11 Factors that determine the value of an Seattle personal injury case

11Factors that Impact
the Value of
your Personal
Injury Case
A Publication of James Publishing

1 Introduction
2 Comparative Fault of Parties Involved
4 Medical Expenses and Treatment Records
6 Quality of Medical Information
8 Nature, Severity and Extent of Your Injuries
11 Lost Income
13 Collision Damage
15 The “Likeability” Factor
17 Quality of Witnesses
18 Insurance Company
19 Where Your Case is Seated
21 Passage of Time
23 Chart
Contents

1
In the early stages of a case, it is just about impossible
for a personal injury lawyer to answer that question with
any certainty because there are too many unknowns:
What were the circumstances leading up to the
accident? How were you involved in the accident?
What is the extent of your injuries? How will your
medical history impact your case?
Every injury accident involves these unique issues
and more. There are, however, certain constants that run
through every case, and your personal injury attorney
can rely on these in estimating what your case is worth.
Regardless of how you were injured, the following
eleven factors will have a significant impact on the
value of your claim:
I n t r o d u c t i o n
What is my case worth?
C o ntents | N e x t C h apter

2
1Comparative Fault
of Parties Involved
How strong is your evidence
that the defendant
(the person you claim is
responsible for your
injuries) was at fault?

3
Were you at fault, in any way? Everyone evaluating
your case – your personal injury attorney, the insurance
adjuster, the jurors – will weigh the strength of your
case against the defendant’s case with respect to fault
or, in legal terms, “liability.” If the defendant’s liability is
absolutely clear, the value of your case is increased; if
your conduct contributed to your injuries, or could
be perceived as having contributed to your injuries,
your “comparative” fault will reduce the value of
your case. As your responsibility for the incident
approaches 50%, your chances of prevailing at
trial drop significantly.

4
2
Medical Expenses
and Treatment Records
Your medical expenses will be a primary concern of the
insurance adjuster evaluating your claim for settlement
purposes. The adjuster will consider:
The nature of your treatment: Do your medical bills
reflect a hospital stay, physical therapy, medical and
osteopathic treatment, diagnostic tests, orthopedic
devices, and prescription pain medications? A hospital
stay will be stronger evidence of an injury than will a
few chiropractic sessions, a series of negative diagnostic
tests, and over-the-counter analgesics.
The proportionality of your treatment: Do your medical
expenses appear to be out of proportion to your claimed
injuries? If so, the value of your claim may be reduced.

5
The correlation between your medical bills and
your treatment records. If you claim certain medical
expenses, but have no documentation of treatment that
correlates with the claimed expense, that bill is not likely
to be paid. Even worse, the insurance adjuster
may wonder if other aspects of your claim are
being padded or exaggerated.
Here is the bottom line: If your medical bills are
well documented and relate to actual injuries,
your claim will be worth more than if your
medical bills do not correspond to specific
treatment records or relate to tests that revealed
no discernible injury.

6
3
Quality of Medical Information
The quality of the medical information available in your
case can greatly impact its value.
The strongest type of medical information is a
narrative report from a well-respected medical doctor,
explaining the nature of your injuries. A narrative report
is one in which the doctor uses his own words to tell
(or “narrate”) the story of your injuries, including
your diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. The more
detailed, fact-specific, and decisive a narrative it is, the
more it will help your case. Broad generalizations or
hedging (“maybe” “possibly”) will be less helpful.
Detailed office notes, typed so they are legible, also
add value to your personal injury claim, as do detailed
hospital nurses notes.

7
Fill-in-the-blank form reports are the least helpful
type of medical information. The insurance claims
adjuster will wonder how much of this information
actually pertains to you and your claim. Did the doctor
simply insert your name on a form he previously
completed for a patient with the same type of injury?
Experienced adjusters get to know many of the
doctors in a particular area. When they see the
same type of report from a particular healthcare
provider over and over again, this raises a red
flag, causing the adjuster to closely scrutinize
your claim and view your entire case with a
healthy dose of skepticism.

