Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

The Western District Missouri Court of Appeals last week affirmed a $ 950,000 jury verdict in a motorcycle accident case, concluding that the condition of the road during construction was the primary cause of the man's injuries.

The jury award surprises me. Plaintiff was driving his motorcycle through an "inactive" construction zone. While passing a truck at 70 miles per hour, he lost control of his motorcycle as the result of uneven payment, a nearly two inch difference in the grades. (Arguably that 70 mph did not help, either.)

Plaintiff's lawsuit alleged the motorcycle accident would not have occurred if there had been proper warning of the uneven surfaces. The jury largely agreed, finding the defendants 95% at fault for the accident and the motorcyclist only 5% at fault (which would lead to a defense verdict under Maryland law).

http://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=51217

Continue reading "Motorcycle Accident Verdict Affirmed" »

A California jury has awarded a $1.1 million verdict to a man who sued his landlord after a slip and fall.

Plaintiff fell down the stairs at his apartment on January 1, 2010, and later developed disk injury and symptoms of lumbar strain. A houseman for a wealthy San Francisco family, Plaintiff was forced to quit his job because of the pain. Torres sued the property owner alleging that he failed to keep the stairs clear of slippery algae, and did not install a handrail, as required by local code.

The owner or his insurance company let the case to trial. Bad choice. A jury awarded Torres $1,070,801 for economic losses, including $850,000 for future lost earnings.

Plaintiff's slip and fall attorney said, "If the defendant had provided the minimum protection of a building code-required handrail, at a cost of less than $100 and an hour of time, this lawsuit would have never been necessary...." This really makes you step back and think. As a retired general contractor, Fleming could have installed the handrail himself. What made him think it was worth the risk NOT to install the handrail?

Continue reading "Man is Awarded a $1.1 Million Verdict For a Fall Down the Stairs" »

An Illinois jury awarded $1.275 million to the family of a 25 year-old woman who had almost completed her nursing degree and was killed while driving to her job at a hospital. Tired driving appeared to be the cause of the car accident: the Defendant just fell asleep and hit the Plaintiffs' decedent.

The damages only trial lasted four days. The jury heard four grueling days of testimony from the family. Not that a tragedy like this can get worse, but this young girl had already been through a lot: surviving two kidney transplants only to be senselessly killed by someone driving down the road.

Continue reading "How Much for the Wrongful Death of a 25 Year-Old Girl?" »

A critical component of damages in wrongful death car accident cases is loss of services of the survivors from the victim. Loss of services is a dumb legal expression we would do best to get rid of. Solatium damages is an awful phrase, too. But at least it does not imply in the definition that the loss is pretty much someone doing less for you. (Noneconomic pain and suffering damages is a little better, I guess. We will use that.)

In Maryland, we describe these wrongful death damages to a jury as "mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, loss of society, companionship, comfort, protection, marital care, parental care, filial care, attention, advice, counsel, training, guidance, or education where applicable." Most states use similar strange language but the gist of it is: what has really been lost - calculating everything - from the death of this person?

Here are the statistics nationally on noneconomic pain and suffering jury awards:

Continue reading "Calculating Pain and Suffering Damages" »

Jury Verdict Research did a study that found that the average money damages verdict in a car/truck accident case brought by the passenger is $486,098. Sounds like a lot but high (and maybe uncollectable) verdicts distort the average. The median passenger verdict is $30,000.

Here is where it gets interesting. I think it is difficult to lose a passenger accident case. Certainly the passenger is not responsible for the accident (ignoring for a second the "I knew he was drunk out of his mind and I got in the car with him anyway" passenger). Yet plaintiffs only receive money damages in 62 percent of passenger cases that go to verdict.

I just can't make sense of the numbers. Here is how it breaks out:

Host Driver's Negligence: 58%
Both Drivers' Negligence: 64%
Driver & Business Negligence: 73%
Driver & Government Negligence: 74%
Passenger Suits Generally: 62%

I would love to grab a random handful of the defense verdicts and look at the fact pattern. Because it makes no sense to me. These should be very easy cases for accident lawyers to always win.

Head injuries are the most common cause of fatalities in car accidents. Jury Verdict research provides some interesting data on the median value of head injury cases, breaking down some of the different types of head injury claims:

Head Lacerations and Contusions: $10,016
Concussions: $22,638
Skull Fractures: $100,000
Cranial Nerve Damage: $160,095
Head and Skull Injuries, Overall: $14,034

Keep in mind these are median awards. The averages may be more than 10 times this amount and small "technically head injury but not really" cases drag down the median. Still, these numbers do seem very low.

Another interesting graph from Metro Verdicts Monthly, this time on the median verdicts in leg amputation cases for Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. The District of Columbia and Maryland have comparable verdicts, $2.1 million and $1.97 million, respectively. Virginia? $500,000. I expect some verdicts in Virginia to be lower because the rural areas of Virginia have conservative juries. But one-fourth of the amount?

Obviously, this data is not to be taken too seriously by accident lawyers in Maryland or in Virginia., as I discussed earlier this month. But in that post, I noted that Virginia's verdicts in femur fracture cases is twice the Maryland average. So I cannot figure out the rhyme or reason to these comparative numbers.

I think it is fair to say that with respect to pain and suffering, you have to value a leg amputation case in Maryland on damages as the statutory cap on damages plus Plaintiff's economic expenses. In terms of making the noneconomic damages case, it is important to consider future costs of a prosthetic leg. Last time we tried a leg amputation accident case, we brought in a prosthetic's expert from the client's prosthetic manufacturer from Hanger Orthopedic in Minnesota who I thought was a very effective witness at trial.

In car accident cases, there are typically relatively "good" settlements on ankle injury cases. For our purposes here, "good" is defined as the probability of getting a reasonable settlement offer before filing a lawsuit.

Why are ankle injury cases easier to settle than other accident claims? But the most obvious explanation is the nature ankle injuries. With neck and back injuries, which are common car accident injuries, people with the exact same radiological findings can have very different manifestations of pain. Given this, insurance companies tend to assume the lowest level of pain in these types of cases.

In contrast, ankle injuries are far less often the result of degenerative changes and are usually caused by trauma, rarely leading to concerns about preexisting injuries or arthritic changes. Just as importantly, they are typically objective injuries we can see on a radiology report. It also helps in reaching a value of an ankle injury for settlement purposes that the treatment of ankle injuries is generally not as involved as other car accident injuries which decreases the extent of the "you should not have gotten so much treatment" arguments from the insurance company.

Four years ago, the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog reported on ankle verdicts and settlements in Maryland. You can find those here. A recent Jury Verdict Research study found that the average ankle injury verdict is $290,130 ($90,000 is the median). Maryland's median - again, four years ago - was right on par with the national average at $88,000.

I think this is useful data in determining an appropriate value for an ankle injury settlement. That said, all average verdict data is of questionable usefulness in a given case and ankle injury data is probably even less useful than most other types of car accident injuries. You can drive a truck though the difference in settlement value between a hairline ankle fracture and a crush injury. So, as always, take the ankle verdict data with a grain of salt.

Metro Verdicts Monthly reports on a jury verdict in a five car rear end chain reaction car crash in Cecil County, Maryland. The case was not exactly an accident lawyer's delight. Cecil County is a tough jurisdiction for personal injury cases because, historically, jury verdicts have been relatively low. Adding to the concern, there was a soft tissue/exacerbation of a previous injury which means there is no real objective evidence that the Plaintiff was injured in the car accident.

The jury awarded $103,130 which is a pretty good verdict for a soft tissue/exacerbation of a prior disc injury case. It probably did not hurt that the Defendant Driver was driving a commercial vehicle which allowed the Plaintiff's lawyer to point to a concrete company instead of just the driver. Moreover, the Defendant Driver was also driving a Ford F-350 which helps further the argument that Plaintiff suffered injuries in the accident. (I wish MVM would include how much property damage was in the accident.)

Is this a good verdict? I think so. We don't have all of the facts. We do know that the verdict actually came back closer to the way the defendants' accident attorney viewed the case. The offer was $40,000; the demand was $300,000. Still, it sounds like a good verdict in a case that certainly had its share of weaknesses.

