subject: Vehicle Accident Plaintiff Gets Low Ball Offer Due To Undervaluing Of His Injuries By Insurance Company [print this page] Vehicle Accident Plaintiff Gets Low Ball Offer Due To Undervaluing Of His Injuries By Insurance Company
In this article we examine yet one more claim in which an insurer made only low ball offers to settle a car claim in which the victim sustained a serious injury. In this case an injury that actually affected the victim's ability to work.
To illustrate, think about a claim in which a bicyclist was injured. The driver in this lawsuit was operating an SUV. According to the victim, the driver was coming in the opposite direction when, without warning, he made a U-turn right in front of him forcing the victim to go over the SUV's hood. The plaintiff suffered from a wrist injury in which his cartilage was torn. As a result of his injury he had issues when he went back to his job as a mechanic with a dealership of high-end vehicles. Testimony from a physician pointed out that the bicyclist will most likely need surgery to fuse the bones in his wrist at some point in the future and that when this happens it will probably stop him from work as a mechanic. Due to this fact the victim would probably not be able to make as much money in the future leading to a loss of earning capacity.
With this knowledge the law firm named the employer as a second defendant. At the beginning the insurance company for the driver made an offer to settle the case for $10,000. The week prior to trial they increased their offer to $30,000.
This total represented $250,000 in economic damages (which would usually include medical costs and loss of earning capacity). Additionally, it included $300,000 in non-economic damages (this is the pain and suffering caused by the injuries).
Here we have a lawsuit where liability was not an issue. What was an issue was the value of the bicyclist's injuries. The insurer almost certainly perceived this case as merely involving a minor injury that resolved itself fairly quickly. With this perspective an offer of $30,000 may seen reasonable.
But the law firm representing the plaintiff positioned the claim so that it was not about an injury from which there was a full recovery but about an injury that would come back to haunt the victim in the future. The injury may not have necessitated surgery immediately but it caused sufficient damage to the wrist that it would need in all likelihood, not only surgery but a fusion. And this would probably put an end to the plaintiff's career as a mechanic of high-end cars. By letting the jury consider the full impact of the injury the law firm was able to attain a verdict over 18 times the amount offered by the insurer.
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