8
4Nature, Severity and
Extent of Your Injuries
Fair or not, insurance companies (and most jurors)
place a higher value on some injuries than others.
Specifically, injuries that can be readily documented
and confirmed by objective evidence are worth more
than injuries that cannot be established by an objective
medical test. This means, for example, that a broken
clavicle is worth more than a “whiplash,” or a strained
back, or mental and emotional pain and suffering. In
most cases, a broken bone will heal faster than these
“subjective” injuries, but because jurors can see a broken
bone and empathize with the injured person, they tend
not to question the legitimacy or severity of the injury.

9
Likewise, if your doctor has indicated that any
aspect of your injury is “permanent,” this factor,
alone, will increase the value of any settlement
by a fairly substantial amount. Your medical bills
can be low, your loss of income can be low and your
injuries may be fairly minimal, but if you have some
permanent impairment, scarring or disfigurement, the
settlement value will increase. Again, because claims
adjusters and jurors can see this type of injury, it is
worth more than a subjective claim of pain or other
injury that cannot be objectively verified.

10
Finally, a pre-existing injury to the same area of the
body for which you are now claiming an injury may
lower the value of your claim. If, for example, you injured
your knee while skiing several years ago, the insurance
company may argue that your current problems stem
from that previous skiing incident, not from the more
recent auto accident.

11
5Lost Income
The value of your case is proportional to the
amount of money you have lost in terms of wages
or salary or profits.
In most cases, this type of
economic loss can be easily
and accurately calculated and
documented. For example, an
hourly wage earner who produces a
letter from her employer, supported
by personnel records, documenting
X number of hours lost at Y
dollars-per-hour, will have a strong
case for recovering the full amount
of her losses.

12
In other cases, the calculation is not so
straightforward. A self-employed business owner who
keeps poor records, or a waitress who earns a good
portion of her
wages from
(unreported)
tips, will have
a much more
difficult time
recovering the
full amount of
her economic
losses.

13
6Collision Damage
Were you involved in an auto accident in which
you sustained a significant whiplash or other soft-
tissue injury, but your car sustained little more
than a scratch?
These types of moderate impact/significant injury
collisions are not uncommon. Car bumpers are designed
to absorb a greater impact today than they were even
ten years ago.

14
Jurors, however, don’t often see it this way. Most
jurors come to court believing that a person cannot be
seriously injured in a minor impact collision. For these
jurors, the greater the damage to your vehicle, the greater
the value of your case. Your personal injury attorney
may be able to persuade the jurors and/or the claims
adjuster of the severity of your
injuries by obtaining photos
of all the cars involved in the
accident. Significant damage
to the defendant’s vehicle may
be sufficient objective proof to
convince an insurance adjuster
or a jury that you sustained more
than minimal injuries.

15
7
The “Likeability” Factor
Will jurors like you? Will jurors like you more than they
like the defendant? If the answer to either of these
questions is “yes,” you may get a higher settlement
offer from the insurance company.
Consider the type of defendant you are dealing with.
“Bad” defendants are easily recognizable – the building
owner who refused to fix the stairs, despite repeated
warnings they were dangerous; the pharmaceutical
company that continued to manufacture a drug, despite
knowledge of dangerous or potentially lethal side-
effects; the repeat-offender drunk driver; the bartender
who served an obviously impaired person.

16
In most cases, however, you will be
dealing with a “good” defendant who
made a poor choice or who was not as
careful as he should have been in that
particular moment. Those defendants
– e.g., the elderly driver; the mother
distracted by her infant crying in the
backseat; the neighborhood business
owner who didn’t see the grape on the
floor -- tend to lower the value of your
case because jurors will have some
sympathy for their situation. In these
cases, jurors may be hesitant to blame
the defendant too harshly, reasoning
“There, but for the grace of God . . . .”

17
8Quality of Witnesses
Do you have strong, objective witnesses on your
side, or is your strongest witness a family member
or close friend?
Is your treating doctor willing and able to testify
regarding the nature and severity of your injuries,
your treatment, and
your prognosis for
recovery? Your case
is only as strong as
your evidence, and
your evidence is only
as strong as your
witnesses.

18
9Insurance Company
Just like people, some insurance companies are more
generous than others.
Large, national insurance companies tend to be very
conservative (i.e., tightfisted) with their settlement
dollars, especially in smaller cases. These carriers have the
resources and the time to take a case to court, even if they
know they will lose that particular case and dozens more
like it. The cost to defend a minor auto accident case
is usually under $10,000, which is sometimes
close to the value of the case itself.
Large, conservative insurance carries
often are willing to pay this price
to send a message to other injury
victims and their lawyers.

19
10Where Your Case is Seated
Where you file your claim can have an impact on the
value of your case.
Jurors in some states, counties and cities traditionally
render low personal injury verdicts. Conversely,
jurors in other jurisdictions (e.g., New York, Florida
and California) tend to award higher jury verdicts. You
and your personal injury attorney must consider the
history of jury verdicts in the particular location where
your case is seated. You can bet the insurance claims
adjuster will take this information into consideration
before making any settlement offer.

20
Your personal injury attorney also will consider
the governing law in your jurisdiction. Will a state
law or local ordinance make it more difficult for you
to prevail at trial? Did a judge recently rule in favor of
the injured party in another case with facts similar to
yours? If the law is on your side, your personal injury
attorney can use this as leverage to enhance the
settlement value of your case.

21
11Passage of Time
In general, the longer it takes a small personal injury
case to get to a jury, the lower the jury’s verdict will be.
If, for example, you filed your lawsuit almost a year after
the accident, and it takes another five years for your
case to get to trial, the jury will be hearing about events
that happened several years ago. Jurors may find it
hard to empathize with you, especially if your claim is
for pain and soft-tissue injuries, which lasted just a few
months and have long been resolved.
C o ntents | C o ncl u si o n

22
The eleven factors listed above, as
well as other factors unique to your
particular situation, will impact the
value of your case. An experienced
personal injury lawyer can analyze
the strengths and weaknesses of
your case, within the framework of
these factors, and help you make
informed decisions about how best
to resolve your claim.
I n C o n cl u si o n C o ntents | C h art

2323
Factors that Impact the Value of Your Personal Injury Case
Case Value
Decrease
Fault (Liability) Defendant clearly is 100% at fault. Defendant clearly is 100% at fault.
Medical Expenses
and Treatment
Records
Well documented.
Proportionate to injury.
Bills submitted correlate to actual treatment.
Treatment of short duration, with no
objective confirmation of injury.
Bills seem out of proportion to
documented injury.
Bills submitted for treatment, but
no supporting documentation of the
treatment itself.
Fault (Liability) Defendant clearly is 100% at fault. Your actions contributed, to some degree,
to your injuries. The greater your perceived
fault, the lower the value of your case.
Quality of Medical
Information
Detailed narrative reports from treating
doctor; detailed office records or
nurses’ notes.
Standard, fill-in-the-blank medical reports.
Nature of
Your Injuries
Objectively verifiable injury (e.g., broken
bone).
Permanent.
Soft-tissue injuries (e.g., “whiplash”), pain
and suffering.
Supported by subjective complaints more
so than objective diagnostic tests.
Not permanent; healed over time.
Lost Income,
Wages, Profits
Documented and verifiable. Not well documented or easily verifiable.
Case Value
Increase

24
Case Value
Increase
Case Value
Decrease
Likeability Factor Jurors will like you.
Jurors will like you more than the
defendant.
You were injured by a “bad” defendant.
Jurors will bristle at your demeanor or at
the nature of your claim.
You were injured by a “good” defendant
who failed to exercise good judgment in
the moment.
Quality of
Witnesses
Objective. Biased (e.g., close family member or
friend).
Insurance Carrier Large, national carrier.
Conservative in paying claims.
Willing to take even small cases to trial.
Smaller, local carrier.
More reasonable in paying claims and
reaching compromises short of a lawsuit.
Jurisdiction State or local law favors the facts of your
case.
Tradition of high jury verdicts in personal
injury cases.
State or local law is against you.
Jurors tend to favor the defense in
personal injury cases and/or render low
verdicts.
Time A relatively short amount of time has
passed between the incident that caused
your injuries and the trial.
A significant amount of time (e.g., years) has
passed between the incident and the trial.
Collision Damage Heavily damaged or “total loss” vehicle
correlates with serious personal injuries.
Alleged injuries seem out of proportion to
minimal vehicle damage.

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