There really is no one generic personal injury settlement calculator that a plaintiff, or perspective plaintiff, can use in order to determine how much he should receive based on his injury. To create such a calculator would be impossible because of the nature of the types of damages that personal injury settlements are supposed to compensate for.
Personal injury settlements (or jury verdicts) are supposed to make a plaintiff whole by paying him back for:
- Medical costs that he incurred
- Lost wages that he experienced due to missing work as a direct result of the injury
- Pain and suffering he endured
- Emotional distress he endured
Clearly, there are a wide variety of differences that may occur in these categories on a case by case basis. For example, a person who suffers a minor broken leg and misses one day of work from a minimum wage job is obviously going to receive much, much less in damages than a person who makes a million dollars a year who is paralyzed in an accident, misses out on the rest of his life's earnings and suffers extreme pain.
Because each personal injury claim must thus be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, you'll want to think about what your actual damages were in your case. You can add up your medical bills and lost wages, and you can then think about what you feel is fair as far as compensation for pain and suffering, emotional distress and other damages. Some insurance companies use a pain multiplier for pain and suffering and emotional distress, by multiplying the actual damages by a number between 1.5 and 5, but this may not work for you, and if it doesn't and you feel the settlement is too low, you don't have to accept.
Your best bet when dealing with personal injury settlements is always going to be to get advice from a lawyer who can assist you.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق