Lawsuit Information CenterMetro Verdicts Monthly provides the following data to give the median (not average) settlement and verdicts for ankle fracture injuries:
District of Columbia: $66,000
Virginia: $21,700
Articles Posted in Car Accidents
Best Auto Accident Lawyer Near You
If you have been in a serious car accident that was not your fault, you find yourself shopping for the best and most successful accident lawyer to take your case.
Make no mistake. The best auto accident lawyers get the best results. Top-level auto accident attorneys have the skills to aggressively stand behind your case and push as far as necessary to get to the maximum out-of-court settlement, even if that means taking it to trial.
So who is the best and most effective auto accident lawyer near you? You need to figure that out, right? The answer to that question often depends on your specific needs and circumstances.
Settlement Demand Letter Sample
This is a sample demand letter in a relatively small case with approximately $18,000 in medical bills.
But this personal injury car accident case settled for a lot more money than any kind of simple multiplier of medical bills.
This “times special damages math” where you try to determine a settlement amount with a formula is dangerous. It often causes plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers (and victims) to substantially undervalue a claim.
- More accident letter samples
- Soft tissue injury cases: the opportunities, challenges, and settlement amounts
What Are My Legal Options if My Car Accident Claim Is Denied?
We buy car insurance hoping we never need to go through the process of submitting a claim. When accidents happen, we hope the claims process is smooth and simple. Seems like a reasonable expectation because you or the at-fault driver paid your premium every month in a way that made it smooth and simple for the insurance company. But it does not work that way, right?
There are several reasons that your claim may be denied. This denial can often cause a significant financial strain on you and your family. . If you’ve recently been in a car accident, you may be counting on the money from the insurance claim to pay medical and other bills.
If your claim has been denied, you need to figure out quickly why and what you can do to get the money you deserve.
GEICO Gets the Punch in the Face It Deserves in Mazik v. GEICO
I like many GEICO adjusters and lawyers. I like Warren Buffett. But I don’t like GEICO. This new opinion by a California appellate court in Mazik v. GEICO after a jury slapped GEICO reminds me why.
Mazik v. GEICO Facts
The plaintiff suffered a crushing type of foot fracture of his left calcaneus (heel) in a car crash. This is a tough injury. We can all agree that the value of an injury like this is more than $100,000, right? The plaintiff received policy limits of $50,000 from the at-fault driver’s insurer. The plaintiff sought an additional $50,000 from GEICO for underinsured motorist coverage (his policy was more than the at-fault driver). The plaintiff accident attorney says he asked GEICO four times to pay the policy limits. But GEICO refused.
Improving Pedestrian Safety By Reviewing Primary Types Of Incidents
One thing I think we can all universally agree on it that there are just too many pedestrian accidents and deaths. Clearly, Chicago is not an exception. A report of pedestrian and vehicle crashes released by Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) in 2011, focused on this problem and the types of crashes involving pedestrians. The authors of the study reviewed pedestrian accident data from police reports in the Chicago metropolitan area to determine how each incident occurred.
Fatal School Bus Accident Prompts Suit Involving Seatbelts
A fatal school bus accident last week has prompted a lawsuit alleging unsafe conditions for the bus’ lack of seatbelts.
The details here are sad. The 60 year old school bus driver and a five-year-old little girl were killed in the crash. The bus, which struck a bridge, was carrying approximately 50 children, ages 5-16.
A suit has now been filed by the family of three of the injured children, with injuries ranging from a broken leg to claims of post-traumatic stress. The suit claims that the bus company failed to inspect the school bus for defective and unsafe conditions, including the lack of seatbelts, though a state police investigation determined that the bus was in fine working condition. The suit further alleges that the company failed to “discover, determine, and /or monitor the health conditions” of the school bus driver, though an autopsy revealed no signs of a medical condition that may have caused the driver to strike the bridge.
This is obviously only one of many more suits to come. The accidental death of anyone, especially a child, prompts frustration and anger, but I’m not sure how the unsafe claim for the bus’ lack of seatbelts will play out.
New Medicare Rule
Medicare continues to make efforts to try, post Haro v. Sebelius, to make for an easier solution for dealing with Medicare liens. The latest? In very small cases, they are more likely to be handled by injury victims themselves as opposed to personal injury lawyers, Medicare will offer a 25% gross payment alternative to dealing with Medicare on a lien.
It is certainly not the deal of a lifetime by any stretch. More importantly, it is only for cases that do not exceed $5,000. But the option applies in:
- Cases after November 7, 2011
- Involve physical injury
- $5,000 or less
- The option is selected in a to-be-determined time frame
- Medicare has yet to make a final demand
- The beneficiary does not expect to receive future third party injury payments
If these conditions are satisfied, a beneficiary will resolve and satisfy Medicare’s lien by paying Medicare 25% of the insurance settlement. While the primary application will now, more than likely, be small soft tissue car accident claims, a successful run might lead to larger scale implementation down the road.
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New York Car Accident Verdicts
The average car/truck/motorcycle accident verdict in New York is $837,020, which is stunningly high compared to most other jurisdictions.
Why is this? Are New York jurors just that much more generous than, say, jurors in Maryland?
The answer is that New York’s no-fault accident law requires that plaintiffs suffer a “serious injury” before a lawsuit can be brought against the at-fault driver. While there is some question that having a magical threshold that needs to be crossed is going to be fraught with great flaws, there is no question that this New York scheme, as desultory as the justice it might bring, keeps minor personal injury car accident cases out of court.
What’s my point? My point is that this completely distorts average car accident verdicts in New York. I read Metro Verdicts Monthly and Mealey’s which provide a lot of individual verdicts in car accident cases in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. It is amazing how many jury verdicts there are for $10,000 when, if you look at the case, is really not such a bad result. New York has none of these cases deflating their average.
Average New York Car Accident Verdicts
A recent Jury Verdict Research (JVR) study found that the average verdict in a New York motor vehicle accident case is $837,020. The median verdict is $150,000. This data does not include defense verdicts which, if considered in the data, would obviously reduce the average award.
To be sure, $837,020 is a lot of money for the average car accident case. But you have to keep in mind that in New York because of the threshold level of injury requirement, juries are more likely to hear a serious injury case than a jury would in, say, for example, Maryland.
Rear-end accidents accounted for 21% of the successful verdicts in the study. Pedestrian lawsuits were 17% of the verdicts and intersection accidents made up 15%.