Why it Can Prove Difficult to Value Soft Tissue Cases
There are a number of factors that can have an impact on the value of a soft tissue case. Each case poses a unique issue that can often change the valuation of the settlement amount. Some of the factors involved in these cases can affect the value of the case.
Here below is a list of situations and factors that could have an effect on just how much you can claim:
- Complex Treatments: A year’s worth of patient enforcement, activity limits, physical therapy, and other therapies are more simple than a year’s worth of surgery or direct fixation.
- Direct Causation: The other party would almost certainly attempt to blame your current injuries on a previous medical problem, an old accident, or a persistent occupational stress injury. Unfortunately, several individuals have attempted to cheat the system by filing false soft tissue injury lawsuits, making valid claims impossible to pursue.
- A Failure to Seek Immediate Medical Attention: There is no such thing as a wait-and-see strategy when a bone gets broken. You’re going to the hospital right now. Soft tissue injuries, on the other hand, can appear mild at first but worsen with time as swelling persists and stiffness sets in.
- A Lack of Medical Evidence: Unlike severe injuries, which can get seen with medical imaging such as CAT scans, X-rays, and MRIs, healing complications such as inflammation and immune response are less apparent and difficult to foresee.
You can receive full benefits to cover your costs in the past, present, and future through careful reporting, expert testimony, and aggressive litigation strategy. It is possible to make a successful claim for a soft tissue injury if you have sufficient evidence of your pain and suffering as well as how it could have got caused in the incident or car accident.
Insurance Companies Have Made Soft Tissue Claims More Difficult
Insurers have made it a policy to reject most soft tissue claims and limit the bargaining power of individual adjusters over the last few decades. Except in situations where there is no doubt over who is at fault, adjusters get taught to make the lowest possible initial settlement bid. Before the case file gets submitted to defense attorneys to prepare for trial, adjusters can only be able to make one more bid. Because of the rigidity of this scheme, many injury law firms have turned down soft tissue lawsuits because of the low payouts.
Worse still, a soft tissue injury’s early diagnosis leaves no space to evaluate how the plaintiff might get affected in the future if the injury does not recover according to the initial prognosis. Within three years, up to 64% of patients in one meta-analysis of 31 ankle injury trials had not completely recovered. Half of the patients experienced instability, 34% re-sprained their ankles, and a third of the patients experienced persistent pain.
To make the initial bid, insurance companies typically use a computer scoring system that is closely guarded by the industry. Allstate, for example, uses Colossus, which takes into account a variety of characteristics such as the nature of the accident, the geographic area, and similar settlements/verdicts.
Individual dynamics – how you experience pain, what line of work you do, and what other symptoms may get aggravated, for example – are not taken into account by the computer.
Should You Choose to Go to Trial or Take an Offer for Soft Tissue Injuries?
Consider this: if the insurance scheme operated too well, personal injury attorneys would be unnecessary. A machine would never be able to have the same level of careful deliberation as a human mind. For a strong case, a standard “low-ball”
Colossus bid of $6,500 and some odd adjustment could get made, with the second offer increasing to $12,000 – $15,000 if there is substantial property damage and no previous medical background. When lifestyle and potential pain and misery get taken into consideration, a perfect situation like that could easily fetch $800,000 at trial.
Pushing for a trial isn’t simple or fast, but a jury may offer you the compassionate treatment you deserve when assessing your losses. The emotional ordeal of a jury trial is understandably not for all. If your scenario, on the other hand, involves minor property damage and a serious previous medical background, settling for $7,500 to $10,000 instead of going to trial might be the best option.
Convincing a Jury to Award Full Compensation
Trials aren’t always a sure thing when it comes to soft tissue injuries. Whiplash is still regarded as a “minor ache,” which is untrue. Jurors must be able to see the world through the plaintiff’s eyes, accept the plaintiff as a credible witness, and understand the plaintiff’s lack of pleasure in life as a result of this new injury.
The best personal injury attorneys take the time to get to know their clients and prepare them for trial. They inform clients of the dangers of going to trial rather than settling. They examine medical records, injury images, and other tangible facts, but they are also masters of convincing when it comes to the emotional considerations that have the power to change a plaintiff’s life forever.
How Much do Insurance Companies Pay for Pain and Suffering?
Several factors get included in any settlement in which money gets awarded. The seriousness of the incident, the type of medical attention required, the duration of recovery time, and any long-term consequences of the personal injuries are all factors to consider. Other considerations include the amount of available insurance coverage and the nature of the situation.
However, in my own experience, the average pain and distress payment in most claims is less than $15,000. This is due to the fact that the majority of claims include minor injuries.
The seriousness of the injuries has a significant impact on the amount of pain and suffering damages awarded. When you look at my larger settlements, you notice a few things in common.
In most cases, the injured survivor would not receive about $292,000 for pain and suffering. This is because the majority of cases do not necessitate a trip to the hospital and emergency surgery.
Is the First Offer by an Insurance Company Reasonable?
No, unless the value of your injury case is equal to or greater than the policy limits.
In certain cases, for example, insurance providers have made an opening bid of $150,000. Despite this, we’ve settled each case for more than $200,000. An insurance company made us the first bid of $150,000 in one case. We settled for $260,000 a short time later.
Negotiation gets involved in the majority of personal injury situations. Whether you like it or not, that’s the way it is. Insurance firms anticipate that the injured person’s representative can negotiate on their behalf.
What about those who attempt to obtain a pain and suffering settlement without the assistance of an attorney?
Adjusters recognize that many individuals (without an attorney) are poor negotiators in this situation. Some people are utterly incapable of negotiating. They simply lack the 16 years of experience fighting for compensation for pain and soft tissue injuries that the Ehline Law Firm has.
Hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars can get lost by these innocent victims! This is something we know because our clients tell us how much they want to ask for. Their initial compensation demand recommendation in serious injury cases is often just too low. They actually do not place a sufficient value on their pain or soft tissue injury loss.
Clients also told us that they would have accepted $30,000 from the insurance company if it had gotten offered. Nonetheless, we were able to secure a settlement for them in excess of $300,000. That’s ten times the sum they would have gladly taken from the insurance company for their soft tissue injuries.
Contact Us for an Experienced and Aggressive Los Angeles Spine Injury Attorney
So, if you have been in a car accident or any other incident where you have suffered a soft tissue injury, Michael Ehline and our team can be of assistance. A soft tissue injury can be a complex issue to take up with insurance companies, and that is where we come into play. We can take care of all the negotiations and settlement offers involved in the soft tissue injury case with the insurance company.
This ensures that the insurance company gives you what you deserve. Contact us today for a free consultation at (213) 596-9642, or online, so that we can put you in touch with a personal injury attorney to fight the case for you. We can assist with your medical bills, soft tissue damage injury claim, and injury settlement.
For the best legal services provided by a Los Angeles spinal cord injury attorney, allow us to provide you with a free consultation. We have won over $150 million for a number of satisfied clients, and we are sure that we can add you to that list.
