Valuing Damages in Los Angeles Personal Injury Cases
When you have been injured due to another person’s negligence, recklessness, or intentional act, you should be compensated for all the damages associated with that injury. That’s the general legal principle in California as well as throughout the United States. Compensation should––in the best of worlds for the victim––include all economic and non-economic damages. In some cases, it might even be supplemented by punitive damages if the act causing the harm was malicious, oppressive, or fraudulent.
In the real world, however, the sum of a victim’s damages are up for negotiation. Not even economic damages are always straightforward when the case includes things like loss of earning capacity or anticipated future medical expenses. But even when cases are pretty straightforward, much of it will depend on the availability of insurance and/or assets of the at-fault party.
The amount of compensation isn’t the only thing on people’s minds: they also want to know how long it might take to obtain compensation. These are two very important questions. If you are a victim, you no doubt want the most you can get. If you are a victim, you also need that compensation as soon as possible so you can pay bills and fund day-to-day spending needs, among other things.
The problem is: there is neither a single nor simple answer to either of these questions. There are many factors, facts, and circumstances that go into the determination of the value of damages and how long it might take to receive that compensation. Below, we shed some light on these matters to:
1. Help you understand what’s involved; and
2. Provide reasonable expectations.
After reading this and exploring our other pages, you may want to contact us so that we can connect you with a personal injury attorney who is experienced, resourceful, and knowledgeable of situations like yours.
Not all personal injury attorneys, however, are the same. Some focus on auto accidents while others focus on medical malpractice. Some may provide services in all types of personal injury cases but have one or two areas where they carry the most experience. We work with and know who these attorneys are and will align their skills and experiences with your personal injury case. Once you connect with an attorney, you can get more specific information about the values of damages and the anticipated duration of a claim or lawsuit in Los Angeles.
How Long Will a Personal Injury Claim or Lawsuit in Los Angeles Take?
As mentioned, there’s no one answer to the question about how long your personal injury claim or personal injury lawsuit in Los Angeles will take. It all depends on the type of personal injury, the extent of the injury, the presence of complications, the availability and limits of insurance coverage, and many other factors. It also depends on whether or not you:
- Settle––settlement negotiations typically occur after a claim has been filed and can take weeks, months, a year, or longer. They can also continue well after a lawsuit has been filed. Negotiations to settle never really end until there is a settlement or a verdict.
- File a lawsuit––often a lawsuit is filed when parties are not able to reach a mutually acceptable amount and/or when a settlement is clearly not going to happen within the Statutes of Limitations, and to continue negotiations or the process to get compensation, a lawsuit is filed. A lawsuit will prolong the length of a personal injury case. The procedures of a lawsuit themselves are enough to prolong a case: there are the filing and service of the lawsuit, then the defendant has 30 days to respond. So, after about three months from the date you filed the lawsuit, pre-trial discovery will begin, and depending on the complexity of your case, this can take months or even years. But remember, throughout the course of this process, your attorney and the defendant will continue negotiations on a settlement.
- Attend alternative dispute resolution(ADR)––some parties may wish to attend mediation or another ADR platform to negotiate a settlement or specific aspects of the claim, and it can take place prior to or during a pending lawsuit. If successful, this process can reduce the amount of time put into a claim.
- Go to trial––trial usually occurs within one year of the date the lawsuit is filed, but in some cases, it can be up to two years or more. The trial itself may not be long but last a few days or a few weeks. Most personal injury cases will never go to trial, though.
In sum, it could take a few months or it could take up to two years before a personal injury case settles or a verdict is rendered. For most of you, you are looking at a few months of negotiation between your lawyer and the other party. For a few of you, you’ll experience a longer process simply because of the circumstances and nature of your personal injury.
Your best bet to understand how long your case might take is talking to a personal injury attorney with experience helping people who have endured the same or similar type of personal injuries as you have under the same or similar facts and circumstances. The personal injury attorney has likely had experience with insurance companies or other similar defendants, knows how insurance adjusters and defense lawyers work, and understands how to work with them to maximize the value of your compensation in as little of time as possible.
