If you’re facing injuries and are suing for damages, you’re probably also inclined to wonder how much your case is worth.
The truth is, there’s no way to predict that number. There are far too many variables involved for it to be a simple equation and calculated using a basic algorithm. What we can do, is talk about the many factors involved that determine the ultimate value of your personal injury lawsuit. The best solution is to reach out to an experienced personal injury lawyer in Denver who can help you work through your case.
Key Takeaways
- The value of a personal injury case depends on various factors, including economic damages like medical expenses and lost wages, as well as non-economic damages such as pain and suffering.
- Personal injury calculators often overlook the subjective aspects of a case, such as the impact of injuries on your daily life. For example, a seemingly minor injury like a wrist fracture can significantly affect your ability to enjoy hobbies like tennis, which could lead to higher compensation for lost enjoyment.
- Insurance companies often use software like Colossus to undervalue claims and may stall to avoid paying out a fair settlement. Having an experienced personal injury lawyer by your side can help you navigate these tactics and maximize the value of your claim.
What are You Entitled to Sue For in a Personal Injury Lawsuit?
We break damages in a personal injury lawsuit down into two types: economic and non-economic damages.
Economic damages include:
- Medical expenses,
- Property damage,
- Lost time from work,
- Lost wages,
- Loss of employability.
These relate directly to money you have lost or will lose due to your injury. You may collect on both present and future lost wages. If you will no longer be able to work because of your injuries, you may collect on that as well.
Non-economic damages include elements like:
- Pain and suffering,
- Emotional anguish,
- Loss of enjoyment,
- Loss of society,
- Disfigurement,
- Impairment.
To determine pain and suffering, a jury, once they have found in favor of the plaintiff, will assign some number to each day and then multiply that number by the total amount of days the plaintiff experienced pain. In other words, it’s determined on a per diem basis. The same holds true for emotional anguish. In cases where there is a permanent disability such as impairment or disfigurement, jury awards tend to be much higher.
Economic Damages
These relate directly to money you have lost or will lose due to your injury. You may collect on both present and future lost wages. If you will no longer be able to work because of your injuries, you may collect on that as well.
Medical Bills
Many accidents or other personal injury situations result in injuries that need to be treated by a healthcare provider. Costs can include copays, deductibles, prescriptions, out-of-network care your health insurance doesn’t cover, or the entire bill if you don’t have health insurance. We also check with clients about related expenses they might have overlooked, such as mobility aids not covered by insurance, having work done to make your home accessible, travel costs to see a doctor who isn’t nearby, etc. Your lawyer will wait until they’re confident you’ve recovered to settle the case so that no future costs will be left out.
Future Medical Costs for Permanent Injuries
What about permanent injuries? We’ve seen cases where a client suffered severe injuries that left them in need of lifelong medical care. If this happens to you or a loved one, and your doctors provide documentation that continued care is necessary, we can estimate your future medical costs. After doing so, we will seek a settlement that encompasses your future care needs so you don’t have to worry about running out of money for your treatment.
If you receive damages for any costs already paid by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance, you will have to reimburse the insurer. Your lawyer can take care of this step for you.
Lost Income
If you’re hurt and can’t work, this can quickly cause you financial problems. For some people, even a week or two out of work can have serious consequences, and if you use your paid time off (PTO), you lose that saved time. Additionally, some people only have a few days or weeks of PTO and run out before they can return to work. Your lawyer will ask how long you were out of work and will probably request copies of your pay stubs so they can calculate how much money you lost.
Permanent injuries can prevent you from ever going back to work. Or, you might be able to work, but only on a reduced schedule or in a different field that doesn’t pay as well. If this happens, we will also seek damages for your lost earning potential.
Additional Costs
Sometimes your injuries may prevent you not only from going to work but from getting everyday chores done around the house. If you have to pay someone to do housework, yard work, or childcare that you normally do yourself, you deserve compensation for these expenses too.
Property Damage
If your car was damaged in an accident, you could seek the help of an auto collision attorney to determine payment for the repairs or, in some cases, replacement costs. In other situations, you may have damage to a boat, bicycle, ATV, or another type of vehicle. Additionally, some people need repairs or replacement of phones, laptops, or other electronics involved in an accident.
Non-Economic Damages
Pain and Suffering
Even if you’re in a lot of pain, you may not think of pain as a damage, because you don’t receive an invoice for it. But when you suffer pain, you do experience a loss – a loss of your time, your peace of mind, and your enjoyment of life.
Pain and suffering damages include both physical injuries and emotional or mental effects. Studies have shown that between 10 and 20 percent of people who survive road traffic accidents (RTAs) have ongoing mental health issues, including PTSD and depression. Chronic physical pain is also common after car accidents, especially in older adults. But regardless of how long your pain lasts, you have the right to be compensated for it.
