Understanding the Personal Injury Claims Process: Settling Your Case l Seattle Accident Attorney

Understandably, most people have no idea how the claims process works when it comes to evaluating and settling a personal injury claim.  There are some important points to understand.

First, people should understand that there is a big difference between the settlement value of a case and the actual value a jury may determine.  Settlement value is always less than actual value.  This is because the settlement value takes into account the enormous expense and risk of going to trial.  The settlement value is always a subjective judgment made by the parties.  The settlement offer has to be high enough to persuade the injured party to accept the offer to avoid the increased risk and expense of going forward with litigation and a trial. 

If there is a strong defense concerning the other party’s liability for causing the accident, this fact can significantly affect the value of a case.  That is, if the defense can show that a jury might not find the other party was at fault in the accident, then the settlement value of the case will be reduced to reflect the risk that no recovery or a reduced recovery may occur.  There are several types of defenses that can be asserted, depending on the facts involved.  The merits of a particular defense should be thoroughly evaluated by competent and experienced counsel so an appropriate risk-benefit analysis can be made about whether to go forward with a trial.

Generally speaking, a case is worth the amount of damages inflicted on the person who has been injured.  These damages may be easy to calculate, like past and future medical charges, lost earnings, lost earning capacity, and property loss.  But the law also states that the injured person has the right to recover compensation for other “intangible” harms.  It is these “intangible” harms that are more difficult to calculate. 

Such intangible harms may include those subjective harms that the injured victim has experienced from the injury, including pain, agony, disability, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment, inconvenience, and mental anguish.  These intangible harms are purely subjective, difficult to determine and their existence or degree may often vary among the people (or jurors) who are deciding the case.  Ultimately, the value of a case is determined by the jury (or a judge if the case is a bench trial). 

When a claim arises, the injured person’s attorney and the at-fault person’s insurance company (and the defense attorney if the case is in litigation) continually try to evaluate how a jury might see the case and how much money a jury might award.  Then each side will assign a value or a value range, and try to negotiate a settlement close to each side’s own range. 

A good personal injury attorney will use his or her experience and expertise to help establish a reasonable range of money into which a jury’s verdict might fall.  Nothing is certain however.  Any case can be lost at trial because juries are very unpredictable.  You never know what type of people you will get on a jury.  Two different juries can produce two very different verdicts, even when presented with the same evidence and testimony.  You may get a “good” group of jurors or a “bad” group.  Common to popular myth, you cannot “select” a good jury over a bad one.  The law only allows each side to strike 3 jurors out of a panel of 30 to 40 people.  Thus, a trial is always to a certain extent a gamble.  There is no guarantee that a jury will reach a favorable verdict, no matter how good you or the attorney believes the case is.

In most instances the value of a personal injury case is driven primarily by the extent and severity of the person’s injuries.  The particular facts giving rise to the claim of liability against the at-fault party may also have some influence.  Other important factors to consider include the type, extent and frequency of past medical treatment and the need for future treatment.  Other factors that may affect the value of a case include, but are not limited to, the victim’s likeability and credibility, the extent and duration of the injuries, the victim’s age, whether the victim missed time from work, the identities and reputations of the at-fault insurance company and the defense attorney, the specific legal or evidentiary issues involved in the case, the county or venue where the case has been or will be filed, and the amount of settlements and verdicts for similar types of cases in the past.

You should note that no two cases are alike, even if the incident and/or injuries involved are nearly identical.  This means that the evaluation of two cases that appear to be similar on the surface may actually produce widely different evaluations due to the other factors listed above.  People need to understand that evaluating personal injury cases takes a lot of knowledge, experience and some hard-earned intuition.  Without these traits you may be at a serious disadvantage when negotiating with the at-fault insurance company.  And unless you are in the business of evaluating and settling personal injury cases as  your profession, you should look to an experienced personal injury attorney for guidance.