Accident and Injury Lawyer Blog

Sample uninsured motorist caption:

The one thing defendants (and plaintiffs for that matter) consistently screw up at deposition is time, speed and distance calculations. Often, how a defendant claims an accident happened could never happen as defendant claims. If you are cross examining a defendant, make use of the following information to back the defendant into an impossible claim on liability:

1 mile per hour = 1.4667 feet per second
10 miles per hour = 14.7 feet per second
20 miles per hour = 29.3 feet per second
25 miles per hour = 36.7 feet per second
30 miles per hour = 44.0 feet per second
35 miles per hour = 51.3 feet per second
40 miles per hour = 58.7 feet per second
45 miles per hour = 66.0 feet per second
50 miles per hour = 73.3 feet per second
55 miles per hour = 80.7 feet per second
60 miles per hour = 88.0 feet per second
65 miles per hour = 95.3 feet per second

Defendants often want to stretch on how fast a plaintiff was going on how slow the defendant was traveling. Often, these stories, even after being prepared by their insurance defense lawyer, are impossible as a matter of physics.

The Nebraska Supreme Court has has agreed that a lawsuit arising from injuries suffered by a woman whose family purchased a used car from a car dealer that allegedly failed to inspect the car. The court held that under these facts, the dealer was obligated to warn consumers about potential defects.

We provide on our website a summary of the law that pertains to Atlanta car accidents. If you need an Atlanta car accident lawyer, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free no obligation consultation.

Miller & Zois has a new webpage discussing C4/C5 and C5/C6 cervical herniated disc lawsuits.

• Herniated disc injury claims (a general overview of herniated disc injuries from trauma and settlement/trial value of these claims)
• Herniated discs from truck accidents (overview of claims in truck accident cases)
• The value of herniated disc claims (settlement/trial statistics)
• The process of evaluating personal injury case generally (how much is your case worth?)
• Personal injury settlements (is there a formula?)
• Sample demand letter (claim for damages in a personal injury case)

Personal injury victims want a calculator or formula to determine what their settlement should be. "How much is my case worth?" seems like a fair question. The human brain is adverse to uncertainty. In lab experiments, our wiring in this regard is underscored: we prefer physical pain to uncertainty.

Regrettably, there is no formula or calculator that shows how much money you will get in your accident case. The real world is too complex for a personal injury settlement calculator. A car accident case is worth what a judge or jury would give the injury victim.

That said, below are some links that can help you determine the value of your case by giving you information both on how claims are valued and what juries have awarded or settlements that have occurred for injuries similar to yours.

• How the Value of Personal Injury Claims Is Calculated? (how lawyers, insurance companies and, ultimately, juries calculate personal injury settlements and verdicts)
• Is There a Formula to Computer Value of Personal Injury Claims? (more on why there is no formula for settlement)
• How to Maximize the Value of Your Case (thoughts on getting the most of of your personal injury claim)

A jury in Texas found that the Texas Motor Speedway was negligent in an accident that left a boy with traumatic brain injuries, awarding more that $11 million in damages for his injuries.

The boy was hit by child while driving a miniature race car in the parking lot of the Lil’ Texas Motor Speedway, a paved one-fifth mile at the race track. The jury found the Texas Motor Speedway 80% responsible for the accident (and the boy's parents 20%).

I would like to know how fast they kids were driving. My kids are too young but they are going to want to drive go-carts and the like just like I did as a child. Should I let them? Depressing issues to digest.

A Mississippi police department tried to cover up for a police office in a fatal car accident that killed a 19-year-old man last November in Brandon County, according to a lawsuit filed last week. Plaintiff's attorney claims that police officer was traveling nearly 30 mph over the posted speed limit and was not using his siren at the time of the crash. The lawsuit also questions police findings that the decedent was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of his death.

One issue was the amount of drugs and alcohol in the deceased system. Toxicology experts say that any internal injury can destroy the accuracy of the drug and BAC tests because the stomach and intestinal alcohol mix with blood when organs rupture, which increases the BAC test results. Moreover, the BAC from a deceased person must be tested from the heart which is often not what the coroner does in practice.

The family of a New Hampshire woman crushed by another car at a Massachusetts car wash has agreed to a settlement of their accident lawsuit. The woman died in 2007 after being struck by a car driven by defendant, who still faces criminal charges. The victim's 12 year-old daughter thankfully survived the collusion.

The Boston Herald has the story.

The Maryland Accident Lawyer has a post on bad intersections and the balance between human life and the convenience of the automobile.

The average personal injury verdict in Florida is $1,819,751, according to Jury Verdict Research, a company that tracks jury verdicts. Personal injury plaintiff win at trial in Florida personal injury cases approximately 61 percent of cases that go to trial.