• Overview of Cecil County as a venue in accident suits
• What is the value of my case?
• Overview of Car Accident Cases
• $3 Million Verdict in Cecil County Overturned

The South Carolina Lawyer Blog reports on a $1.3 million verdict against a restaurant in Oregon. The jury found that the restaurant served too much alcohol to a convicted drunk driver who then drove out and killed two young women.

Maryland does not currently have dram shop laws that allow for civil liability. As we have argued on the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog, the Maryland legislature needs to join the 21st century and acknowledge that we can do more to stop drunk drivers. Holding servers of alcohol responsible where they know or should know that someone will potentially put the public at risk by serving someone clearly intoxicated is a step towards stopping drunk drivers.

"Jury awards $89 million against drunk driver for fatal crash," was the headline of a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. What do 99% of the people exposed to this article now believe? Someone just got a huge verdict. But his was a one day trial and the likelihood of the Plaintiffs collecting a penny approaches zero. The article does not say the case was even defended by a lawyer.

I think it is great that the victim's family gets some measure of pleasure from the verdict. The man killed in the accident was returning from a shopping mall where they had registered for gifts for their upcoming wedding. His fiancee was pregnant. The defendant was drunk out of his mind. Awful facts.

Selfishly and for my clients, I think there is a benefit when future jurors here big numbers. It makes the numbers our lawyers usually ask juries for to be far more reasonable. Still, I worry about the impact on jurors who see an article like this and assume that jackpot justice is what we have in personal injury cases. Because far more people are getting big verdicts like this than are collecting big verdicts like this very large verdict in Missouri.

The magazine Money last month reported that $1.2 million is the average verdict in personal injury suits.

I think the average personal injury verdict is less than $1 million. Even so, this is an incredibly misleading number because this includes very large verdicts, many of which are not collectible because of financial limitation of the defendant or because of caps on damages.

Still, the advice offered in the article is good advice:

Adding umbrella insurance to your homeowners and auto policies coverage that shields you from out-size medical and property-damage bills and legal judgments that result from accidents on your property or in your car provides some protection. And it's relatively cheap: $150 to $300 a year for a $1 million policy, plus around $75 for each extra $1 million of coverage. (We're stepping up to $4 million to be safe).

The cost of umbrella insurance is cheap in proportion to the peace of mind it affords its insured. Probably the only issue on which insurance companies and our accident lawyers agree.

A recent Jury Verdict Research report confirms what you would to find about personal injury verdicts for paralysis: younger plaintiff get higher verdicts and settlements. Plaintiffs 17 years-old and under receive a median verdict in personal injury cases of $15,500,000. Plaintiffs 50 years-old and older receive $3,358,428. The average paralysis verdict is $13,854,992; the median paralysis verdict is $6,935,774. Approximately 65% of paralysis patients come from motor vehicle accident, medical malpractice or product liability cases.

The average quadriplegia verdict is over $20 million. It is crazy to say $20 million sounds low. But it does.

According to a Jury Verdict Research study released this month, the average jury award for finger and hand injuries is $629,382. This data for fractures, crush injuries, and nerve damage to fingers and hands is based on a review of jury verdicts in the United States over the last 10 years.

This average finger and hand injury verdict is a little bit misleading because the verdict included a $20,000,000 verdict and other verdicts which completely distort the average verdict. The median verdict for hand and finger lawsuit verdicts, which, by definition, eliminates both high verdicts and the low verdicts, was $73,250.

About a third of these injuries were in car, truck and motorcycle accidents.

• What is your hand injury worth?
• Get a free case evaluation

What is the difference between a New York accident lawyer and a Maryland accident lawyer? The answer: day and night. A new Jury Verdict Research report found that the average personal injury verdict in New York is $2,932,602. The median award is $300.000. Putting this is context, the median personal injury accident verdict in Maryland is approximately $13,000 (as little as $11,000 for car, truck and motorcycle accident cases).

Putting this in context, a New York accident case is not worth more than 15 times the value of the same car accident in Maryland. Under New York's threshold rule, cases that do not involve permanent injuries often do not make it to the courthouse steps. (See John Hochfelder blog post). This leads to less personal injury lawsuits in New York for smaller accident cases - of which there are many in Maryland that do go to trial - which increases the overall award in New York because whiplash type cases are not figured into the math.

But, even with that caveat, the difference in the verdict is still striking.

