You might know someone who won a personal injury lawsuit. Maybe they got the defendant to settle with them, or perhaps they got a chunk of money via a jury’s verdict. Either way, maybe that money changed their life.
You should understand that personal injury lawsuit settlement amounts vary. You might see very little money after winning or forcing a settlement from a personal injury lawsuit. On the other hand, you could walk away with millions.
How much might you reasonably expect from a personal injury lawsuit, though? Several factors will go into that, and we will discuss some of the most prevalent ones right now.
Did the Accident or Incident Hurt You Badly?
Many circumstances might cause the money you see from a personal injury lawsuit settlement or jury’s verdict to go up or down. If you’re thinking about suing a person or company, then you can go talk to a personal injury lawyer. You will want to locate one who knows about these kinds of lawsuits and has represented individuals in similar situations to yours.
You can ask them how much money you might expect to collect if the lawsuit goes the way you want. They might give you a ballpark estimate. In reality, though, not even an experienced attorney will know for sure.
You can start to get somewhat of an accurate picture of how much money you might collect due to precedent, though. By looking at other lawsuits like yours, you can see what other plaintiffs received.
You can ask yourself some questions about your lawsuit if you’re wondering how much you might reasonably expect to collect at its conclusion. For instance, you should ask yourself how badly the accident or incident hurt you. If you’re suing a company because one of their products harmed you or made you ill, you can ask that same question.
If the accident or incident hurt you or made you ill, but then you recovered fully, or doctors expect that you will recover eventually, then logically, you should expect to collect less money than if you sustained serious damage. An illness or injury from which you recovered within a few weeks might still warrant getting some money in damages, but it is probably not in the millions or anywhere close to that.
Did the Accident or Incident Injure You Permanently?
If the accident or incident permanently injured you or caused you to have a medical condition from which you will never fully recover, that’s when you can probably expect to see more money, assuming the jury finds the defendant responsible. For example, if the accident caused you to lose a limb or you have significant facial deformities, you will more likely get life-changing money in damages.
Did the Defendant Act Egregiously?
You should also ask yourself whether the defendant acted egregiously, and whether that conduct caused the injuries you sustained or illness you endured. If the defendant made a mistake, and they injured you or made you ill due to an accident, then you can potentially collect damages from that. However, the jury will also probably factor in that the defendant meant no harm.
In some situations, though, where it’s clear the defendant acted in a negligent or reckless fashion, then you can expect to see more money from that. For example, maybe you’re suing another driver who hit your car. They drove drunk and exceeded the speed limit by 20 miles per hour.
That’s not a situation where they simply made an innocent driving mistake. They displayed callous indifference when they got behind the wheel and acted the way that they did.
They will probably face criminal charges along with the civil ones that you’re bringing with your lawsuit. They showed depraved indifference.
A jury might reward you a lot more in damages for something like that. They will want to punish this defendant harshly to send a message to society that no one should act that way.
Did Anyone Die?
If you’re bringing a civil action against a person or company, and their actions killed someone you knew and loved, then you might get millions from such a lawsuit. For instance, maybe a company made a product that killed your spouse or one of your children. It comes to light during the trial that they didn’t test the product at all before they made it available to the public.
In such a situation, you can expect to get a lot of money. That’s because, presumably, you would still have the person in your life who died if that company didn’t act so recklessly. Maybe they rushed this product to market because you wanted to make a profit off of it right away, so they didn’t care about testing it.
If so, that’s a wrongful death lawsuit as well as a personal injury case. In wrongful death lawsuits, you can easily collect millions, since that’s an amount that a jury might decide equals the amount of a human life.
You probably won’t ever feel that any amount in damages can equal the worth of the person you lost. At least by collecting a lot of money, though, you’re punishing the person or company you hold responsible. You can feel you’ve balanced the scales of justice to some extent for that reason.
Did You Join a Class Action Lawsuit?
There’s something else you must factor in when trying to assess how much money you might collect from a personal injury lawsuit. You may get less if you joined a class action lawsuit.
Such lawsuits will divide up the damages if you win among all the individuals involved. However, that does not necessarily mean that you won’t get much money if you win your lawsuit.
If you get a huge settlement or force a jury’s verdict for something that seriously injured many defendants or made you all sick, then it’s still possible that you could get life-changing money from that.