Florida’s threshold requiring a more serious injury in auto accident case is one reason why the average jury verdict in Florida much higher than the national average. These Florida jury statistic verdicts also underscore that large case inflate average jury verdicts and settlements. The median – as opposed to the average – money damages in Florida personal injury trials in Florida is $122,674.

If you have been injured in a serious car accident (our lawyers only handle serious car accident claims), call our auto accident lawyers at 800-553-8082 or click here for free no obligation consultation.

• Average Personal Injury Verdicts in New York (2009 study)
• How the Value of Personal Injury Claims Is Calculated? (how lawyers, insurance companies and, ultimately, juries determine value)
• Is There a Formula to Computer Value of Personal Injury Claims?
• How to Maximize the Value of Your Case (thoughts on value)

Metro 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

Maryland: $88,000

My comment? People rarely have minor ankle injuries in car accidents in my experience. So I think a lot of slip and fall ankle injuries are included in here which lowers the value from pure auto accident ankle injury claims (or malpractice claims which are more rare for ankle injuries). I don't think we have ever had an ankle injury case settled for less than $150,000 and I can think of one that settled for over a $1,000,000 (although that case had other complicated injuries so it is hard to sort out where the value was in the case).

For more analysis of this data and more data on ankle injuries verdicts nationally, check out this Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog post.

Related Posts

Valuing Injury Cases in Maryland (value of accidents in Maryland)

Valuing Cases in Virginia (general info on Virginia injury case results)

Valuing Cases in Washington D.C. (general infomation on Washington D.C. personal injury case results)

The Missouri Lawyers Weekly ("MLW") verdicts and settlements database found that the median plaintiff's verdict award for motor vehicle cases that involved back injuries is $212,500. For all car, truck and motorcycle accident injury cases in MLW's database that earned a plaintiff's verdict, the median award is $300,000.

• Herniated Disc Cases (an overview)
• Sample MRIs in Disc Injury Cases
• Cervical Herniated Disc Values (average settlement/trial value neck and back disc injury cases)
• Sample MRIs in Disc Injury Cases

Median jury awards in motor vehicle tort trials dropped to $17,000 in 2005 from $41,000 in 1992. I don't know about you but this underscores to me that auto accident verdicts are not driving car insurance rates.

The picture is different in medical malpractice and product liability lawsuits. Product liability trials had median awards at least five times higher in 2005 than in 1992. Medical malpractice trials median awards more than doubled to $682,000 in 2005 from $280,000 in 1992.

I realize this data is a bit dated - 2005 - but that is how we typically get personal injury statistics... a little dated.

You can find the entire study here.

One historic hassle for lawyers serving defendant in car accident cases is when the Defendant lives out-of-state. Mississippi provides a bad door that makes this process a lot easier for Mississippi car accident lawyers. Under Mississippi accident law, the Mississippi Secretary of State can accept service of process for accident defendants who live outside of Mississippi.

You can read about the nuances of exactly how to effectuate service in a Mississippi car accident case here.

If you are looking for a car accident lawyer to handle your auto accident injury case in Mississippi, call our lawyers at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free no obligation consultation of your accident claim.

Fiat has asked a federal bankruptcy judge to shield the automaker from "unknowable, but potentially vast" tort claims against further partner Chrysler. Fiat lawyers argued that Fiat should not be responsible for injuries caused by cars it did not manufacturer.

File this under "I Could See This Coming." When you buy a company, you buy its assets and its debts. Consumer groups and plaintiff attorneys naturally disagree with this effort to buy Chrysler immunity from injuries caused by its negligence.

AOL today puts up tips on how to avoid a speeding ticket. Is offering any advice other than "drive the speed limit" responsible?

The reality is simple: the faster a car or truck is moving, the less time the driver has to react avoid car accident. A speeding car requires more time and distance to stop, is harder to control, and caused more property damage and damage to the car's occupants. Speed is reported to factor in 30% of fatal vehicle accidents and 12% of all crashes.

A Fayettesville woman filed a lawsuit in an auto accident case against a Springdale, Arkansas on her own behalf and on behalf of her one year old daughter. The lawsuit alleges that the unborn child had accident-related complications before and after her birth including a Grade 1 intraventricular hemorrhage and that the child had periods in which she stopped breathing.

As a parent, I can only imagine the fear of harm to your child when you are 35 weeks pregnant and involved in a serious car accident causing these complications. Thankfully, I have to think the child did not have any long term injury or the lawsuit - for a one year old - would be incredibly premature because injuries to a small child are rarely discernable in scope until the child is older.

If you are victim of a personal injury car accident in Fayettesville or anywhere in Arkansas, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.

John Bratt's Baltimore Accident Lawyer Blog has a good post on cross examining IME doctors.