• Average Settlement in New York Personal Injury Cases (older data summarizing value of New York personal injury cases)
• 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? (more on settlement value of claims)
• How to Maximize the Value of Your Case (thoughts on getting the most of of your personal injury claim)

There is an interesting case report in Metro Verdicts Monthly this week from a car accident lawsuit in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Plaintiff was a dog groomer on her way to work when the Defendant took a left turn in front of her. Plaintiff contended that she suffered a torn rotator cuff, among other injuries to her neck, back and shoulder. Defendant's accident lawyers (USAA and State Farm) claimed Plaintiff was contributorily negligent because she was speeding. The insurance company lawyers also brought an orthopedic doctor to testify that Plaintiff's rotator cuff injury was more consistent with her work as a dog groomer than from the car accident.

Continue reading "Queen Anne's County Car Accident Verdict" »

What is the average car accident settlement in Maryland? I don't think anyone knows. But the Maryland Auto Accident Lawyer website has a page with information and resources to try to figure out - within a range of course - the average expected value of your car accident settlement or verdict in Maryland.
This resource provides information that should be helpful to Maryland accident lawyers trying to evaluate car accident cases.

What is the value of my ear injury lawsuit? That is a tough question to answer in the abstract because there are so many types of injuries. One common ear injury in auto accident is a burst eardrum caused by a care accident or a slip and fall that causes a direct blow to the side of the head can burst the eardrum. But the ear is a pretty complicated little tool and a lot of things can go wrong, particularly with the flying debris you get in a serious car accident and the damage that can be don just because of the pressure of the air bag explosion.

In medical malpractice cases, there are scores of error that can occur during car and treatment of the ear.

Taking all of this together, Jury Verdict Research has concluded that the median jury verdict for ear injuries is $50,000. JVR reported the same exact number in 2003. But in that study, 5% of ear injury cases resulted in verdicts over $5 million. The message: it is impossible to lump together all ear injures to guess at verdict ranges. The question of value of the ear injury case depends on the scope and extent of the ear injury.

If you have suffered an ear injury in an accident or by medical malpractice in Maryland, call Miller & Zois at 800-553-8082 or click here for a free consultation.

I don’t know. I really don’t know. That answer is followed by a laundry list of lawyerly explanations: no two cases are the same, each are judged on their merits, blah blah blah. This incredibly trite response is also true. Any accident lawyer who thinks they can accurately evaluate your case without reviewing all of your medical records and bills and understanding the severity of the accident and the injuries is completely kidding themselves – or you.

That said, there is a few things you can look at to better understand the value of your Maryland accident claim. First, there is an understanding of how insurance companies value cases. Second, there is data available on how juries decide similar cases.

Again, going back to the cliché, each case is absolutely different. But if you don’t know whether your case is worth $5,000,000 or $5,000 there are two resources for you. The first is our article on How Insurance Companies Value Personal Injury Cases, which includes a list of injuries and verdict amounts for those types of injures. The second is on the Maryland Auto Accident Lawyer website which breaks down the nuance of how Maryland auto accident cases are valued. In other words, it discusses how much money you might get for your accident claim.

Going back to the title of this article, the question is: how much money will you get for your injuries from the accident and, for some victims, how fast will you get it? That really is the issue in any personal injury case. Our job as Maryland accident lawyers is unambiguous: to get you as much money as possible for your injuries. One question that is critical to the analysis of how much you will recovery is not included in the statistics on accident verdicts: how hard your personal injury lawyer is willing to fight to get you the most money possible.

The average verdict in chest and breast injury cases is $279,188, according to a Jury Verdict Research study over the last 10 years. Almost half of these cases were medical malrpractice cases (41%) but the bulk of the remainder is auto, truck and motorcycle accidents. Approximately 43% of the accident cases involve either a turning vehicle or intersection collusion.

Related Posts

• How Much Money Can I Expect to Get in My Car Accident Case? (accident lawyer analysis of case values with data for different types of cases)


• How Much Money Will I Get for My Maryland Auto Accident? (information of median verdicts and why the numbers may be misleading for your case)


• Get a Free Consultation (click on the Free Consultation link or call a Maryland accident lawyer at 800-553-8083)