How Much is Your Personal Injury Case Worth?

Determining how much you will get from your personal injury settlement depends on a number of factors.  Each case is different, but there are a few basic rules that contribute to the final ruling.  It’s not just based on the amount of your medical bills, but also possible future loss in money as well.  To determine financial loss, a San Francisco personal injury lawyer will ask you about:

• Your career
• What you do for recreation
• The permanence of injuries
• If there’s a loss in earning capacity
• If the injuries are visible are pronounced
• Number and age of children

These are just a few of the issues that will be covered.  Let’s look at an example case: a man who works in a factory has arm seriously injured due to faulty manufacturing of a factory machine.  The man now can no longer work in the factory in the same capacity, nor coach his son’s little league team.  In this case, there’s both financial and emotional hardship.  This is often the case, but it is important to determine how an injury affects you personally, as well as financially.  As mentioned, every case is different because the financial and emotional hardship will vary, as well as the severity of the resulting injury.

In many ways, deciding the potential cash settlement is the most difficult part of the a personal injury lawsuit.  Once you prove that someone else was at fault for the injury, it takes additional proof for financial hardship, as the financial settlement will revolve around lost payment and diminished way of life for years into the future.  There is no given that a plaintiff will get all damages, and it is certainly important for a plaintiff to have realistic expectations, as well as realistic claims, in any personal injury lawsuit.