property at the time just before the accident occurred. In other words, you will need to get an estimate of your car’s value based on its current age and mileage, not its value when you bought it.
Lost Earnings
Many people are forced to miss work because of their injuries after the incident leading to their case. If you are in that situation, tally up your lost income, including the dollar value of any PTO you took.
If you will miss more work because of ongoing treatment or because you can’t work in your current job during the recovery process, you can add an estimate of those lost earnings, too.
General (Non-Economic) Damages
“General damages” is a common legal term for the less tangible, hard-to-calculate negative effects of the incident. It includes the physical pain or discomfort, emotional distress, and anxiety you’ve experienced because of the incident where you were injured. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on these experiences, but your lawyer will need to try in order to negotiate a settlement.
If you have medical expenses, your personal injury lawyer or insurance adjuster may take that amount (including future injury-related medical expenses) and use a multiplier between 1.5 and 5 to come up with a general damages amount. The multiplier depends on how serious your injuries your injuries are, the impact on your daily life, your recovery prospects, and the extent to which the other party was at fault.
Another common way of calculating general damages is the per diem (daily rate) method. This method uses the number of days you’ve been in pain and multiplies it by a daily rate. If your lawyer can argue that dealing with injury-related pain is comparable to the effort of working, they may choose a rate based on your daily earnings. This method works best for people with moderate incomes and short-term injuries.
If you have long-term injuries, permanent impairment, or an unusually low or high income, calculating your general damages will be more complicated. A lawyer can help you put the right value on your case to get the best possible settlement outcome.
Adjustments For Fault
Your settlement amount also depends on whether and to what extent you were at fault. If you live in Washington state, the law requires jury awards for personal injury cases to be reduced by your percentage of fault. Since settlement amounts are calculated similarly to jury awards, you can expect a lower amount even if you don’t go to trial.
How Long Will It Take to Get a Settlement for a Personal Injury Claim?
The personal injury claim process can take anywhere between six months and several years. If your injury was short-term and you are able to agree to a settlement, there’s a good chance you will be able to resolve your case within nine months. On the other hand, a catastrophic injury case that goes to trial may take 2-5 years, and there’s no guarantee of success.
Get Started On Your Personal Injury Claim
The sooner you get started on your personal injury claim, the easier it will be to get a settlement, and the faster you’ll see compensation. You don’t want to miss the statute of limitations, or legally allowed time window, for your injury claim. The first step is to hire a lawyer.
In just about any personal injury settlement, the other side is going to have a lawyer — often an entire team of legal professionals, especially if the other party is an insurance company or an organization of any kind. You don’t want to go into the negotiation alone. While you likely know all the details of your injuries as well as anyone, there are a lot of local laws and situational nuances that can impact settlement outcomes. A personal injury lawyer will know all of those nuances and be able to use them to your advantage.
If you are dealing with a personal injury and need a lawyer in western Washington, the Anderson Hunter Law Firm is here to help. Our personal injury lawyers have represented thousands of people after auto accidents, premises defects, product defects, and many other injuries.
Our firm takes personal injury cases on a contingency fee. In other words, you won’t need to pay us unless you win compensation.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation on your personal injury case.