Articles Posted in Personal Injury Verdicts

JVR has done a national analysis of jury awards for spinal nerve with disc damage.

The study underscores what every plaintiffs’ lawyer has figured out by osmosis, if nothing else: age matters. Young people recover much better than older people.

The overall median award to plaintiffs age 18 and under was $43,997, while the median award to plaintiffs between the ages of 19 and 29 was $67,612. Plaintiffs between the ages of 40 and 59 who suffered spinal nerve with disc damage received a median award of $103,723, and plaintiffs age 60 and older received a median award of $100,000.

The interesting thing about the age numbers is that at some point, you see they turn again as juries increasingly blame age for the injuries. I bet if you took this up to 70 and 80, you would see the numbers continue to drop.

Anyway, these are the numbers:

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Metro Verdicts Monthly’s graph this month is non-fatal settlements and verdicts in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia in premises liability cases since 1987.

The median non-fatal premises liability case in Maryland was $69,000. The recoveries in Virginia and the District of Columbia are slightly less, $50,000 and $65,000, respectively.

If you look at the national data, you see an enormous difference between Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia and the rest of the country.  What is the common thread?  Contributory negligence is still the law in all three jurisdictions.

As I have said before, I love seeing these different verdicts in Maryland each month. It is always interesting to see different lawyers that you know and see what cases they had and how they fared. What diminishes the value of Metro Verdicts, in my mind, is the turnaround time. I have a case in this month’s edition that I tried 6 months ago. It does not diminish the quality of the information, but in the Internet era, it is not as enjoyable to read stale news.

• Premises liability case value: national verdict statistics (keep in mind that, unlike the figures above, these do not include settlements)
• Verdict statistics and settlement value of slip and fall cases in Maryland and nationally

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Some time ago Metro Verdicts had a graph comparing settlement amounts in different regions or distinct types of injuries. This month, they had a fascinating graph comparing fractured shoulder injury verdicts and settlements in Maryland and Virginia since 1987, omitting defense verdicts. The average fractured shoulder verdict or settlement in Maryland was $154,800, whereas, in Virginia, it was only $52,500.  

This is a remarkable disparity. If you have a choice over the venue – not common, but it happens – it would seem that a smart lawyer with a client with a shoulder injury would choose Maryland. In reality, it is probably more complicated than that and would depend on the injury, the client, and what county in Maryland would have an appropriate venue for the lawsuit. While I love verdict data, all of it is suspect and should be just a weapon in a lawyer’s arsenal trying to figure out the value of a tort case.

Metro Verdicts Monthly graphs the median verdict and settlement value of back fracture cases over the last 23 years. The median settlement/verdict in Washington D.C. is $52,500. Maryland has a slightly lower median of $43,126. The median settlement/verdict in a back fracture lawsuit in Virginia is $125,000. These are back fracture cases where there is no paralysis. These statistics are not a bit dated but the numbers still track.

Most back factures come from some trauma, usually from a motor vehicle crash or falling. The reason the numbers may sound lower than you are might expect is because many back fractures are not as serious as the ominous-sounding “back fracture” would suggest. When I was in high school, I hurt my back swinging a baseball bat at baseball camp in Florida. A chiropractor worked on me for a while but I made no progress. I went to an orthopedic doctor and, low and behold, I had a fractured back. It ruined my baseball season, and I had to wear a back brace for eight weeks but I suffered no ill effects after removing the back brace. Continue reading

Over the last 20 years, our car accident lawyers have handled many wrist fracture cases.  We have seen wrist fracture cases with very high, very low, and everything in between. Our firm has a history of maximizing the trial and settlement value of wrist injury lawsuits.

What Is the Settlement Value of the Average Wrist Fracture Claim?

The settlement value of a wrist fracture claim will vary wildly with the severity of the fracture. Some time ago, Metro Verdicts Monthly provided the median verdict and settlement value of wrist fracture cases over the last 22 years. The average settlement/verdict in Washington D.C. is $105,000. Maryland is less than half that: $50,000. The average settlement/verdict in a wrist fracture case in Virginia is $52,583.

Obviously, there are a lot of vexing injuries that occur in car and truck accidents. Foot and ankle injuries rank high on this list of hard to solve accident injuries. There are so many bones in the foot — one-fourth of all of your bones — and the bones are so small. Just too many things can go wrong.

What Is the Average Settlement Value of a Foot Injury Accident Claim?

According to a Jury Verdict Research study, the overall median jury award for foot injuries is approximately $100,000 (maybe slightly less in Maryland).  More serious foot injuries see a corresponding rise in value. Multiple fractures to a foot increase the median verdict to $144,000. In foot injury cases where both feet are fractured, the median rises to $296,940. For plaintiffs’ lawyers repeating the “scope property damage does not matter” credo, it is hard to ignore the conclusion that if you have suffered fractures to both of your feet, you were most likely in a serious accident. Another Jury Verdict Research study found that 39% of the foot injury cases that went to verdict were suffered in motor vehicle collisions. A remarkable 11% of serious foot injury cases were in motorcycle accident cases. This stat underscores how dangerous motorcycles are compared to cars or trucks.

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Our lawyers have handled scores of car accident and product liability cases where the injury is an amputation or serious injury to the victim’s toe or toes.

This page is about the settlement compensation payouts in toe injury and amputation cases and the issues that are presented in these injury claims.  This page was last updated on February 22, 2023.

How much is a toe worth?

A recent Jury Verdict Research analysis of jury verdicts found that the overall median award for the amputation of one toe is $119,008. The median award for foot nerve damage or tarsal tunnel syndrome accident cases was $143,265. Underscoring the difficulties of the healing process in the complex structures that are our feet, the median award for foot injuries is $98,583.

What is the settlement value of a personal injury claim where you have lost your vision in either one eye or both?

Metro Verdicts Monthly has a graph that reflects the median verdicts and settlements when the injury victim loses vision in one eye in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

What Is the Average Settlement Compensation for Loss of Sight in One Eye?

The median for compensation for losing vision in one eye in Maryland is $231,000. You could drive a truck through the gap between Washington, D.C., and Virginia’s median settlements and verdicts with loss of vision in one eye cases: Washington, D.C.’s median is $162,500; Virginia’s is $320,000.

These numbers are a bit misleading.   I think because most loss of vision cases are product liability cases. Many product liability cases have questionable liability, decreasing the average and median eye injury settlement amounts. If liability is not an issue, the compensation payouts in loss of sight in one-eye cases are much higher.

What Kind of Money Can I Expect for an Eye Injury at Work?

Workers’ compensation laws work differently than claims against other third parties. So if the claim is against your employer, a different set of laws apply. You can typically expect less in an eye injury settlement in a workers’ comp case against your employer than you would for the same injury when a third party was responsible.

But in some cases, the victim has two claims: a workers’ comp claim and a claim against the party that caused the harm.

Our lawyers have handled scores of lawsuits where the primary injury was head injuries and headaches.  This page is about projecting settlement amounts and jury payouts in head injury and headache lawsuits.

Mostly Subjective Injuries

I don’t get many headaches, a blessing I attribute to good hydration and good genetic fortune.  I’ve never had a traumatic head injury and have only had two concussions.  On the rare occasion that I do get headaches, they are debilitating. It really is hard to enjoy life when you have anything north of a mild headache.

Our clients sometimes incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.  They should be compensated for those bills. But the bigger harm in personal injury cases is the physical and emotional pain and suffering that comes with the victims’ injuries.

Today, we will look at average compensation for emotional injuries in an accident and medical malpractice cases to get a better idea of how much money victims can expect to receive as compensation for this type of intangible but often the most important injury.
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