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How are Damages Valued in Los Angeles?
Most personal injury cases do not result in millions of dollars worth of damages. Not that you are expecting $1 million, but it’s good to have sensible and reasonable expectations. Hoping for more when your claim isn’t worth it can affect your mental state. The opposite is also true: not thinking your case is worth much when it’s actually worth more than you anticipated can affect the outcome of your full recovery.
Here are the factors that your attorney, as well as insurance adjusters, will consider when valuing a personal injury claim in Los Angeles.
Liability & Apportionment of Fault
According to California Civil Code § 1714(a),
“Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury upon himself or herself. The design, distribution, or marketing of firearms and ammunition is not exempt from the duty to use ordinary care and skill that is required by this section.”
So, if a person is at fault for the injury, then he or she is liable. There can also be multiple at-fault parties who can be held liable, too, like employers or vendors (like in truck accidents where cargo loaders or shipper can be held responsible under certain circumstances).
Liability must be established. If it’s relatively easy to establish, then the value of the claim may be higher as opposed to if there are legitimate questions as to fault and responsibility.
More importantly, you can bet adjusters will try to establish fault on your part, too. California follows the pure comparative negligence doctrine, which means your settlement can be reduced by the percentage of your fault. Oftentimes, this can be a sticky point and reason for the breakdown of negotiations. If the case goes to trial, then a jury or judge will determine a victim’s percentage of fault, if any.
Medical Damages
Medical damages are the sum of all economic and non-economic damages related to or stemming from the injury. You must provide proof of medical damages. This proof will be a primary factor in the determination of the value of damages.
As a reminder and according to California Civil Code § 1431.2(b), economic medical damages include things like:
- Medical bills (past and future)
- Surgeries
- Treatment
- Therapy
- Rehabilitation
- Medications
- Medical devices
- Live-in care
- Transportation to/from medical appointments
- Disability costs
- Nature and extent of injuries.
To recover compensation for the above past medical expenses, you typically need to show that the medical expenses were reasonably necessary and for a reasonable price. For future medical expenses, you also need to demonstrate that medical care will be reasonably necessary for the future. If you paid more than what the insurance adjuster or a jury says is reasonable, then you’ll only receive compensation for the amount deemed reasonable.
Stemming from the injury, too, are employment-related damages like:
- Lost wages
- Loss in earning capacity
- Future lost wages.
For past and future lost earnings, income, salary, or wages, you must prove the amount you lost through things like tax returns, pay slips, etc. For future lost earnings, you must prove the amount that you are reasonably certain to miss out on in the future. As for lost earning capacity, you must prove that you lost your ability to earn money due to the injury and/or you will earn less money in the future than you had anticipated. Plus, the value of the lost of earning capacity must be reasonable. A reasonable value is somewhere in between what you could have earned versus what you can still earn even with the injury.
As another reminder and according to California Civil Code § 1431.2(c), non-economic damages include things like:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Mental suffering
- Depression
- Emotional Distress
- Disfigurement
- Physical disability
- Scarring
- Loss of enjoyment
- Loss of quality of life
- Loss of consortium
- Injury to reputation and humiliation.
Non-economic damages are more difficult to arrive at a mutually agreed-upon value because these are not tangible damages accompanied by available receipts, bills, etc. Typically, once you know the full value of the economic damages, you take that estimate and use it to determine the non-economic damages. Non-economic damages will run from 2 to 5 times more than the sum of economic damages.
The applicable multiplier is based on the actual pain and suffering the victim claims to have experienced, still experiences, and/or will continue to experience. Disfigurement or disability will result in a higher-valued multiplier while temporary pain and suffering will result in a lower-valued multiplier. If the injury is permanent, then the multiplier will be applied to the reasonable life expectancy of the victim.
NOTE: In some cases, the defendant may try to argue that the plaintiff had pre-existing health conditions, and that he or she is not responsible for such pre-existing injuries. Luckily, these types of plaintiffs are protected under the Eggshell Plaintiff Rule (also known as the Eggshell Skull Rule), which requires the defendant to take the victim as s/he is, namely the defendant must pay for all reasonable damages even if those damages are larger due to the fact that the plaintiff is more susceptible to injury or disease than an ordinary person is.
