You got into an accident. You’re faced with painful physical injuries, missed paychecks, a lengthy recovery, and changes in your day-to-day life. These things aren’t just expensive; they’re also incredibly stressful.
When someone else causes you to get hurt, they can be held accountable. By filing a personal injury claim or lawsuit, you can demand to be compensated for your economic losses and harder-to-value non-economic struggles.
What, exactly, is that personal injury case worth, though? It’s a common question, and an important one to ask. When you know your claim’s potential value, it gives you incredible power throughout settlement negotiations. You’ll be primed to identify a lowball offer, and give you the power to push back and demand a better financial award.
In truth, every case is incredibly different. There’s no standard case value. The specific facts and circumstances with which you’re faced after your accident will dictate how much money you can potentially recover from an insurance company or liable third party.
An experienced Austin injury attorney at Dow Law Firm can help you realize your claim’s full potential.
Important Factors When Calculating a Claim’s Potential Value
A lot goes into evaluating what a specific personal injury case might be worth.
Your Physical Injuries
What types of injuries did you suffer in the accident? Are you dealing with soft tissue injuries that will heal on their own in a few weeks or months without surgery? Or, are you struggling with multiple bone fractures, a traumatic head injury, or a spinal cord injury that demands surgery, rehabilitation, and a lengthy recovery?
It’s an important distinction, because the more seriously you’re injured, the more your life is bound to change. More serious injuries tend to have higher costs for treatment and often require longer recovery periods. This can impact your ability to work, your ability to enjoy your life, your ability to spend time with your family, and your ability to make ends meet.
A skilled personal injury lawyer will evaluate all of these factors to build a strong claim.
The Length of Your Recovery
The longer a recovery, the more it’s going to interfere with your ability to live your life. It can impede your ability to work, potentially sidelining you altogether or forcing you into a light-duty assignment.
If you max out your PTO, you could be left without a paycheck to help you navigate out-of-pocket costs and your day-to-day expenses. Longer recovery periods tend to warrant more compensation for your damages.
Changes in Your Ability to Work
Can you continue working after your accident? Do your injuries keep you out of work? Do they limit your ability to do your job in any way? Will your injuries limit your earning capacity, now or in the future?
All of this has to be taken into consideration when calculating your claim’s value. You’re entitled to damages for your financial losses, including income and job benefits you have to give up because you’ve been injured. A knowledgeable personal injury attorney can help accurately calculate these complex future losses.
Available Insurance Coverage
For auto accidents, in particular, the at-fault party’s available insurance coverage can potentially have an impact on the amount of money you can be awarded for crash-related injuries.
If a driver carries minimum insurance coverage, which is currently set at $30,000 per person and $60,000 per accident for bodily injury, that’s the ceiling on your insurance claim. In truck accident cases, policy limits tend to be much, much higher.
This doesn’t mean that’s what your case is worth, but it does reflect what you may be able to recover, which is an important thing to consider when you’re watching medical bills stack up and your bank account slowly drain.
In these situations, it’s important to work with a personal injury lawyer in Austin who knows how to uncover all potential sources of compensation, which could include coverage from your own uninsured motorist policy and/or seeking damages from a liable third party in a related lawsuit.
Your Age and Life Expectancy
Your age at the time of your accident matters, because a young person who suffers catastrophic injury will face the consequences of their accident for far longer than an elderly person. At the same time, an adult crash victim might face a longer recovery period than a younger victim, which could play into calculating a claim’s value.
Shared Fault
Sharing responsibility, or simply failing to refute claims of shared fault, can directly affect the amount of money you bring home in a personal injury settlement or jury award. In Texas, damages are reduced in direct proportion to fault up to 50 percent. Having an aggressive injury attorney on your side ensures your rights are protected against unfair blame.
Understanding the Impact of Economic Damages
Compensatory damages fall into two categories: economic and non-economic. Economic damages, which are specifically known as pecuniary damages in Texas, are awarded to offset the financial impact of an avoidable accident and injury.
Economic damages can include money for:
- Medical bills
- Lost wages
- Disability
- Property damage
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Nursing assistance
- Funeral expenses if an accident is fatal
These damages aren’t subject to caps in the state of Texas. You can recover compensation for all of the present and future economic losses you can document. If you can prove the loss, it’s recoverable.
What Are My Pain and Suffering Damages Worth?
Non-economic damages, which are referred to as nonpecuniary damages in Texas, are intended to acknowledge and alleviate harder-to-value consequences of getting hurt.
They often include money for:
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Physical disfigurement
- Inconvenience
- Loss of consortium
- PTSD
These damages are subject to a lot of back-and-forth negotiations in personal injury cases. They’re generally valued by applying a multiplier between 1.5 and 5 to the related economic award. The more seriously you’re injured and the more an accident changes your life, the higher the multiplier your injury lawyer can argue for.
For instance, let’s say your economic damages total $100,000. If a multiplier of 3 is applied to your case because you are dealing with chronic physical pain and aren’t able to participate in things you once loved, your non-economic damages would equal $300,000. In total, your personal injury claim would be worth $400,000.
However, in Texas, non-economic damages are subject to statutory limits in certain situations, particularly in medical malpractice cases and government tort claims. In these situations, the state sets a strict ceiling on the compensation you can recover for pain and suffering, even if a jury says you should get more.
Dow Law Firm Can Help You Fight for What Your Texas Personal Injury Case is Worth
Hiring an experienced Austin personal injury attorney can help you make the most of your fight for compensation.
At Dow Law Firm, our knowledge, experience, and winning reputation are unmatched. Our personal injury lawyers will help you know what your case is worth and then fight to get you every cent you deserve.
Call our injury attorneys in Austin today at (512) 240-9951 or complete our online contact form to learn more. Your first consultation is free.