How Much Is My Personal Injury Case Worth? Settlement Formula

If someone else’s negligence causes your injury in a Florida accident, or on a cruise or boat, you may want to know how much your case is worth.

Formula Applies If Someone Else is At Fault

This article applies to car accidents, motorcycle wrecks, truck crashes, slip or trip and falls, bike accidents, pedestrian accidents, cruise ship accidents, dog bites and many other types of accidents in Florida.

Formula Doesn’t Apply if Your Employer is Only 1 Liable

The settlement formula usually doesn’t apply if your employer is the only one responsible for your injuries.

Formula Applies if Someone Other Than Your Employer is Liable; Even If You’re Working

However, if you are injured on the job in Florida you may also have a personal injury claim for damages in addition to a workers compensation claim.

Although it is not an exact science, there is a general formula that is used to calculate the settlement value of a personal injury case.

If Both Sides Evaluate Case Right, It Should Settle

If both the injured person and the insurer calculate the fair value of the case correctly, it should settle.  The above diagram shows that a fair settlement is where both the claimant and the insurer’s evaluations overlap.

Basic Personal Injury Case Settlement Formula

The very basic version of a settlement formula in a Florida personal injury case is:

Settlement = (Full Value of Damages) x (100% – % Chance of Losing Case) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

Need to Know Every Part of Settlement Formula

If you don’t know any part of this formula, you settlement calculation will be way off.  Let’s take a look at each of the parts of the formula.

1st Step. Get Full Value of Your Damages

The first step to determine the final injury claim settlement value is to figure out the full value of the case.  

Full Value = Out of pocket medical bills (or liens) + Lost wages + Pain and Suffering

Example of Full Value from $210,000 Settlement for Labrum Tear

Let’s take a case where a driver got $210,000 for a labrum tear and a herniated disc.  Let’s look at what the full value was in that case.  I’ll round off the real amounts to keep it simple.

The full value of the out of pocket medical bills were $60,000, and the lost wages were $70,000.  I estimated the pain and suffering component at $160,000.

A quick word about pain and suffering…

Pain and suffering is the toughest part of compensation to estimate.  However, there are some general rules when estimating pain and suffering.  For example, every injury lawyer knows that surgery increases the full value of pain and suffering.

Another general rule is that the pain and suffering  fracture is worth more than pain without a fracture.  Thus, someone’s who has a broken leg has a higher pain and suffering value than just leg pain.

Also, some companies pay more for pain and suffering than others. For example, GEICO, State Farm, and  Progressive all offer less money for pain and suffering than USAA.

Ok. Let’s get back to the full value formula.

Here is the formula to calculate the full value:

Out of pocket medical bills (or liens) + Lost wages + Pain and Suffering

Now, let’s plug in the amounts.

$60,000 + $70,000 + $160,000

Full Value = $290,000

2nd Step. Figure Out Odds that Defense Wins

You need to estimate the percentage chance of a defense verdict or dismissal.

Insurance Company Agreed Its [Insured Driver Was At Fault]

The above example was a rear end accident where the careless driver’s insurer agreed that my client did nothing wrong.

So let’s again look at the above formula from Step 1.

Settlement = (Full Value of Damages) x (100% – % Chance of Losing Case) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

We already calculated the full value of the damages to be $290,000.  We’ll plug that in to the formula:

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100% – % Chance of Losing Case) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

Since this was a rear end crash, I estimated that there was 0% chance of that a jury would find that the other driver wasn’t negligent.

We’ll plug in that number.

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100% – 0%) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100%) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

This gets us to the formula below.

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

Difficult to Do Without Experience

In many cases, you likely won’t be able to know this percentage unless you’ve done this hundreds of times.

Easier to Do in Rear End Accident or Passenger Cases

It’s easiest to estimate the percentage chance of a defense verdict in a rear end car accident.  The chance of a defense verdict is usually zero in a rear end accident.

This is usually true unless the defendant says that you suddenly stopped for no reason.

Step 3. Estimate Your Fault

You then need to know your percentage of fault, if any.

In most rear end accidents, the car that is hit from behind isn’t at fault.

The same is true for passengers who are injured in any type of accident. For example, passengers of Uber or Lyft cars usually don’t have their case reduced for their fault.  The exception would be if the passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, or knew that the driver was drunk.

Let’s continue using the formula from above for this rear end accident.

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

We’ll use 0% as your fault as a cause of the crash.

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100% – Your % of Fault)

Let’s plug in 0%.

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100% – 0%)

Settlement = ($290,000) x (100%)

The fair value of the case was $290,000.

Further Reduce for Difficult Proving Shoulder Injury Caused by Crash

I wanted to keep the above calculation simple.  In the actual case, I cut the pain and suffering component of the shoulder joint tear (glenoid labrum tear) in half.

Since the defense doctor said that the crash didn’t caused the driver’s shoulder tear, I used about $70,000 for the pain and suffering component of the shoulder injury instead of $135,000.  That’s why the actual case settled for about $210,000.

Don’t Use an Online Settlement Calculator

I sometimes use my Florida injury and car accident settlement calculator as a starting point to determine the fair settlement value of a case.  But you shouldn’t use an online settlement calculator.

If you get one part of the formula wrong, the entire formula will be wrong.  You’ll have no idea what a fair settlement is.

Are There Some Injuries For Which It’s Tougher to Calculate Settlement Value?

Yes, it’s more difficult to calculate a fair settlement for a case involving a herniated disc, back pain and many other types of injuries.  This is because the injury could’ve existed before the accident.

76 Factors that Affect an Florida Accident Case Settlement

Now is where we factor in the more than 76 factors that can affect a Florida injury case settlement value.

One of the many benefits of hiring an experienced Florida injury lawyer is because they know the amounts that are put into this settlement formula and how to figure out the amounts that are put into the formula.

It has taken me many years to really understand the value of a personal injury case.  It is an art because juries are constantly awarding different verdicts for similar injuries.

Did someone’s carelessness cause your injury in an accident in Florida, or on a cruise or boat? 

See Our Settlements

Check out some of the many Florida injury cases that we have settled, including but not limited to car accidents and much more.

We want to represent you!

Our Miami law firm represents people injured anywhere in Florida in car accidents, truck accidents, slip, trip and falls and many other types of accidents.

We want to represent you if you were injured in an accident in Florida, on a cruise ship or boat. If you live in Florida but were injured in another state we may also be able to represent you.

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