What Is My Case Worth?

This is a very common question and one that is very difficult to answer at the beginning of any injury claim. And there’s really three reasons why lawyers aren’t able to and quite frankly shouldn’t tell a prospective client what their case is worth right after, uh, an injury. The extent of the injuries is probably the biggest reason why we can’t tell people what their case is worth at the beginning. Because other than a potential ER visit or urgent care visit at the beginning before they contact us, we don’t know and the clients certainly don’t know the true extent of the injuries. There hasn’t been a full evaluation by a medical doctor. There hasn’t been a course of treatment prescribed by a physical therapist or a chiropractor. There hasn’t been a visit to an orthopedic doctor or pain management doctor if necessary. Many of our clients need objective tests like MRIs at some point in the process depending on the damage to their neck or the back. This type of properly managed medical care can take weeks or months. Also, what is the prognosis of your injuries after a car crash, for example? In other words, how long will you be suffering with these injuries? Or do you have a permanent injury? Do your injuries require surgery or other invasive procedures like injections, a series of injections? We won’t get these answers at the very beginning, and that’s why it takes a course of high quality, properly managed medical care. And so you’ll have a few of these answers at the beginning of the case, but you’re not going to have the full picture about what your injuries are and what the diagnoses are and what the prognosis is for your long-term health. The second also very important is what’s called insurance limits. When you’re injured by another person, for example in a car crash or you’re injured at the premises of a business or other public location you fall due to a dangerous condition or a defect. There are insurance policies to cover these types of injuries, but how much is the critical question? Particularly in motor vehicle crashes, the person who costs the injury can have very little insurance coverage, or potentially a lot of insurance coverage. For example, in Maryland, the minimum limit that you have to carry if you’re insured is $30,000, that is the minimum coverage in Maryland. In some cases, there is enough compensation depending on injuries, but if you have permanent injuries, a surgical condition, or require extensive medical care, that likely is not enough coverage to fully and properly compensate you. If you were seriously injured and struck by a commercial vehicle, like a tractor trailer, a construction vehicle, or some other kind of delivery vehicle, there could potentially be a million dollars in insurance coverage. All of this is obviously out of your hands, as was the crash itself, so whether someone hits you and has minimum limits in Maryland or a commercial policy, you won’t know what the outset. Sometimes it could take a few weeks, sometimes more in the state of Maryland to find out the insurance coverage and the amount of the policy limits on the vehicles involved in a crash. In some states, insurance coverage limits are not disclosed until much later in the claims process, but fortunately in Maryland we obtain that information fairly quickly, but again it could take weeks and then sometimes especially disputed cases it could take months or more. And the third reason why it’s so difficult for our law firm to tell clients or prospective clients what their case may be worth in the beginning is what we call impact on life. How did the crash or the fall or however else you were injured due to someone else’s negligence? Impact your life and the lives of those close to you. What were your physical limitations for weeks or months or potentially years? What are you unable to do because of your pain at home with your family and your children and also your friends? How about work? How about sleeping and driving? Do you have any social or leisure activities that were impacted as a result of your injuries? How are you feeling mentally as a result of the crash? Was there anxiety, depression in addition to your physical injuries? answers to these types of questions can take many months and these are the types of answers that typically don’t show up in medical records. They must come directly from you. So always be careful if you’re on the internet and you’re after a car crash or other kind of injury and you come across these settlement calculators.