What’s My Case Worth?

When determining what your case is worth you need to determine which of the categories of cases your case fits.

The categories of cases that are most common are:

1. Minor or minimal impact with short term treatment
2. Moderate impact with extended treatment, but no broken bones
3. Moderate to substantial impact with broken bones but no surgery
4. Moderate to substantial impact with broken bones and permanent impairment
5. Substantial impact with surgical intervention required
6. Severe impact with multiple injuries including broken bones and/or surgical intervention.

One of the things that you’ll need to know in order to determine the total value of your case is the amount of medical expenses that can be considered in court. In North Carolina, we utilize what is called, “Rule 414 of evidence”. What this rule does is reduce the amount of medical expenses you can claim in Court so that instead of the total amount of the bill, we are only allowed to claim the amount that was either paid or has to be paid. In other words, if you had a $6,000.00 hospital bill, insurance paid $3,000.00, and you paid $300, we would only be allowed to claim $3,300.00 as the medical expenses, instead of the original billed amount of $6,000.00.

As you go through the categories of injuries above, you should know that the insurance company will utilize this figure in its evaluation of your claim.

For category 1 claims, it is unlikely that the insurance company or a jury will pay much more than 2, to maybe 2.1 times the medical expenses
For category 2, your case is going to be valued somewhere between 2.2 and 2.6 times the 414 number
For category 3, it’s going to be somewhere between 2.4 to 2.9 times the meds, rarely to three times the 414 number
For category 4, the numbers will range from 5-7 times the 414 number
For category 5, the numbers will range from 7-10 times the 414 number.
For category 6, the numbers will likely be 8+ times the 414 number.

If the claim involves a death, then the evaluation will depend on the earning capacity of the deceased individual, as well as the beneficiaries who would’ve benefited had the decedent survived. Wrongful Death Cases can have a value of just a few thousand dollars (if the defendant has limited coverage and no assets) to multiple millions of dollars if the defendant was a trucking company and the decedent had substantial earning capacity.

These categories and values are approximations as each case and each individual will differ, for a detailed evaluation of what your case might be worth you can call and speak  with Mr. Pope about the individual aspects of your case that might make it worth substantially more than the stated figures.