Property Damages
If any of your property suffered damage due to the same event that caused your personal injury, then you should be compensated for this loss. There are two considerations here:
1. The reduction in the value of the property (determined by the fair market value of the property); or
2. The reasonable cost to repair the property (unless the property is a total loss).
Whichever is least expensive is the option that should be provided to the victim. That said, if you have a genuine reason to have the property repaired as opposed to being reimbursed for the value of the property, then you can argue for it even if the repairs will cost more than the property’s loss of value.
Also, you can receive compensation for the loss of use of the damaged real property. To determine the amount, typically the adjuster, judge, or jury will look to the reasonable cost to rent the same or similar type of property for the time period the property could not be used.
Punitive Damages
The value of a claim also depends on whether the wrongdoer acted intentionally with malice, fraud, or oppression. If so, then if the case when to trial, a jury can award punitive damages. This is rare but quite possible. Punitive damages are meant to punish and deter, so these damages can be quite high. The tricky point here is this: most insurance policies will not cover personal injuries when the insured has acted intentionally, so punitive damages won’t be factored into a settlement.
Insurance Coverage
Most personal injury cases involve insurance companies. For example, car accidents involve auto insurance companies. You can only obtain from the insurance company what coverage is available. So, if the sum of your damages exceeds the policy limit, you cannot recover unless you go after the person or entity. In the latter case, you’ll likely only recover compensation if the defendant has enough assets.
Damages Caps
Damage caps are statutory maximum monetary limits placed on some types of personal injury cases. In California, there are no caps except for medical malpractice claims. California law places a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages––particularly pain and suffering––in all medical malpractice claims.
There are situations, too, where a “victim” may not be able to recover non-economic damages, and these are all related to auto accidents. A personal injury claimant cannot recover non-economic damages when he or she, for the accident causing the bodily injury, is/was:
1. convicted of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol (DUI);
2. the owner of an uninsured vehicle involved in the accident (except when the at-fault party was convicted of a DUI for the same accident); or
3. an uninsured driving in the accident.
Are there Other Considerations that Could Impact the Value of a Personal Injury Claim in California?
There are many other considerations that apply in specific circumstances. Some of the more common include:
- Age––if you are older, then the insurance adjuster could try to argue that your injury is not the result of the accident but caused by degenerative changes, meaning it’s related to your age.
- Medical history––if you had an injury in the same or similar part of your body previously, then the insurance adjuster may try to argue that it is a pre-existing medical issue and not their responsibility. On the other hand, keep in mind that according to eggshell skull rule, as discussed above, the defendant is responsible for all injuries he or she proximately caused – even if the plaintiff was more susceptible to such injuries because of a pre-existing health condition.
- Likability––if your case goes to trial, jurors will base part of their decision on how much they like or not like you or the defendant, and though this is not appropriate, it’s a fact of personal injury or medical malpractice trials.
- Attorney––insurance companies know personal injury attorneys in and around Los Angeles, and so they know who will take the first offer and who will fight, and this will factor into their overall strategy to value a claim.
What are Personal Injury Compensation Averages in Los Angeles?
There isn’t an average settlement or verdict award for personal injuries in Los Angeles. Most cases end in pre-litigation settlements that are confidential and held from the public.
Further, according to statewide caseload trends, cases that go to litigation or trial––though a very small percentage of the total caseload––tend to result in higher compensation packages when the plaintiff is successful. Further, victims represented by attorneys are awarded more than if not represented by an attorney, and this is true whether you are in the claims process, settlement negotiations, or have filed a lawsuit.
Skilled, Determined Personal Injury Attorneys Committed to You
A Los Angeles personal injury or medical malpractice attorney can help you get the compensation you need and deserve. Contact us today to make sure you retain a smart, determined personal injury attorney who will make sure you get the most in the least amount of time.