Physical Impairments
If you sustained a permanent injury resulting in a disability or disfigurement, this is a separate element of damages. There is also no cap on pain and suffering related to permanent physical impairment. Your lawyer will talk with you about the effects your injury has had on your life in order to determine a reasonable amount to seek.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages exist in their own category outside of economic and non-economic damages. As the name suggests, punitive damages aren’t about compensating a person for their loss but punishing the responsible party. Most personal injury cases involving simple negligence will not qualify for punitive damages. However, these might be available if your case involves:
- Fraud
- Malice
- Willful or wanton misbehavior
The third option is the most common reason punitive damages are awarded. In these cases, it’s necessary to show that the defendant made a dangerous or reckless choice, even though it should have been evident that this would result in a dangerous situation. For example, it should be obvious that driving 90 MPH in a school zone is a dangerous activity and could cause severe injury or even death to a pedestrian.
Under Colorado law, punitive damages should not exceed the amount of other damages awarded.
Damages in a Wrongful Death Case
If you’ve lost a loved one, it can seem impossible to put a dollar amount on the value of their life. But unfortunately, this is the only kind of compensation you can pursue in a civil case. For many people, the damages they seek represent a way to carry out the deceased person’s wishes – to ensure their children are cared for, to support causes they loved, and to provide an opportunity for family members to grieve their loss without wondering how they’ll keep the lights on.
There are also very real economic losses when a person dies, such as:
- Burial or funeral expenses
- Medical bills before the death
- Loss of financial support if the deceased was a primary earner for the family
You can also seek non-economic damages, such as your own pain and suffering, in a wrongful death case. The same caps on pain and suffering apply, except in cases of felonious killing, where there is no cap.
How Do You Calculate Damages in a Personal Injury Claim?
Your personal injury attorney will review all possible damages with you and help you estimate what your claim should be worth. It may be useful to have the following documents handy:
- All medical bills and any costs associated with medical care. Don’t forget things like mobility aids, prescription copays, physical therapy equipment for home use, anything you had to pay out-of-pocket, and travel costs if you had to drive a considerable way to see a specialist.
- Anything showing the time or income you lost at work due to your injuries. Usually, pay stubs are helpful because they show either reduced income or used PTO. (You can still seek compensation for paid time off – you lost the opportunity to use that time elsewhere.)
- Tax returns showing previous income if you are permanently unable to work or earn as much income as before.
- Documentation of any permanent disability or disfigurement you suffered. For example, you might have a letter from your doctor stating that you’ve reached maximum medical improvement (MMI) and are unlikely to recover any further.
- In the case of wrongful death, tax returns or other records showing the decedent’s financial contributions to the family.
- Bills for burial or funeral services and the decedent’s medical care for wrongful death cases.
It’s understandable if you can’t find all of these documents. We know that injured people are often in pain, under stress, and struggling to put the pieces of their lives back together. Our staff members are happy to help you track down documents, and with your permission, we can request the necessary paperwork from doctor’s offices, hospitals, or other businesses.
Why Personal Injury Calculators Make No Sense
Personal injury calculators tend to neglect many of the subjective elements that go into determining how much a case is worth. How much will a jury assign for your pain and suffering on a per diem basis? It’s impossible to guess.
Another thing that personal injury calculators neglect to consider is how the loss of enjoyment will factor into your unique case. For instance, let’s say that you are in a slip and fall accident and you injure or break your wrist. You can still work, but you’re an avid amateur tennis player. Obviously, you can’t swing a racket until your wrist is completely healed. That could take up to six months. The jury will consider that when assigning a value to your slip and fall lawsuit.
Are There Caps on Personal Injury Damages?
The answer varies by state. In Wyoming, there is no cap on personal injury claims because the state constitution specifically forbids it (except in some lawsuits against government agencies, in which the cap is $250,000). However, your ability to recover compensation may be limited by other factors, including shared fault, the availability of evidence to prove your claims, insurance policy limits, and the defendant’s ability to pay a judgment against them.
Colorado Damage Caps
There are some limits on non-economic damages and a few limits on total damages in specific situations. These include:
Pain and Suffering Caps
This is considered a non-economic damage because it doesn’t have its own inherent value – in other words, no one sends you a bill for your pain and suffering. Yet it remains a loss for you, and you can only seek relief through the court system by asking for financial compensation. For this reason, your car accident lawyer will help you come up with a fair amount of compensation for your physical pain and emotional or mental anguish.
Colorado generally limits pain and suffering damages to $250,000 (with some adjustments for inflation). This amount can be raised to $500,000 (plus inflation) in situations where you can provide “clear and convincing evidence” that a more significant settlement is justified. (This is a higher burden of proof than the typical requirement for civil cases, which is a “preponderance of evidence” that the defendant was negligent.) There is an exception for pain and suffering associated with a permanent physical impairment or disability, for which there is no cap.
Medical Malpractice Caps
Pain and suffering damages are limited to $300,000 in most medical malpractice cases. The total compensation for a medical malpractice case can’t exceed $1 million dollars unless you and your attorney can demonstrate that this amount is unfair. This may be possible in extreme cases where you or a loved one have suffered severe, lifelong consequences of a healthcare provider’s negligence.
Caps in Dram Shop Law Cases
What are dram shop laws? These describe a specific situation where it is possible to pursue compensation from a third party rather than the negligent party responsible for your injuries. For example, in a car accident case, we usually seek damages from the at-fault driver and/or their auto insurance carrier. However, there are some situations where the injured person’s damages exceed the limits of both the at-fault driver’s insurance and the driver’s own financial resources. Colorado only requires $25,000 per person in bodily injury liability, so if you had $75,000 in medical bills and the at-fault driver had no significant financial resources, you might find that you were still down $50,000.
