How NOT to value your Injury Claim
I have to have this talk AAAAALLLLLLLLLLL the time.
There are many, many things that go into valuing a personal injury claim: Diagnoses, objective/subjective injuries, medical expenses, length of recovery, permanency, scarring, lost wages are some, but not all, of what I might consider to value your claim.
But people have an extremely hard time understanding what does NOT go into valuing their claim: Namely, the amount of damage done to their vehicle, and the bad driving of the defendant.
Just because your car was totaled doesn’t mean your case is automatically worth their liability limits. As I argue with adjusters all day, property damage does not always correlate with personal damage. In other words, what’s important about your property damage isn’t its breadth, but its corroboration with your reported injuries. If your car isn’t damaged but for the windshield that you smashed with your head, netting you a traumatic brain injury, THAT’S important info. But just because there’s minimal damage doesn’t mean you have a minimal injury. And on the other end, if you roll your car 7 times but walk away with nary a scratch, I don’t care if you totaled a $200,000 Bentley, your injury claim isn’t going to be worth a lot.
And bad driving on the part of the defendant is a necessity to having a good injury claim. But really bad driving doesn’t necessarily make your case worth more. Yes, you have to prove negligence, or you can’t get to even talk about your damages, whatever they might be. But the relative “badness” of that negligence doesn’t make a chiropractic sore neck case worth a ton more. The exception to this rule is in cases where you can argue for punitive damages due to reckless and wanton conduct. But this is the exception, NOT the rule.
So when you’re thinking about what you case is worth, don’t confuse damage to your vehicle with damage to your body. And don’t confuse bad driving with automatic pay days. More importantly, listen to your attorney. There is a good chance he knows what he’s talking about, especially if he’s me.
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