What Is the Average Amount for a Personal Injury Settlement?
When a personal injury accident occurs, victims naturally want to know how much they can claim. Some ask questions like "what's the average personal injury settlement?" to get a benchmark for filing a claim. Truthfully, there's no "average" settlement for a personal injury accident, and what a victim receives depends on several factors.
Some surveys and online articles may give you figures for an average settlement. However, they're not a good determinant of what you should file or what you'll receive. Since every accident differs, the value of each settlement will vary from the so-called average amount.
In fact, if someone receives $500,000 for a similar accident as yours, you may not get that exact amount. Such is the difference in each personal injury case. The best person to help you calculate a range of possible values is a personal injury lawyer Lancaster PA.
With general damages, Pennsylvania law allows victims to settle for non-economic losses that are difficult to value. These losses include emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, loss of companionship, and other pain and suffering damages.
The degree of both types of damages will determine your settlement value. For instance, the amount someone gets for permanent paralysis or severe brain damage will be higher than another victim for short-term injuries.
The Defendant's Assets and Insurance Limits Besides your damages, a court will consider the worth of the defendants, including his insurance limit and sell able assets. If the defendant has no means to pay either through his insurance policy or assets, your settlement may be below. It's advisable to consider a defendant's worth before when calculating your average compensation.
Liability The final factor is the extent to which the defendant is liable for your injuries. Irrespective of the extent of your injuries, you won't get a large settlement if you were partly responsible for the accident.
If the percentage of the defendant's negligence is higher than yours, they'll only be accountable for their contribution. However, if your liability is above 50%, you may get nothing, due to Pennsylvania's contributory negligence law.