In this case, your lawyer would look for other options to help you recoup your losses. If the driver who hit you was a minor arrested for driving under the influence, one possible option might be to sue an establishment that sold or served alcohol to that minor. You would need to provide evidence that the minor was visibly intoxicated and later drove drunk, causing your accident.
In dram shop cases, Colorado limits total damages from a dram shop to $150,000 for each person injured. However, you could still collect other damages from the driver or their insurance company. In some situations, you might also be able to receive damages from your own auto insurance, depending on the type of coverage you have.
Wrongful Death
A wrongful death claim is essentially a personal injury claim filed when the injured party has died from their injuries and cannot file their own lawsuit. Colorado law allows a surviving spouse to file a wrongful death claim after the death. If there is no surviving spouse, the decedent’s heirs or a designated beneficiary can file a claim in this time frame. With no surviving spouse or children, the deceased person’s parents may file a claim.
In wrongful death cases, the same rules for pain and suffering apply. These damages are capped at $250,000 plus inflation – or $500,000 plus inflation if you and your lawyer can show justification. However, there is usually no limit for burial expenses and “net economic loss,” which includes things like the decedent’s medical bills prior to death and their family’s loss of financial support. One exception is if the deceased had no surviving spouse, minor children, or a dependent parent, in which case the total recovery is capped at $250,000 or $500,000 with justification (plus inflation).
Punitive or Exemplary Damages
Punitive damages are somewhat different from other damages. They are not awarded for any specific loss the injured party suffered but to punish (or make an example of) the negligent party. The majority of cases we see do not receive punitive damages. But in some cases, they might be awarded if we can show that the defendant’s actions were one of the following:
- Fraud
- Malice
- Willful or wanton behavior
Usually, this means we have to show evidence that the defendant’s actions were particularly reckless and that they knew there was a high likelihood they might hurt someone. This is often more difficult than demonstrating mere negligence, which is why punitive damages aren’t always available.
When they are, they are capped at the same amount as the plaintiff’s actual damages. One exception is in a wrongful death that meets specific requirements, at which point the court may increase punitive damages to three times actual damages.
The Role of Insurance Companies
There are two things to consider when dealing with insurance companies. The majority of them use a claims adjuster software to determine how much they believe they should be paying out in your lawsuit. They are also quite stingy when it comes to initial offers.
How Colossus Determines Offers
If you’ve just been in an auto accident, there’s a strong chance that you’ve run into Colossus. You may not be aware of it, however. Colossus is the claims adjustment software used by major insurance companies like Allstate. Claims adjusters for the insurance company will punch in a series of numbers that represent thousands of variables for your particular case. Generally speaking, these values may or may not have any bearing on your situation. In the end, it’s not for Colossus to determine the value of your case unless you take the first offer that the insurance company gives you.
Insurers Lowball Initial Offers
The first offer that the insurance company gives you represents the minimum value of your case. Many of the values that people plug into Colossus are going to be on the lower end. In other words, the insurance company is assuming that your pain and suffering is comparable to a minor annoyance.
It’s important to remember that insurance companies are for-profit companies. Their aim is to turn a profit, not help you recover damages for your injuries. In fact, a consumer alert was issued for those who have recently been in auto accidents. It warns accident victims about the role of programs like Colossus in diminishing the value of their claim.
The Tactic of Stalling Used by Insurance Companies
Insurance companies know that you’re in a difficult situation. You may be out of work and your finances may be in peril. On the other hand, there are certain things that you know about insurance companies too.
Firstly, insurance companies want to avoid trying your case before a jury. Jury trials are expensive and they run the risk of producing a larger payment than their best settlement offer.
Secondly, you probably aren’t aware of how insurance companies make the majority of their money. It isn’t from monthly premiums. While those provide a steady source of income, the insurance company isn’t simply depositing that money into some bank account; they’re investing it in the market. The longer they hold onto it, the more money they make from it.
If you’re in a situation where the insurance company is denying a very solid claim, this can very well be the reason why. It’s simply more lucrative to stall. If that means threatening a trial and then backing out at the last minute, then that’s what they’ll do. It may force you into the position of settling due to financial hardship, or it may simply increase the return on their investment. Either way, that’s a win-win for them.
How Waiting It Out Benefits You
On the other hand, this is where simply waiting them out can create a win for you. Quick claims are not in your best interest. Litigation does take time. In the end, forcing the insurance company to pay out the full value of your claim, which can very well be the entire value of their coverage, is in your best interest.
Our Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help Maximize Your Claim
Insurance companies see those who are not represented by attorneys as low-hanging fruit. In other words, they’re easy targets. They know that you can’t threaten litigation or take the case to court, so they are more likely to low-ball the offer.
Our personal injury and car crash lawyers at the Olson Personal Injury Lawyers understand how insurance companies operate and can maximize your settlement and help get you back on your feet. Contact us online and we can begin discussing your case immediately.
