Both women are out of work for a month before being released from a doctor's care. Bursitis is likely to flare up in the shoulder, hip, elbow, ankle, and foot. Defendant never offered to pay client's medical bills. The term 'soft tissue' refers to the muscles, tendons and ligaments located in the body. Soft Tissue Injuries Sprains and strains Sprains and strains are similar injuries that often happen during car accidents. Whiplash occurs when the impact from a rear-end collision forces your head and neck to move back and forth violently. The medical expenses were $500,000, which means that she was able to receive $2,000,000 as the average settlement. These firms are ordering their adjusters to offer low initial settlements in soft tissue cases resulting from minor vehicle damage or low-speed crashes. Tendons are found in the fingers, elbows, wrists, and many other parts of the body. On the other hand, a multiplier of 4 or 5 is assigned for long-term and more severe cases or even permanent injuries like spine injury, brain injury, an injury to the internal organs, and many others. In order to do this you will have to prove how much pain and suffering you are experiencing. Scandinavian journal of infectious diseases,38(11-12), 1098-1101. Are there things you can do to make your payout better? Copyright 2023 attorney advertisement by Injury Advocates Group and licensed, practicing attorney Ray Benyamin, Esquire. Attorneys on our team have secured $30,000, $50,000, and $200,000 recoveries for clients with soft tissue injuries. | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Blog, Insurance Company Coverage for Soft Tissue Injuries, Factors Affecting Soft Tissue Injuries Settlement from Insurance Companies, Another factor affecting the car accident settlement and soft tissue cases is the damage. However, there may be exceptions to this law. Yes and no. For instance, a computer may generate $10,000 as the initial offer and then double or triple the amount while giving the second offer. Failing to seek medical care immediately after an accident might give the insurance company a chance to argue that you were not seriously injured. He experienced recurring post-concussion headaches. Also, soft tissue injuries are harder to see on X-rays and MRIs. If you suffered a car accident soft tissue injury, let us fight the insurance company for you. Can you increase your specific soft tissue injury settlement? An Unusual Os Trigonum Syndrome Case Secondary to Car Accident. Lawyers must spend enough time with the clients for an attorney-client relationship and the insurance company so they can have an effective discussion, review, and consultation of the injuries, physician recommendation, medical settlement offer of the serious injury, and other necessary documents to the injury cases of the minor car accident. Since this was a minor injury, the medical expenses were about $15,000, and the multiplier was 2. Usually, insurance companies as entities are not predictable, understandable, logical, or fair, but their adjusters are just ordinary, friendly people. For instance, whiplash refers to a neck strain that results when the tendons stretch beyond the natural range. Injury Advocates Group Attorneys, L.L.P, all rights reserved. The recovery was for a child who suffered an in-utero brain injury as a result of a rollover car accident. This will depend on which treatment you need which itself is reliant on the different grades of soft tissue damage and which one you have sustained. Bursitis occurs when there is trauma to the soft tissue in the knee or other areas that have a bursa sac in a car accident. It is vital to ensure that the minor value of medical help appointed to the victim must be physicians, chiropractors, or physical therapists to decrease car accident cases and compensation. In order to expedite this process many companies use specialized computer software to evaluate how much your accident claim could be worth. He endured very serious injuries to both his shoulders and his spine. Accident Analysis & Prevention,36(1), 21-27. Tu, Y. K., Yen, C. Y., Ma, C. H., Yu, S. W., Chou, Y. C., Lee, M. S., & Ueng, S. W. N. (2008). Usually, insurance companies like keeping the information on using Colossus to calculate soft tissue injuries for your settlement a secret. If the employees caused a lot of soft tissue cases and damages despite being the victim of soft tissue injuries, the soft tissue damages caused could be covered by the compensation of the insurance company. Pain research and management,10(2), 71-74. This happens by stretching, overuse, or force. To provide employees and other individuals with more understanding of the car accident settlement from insurance companies, read the following factors that might affect their soft tissue injury settlement process. This is usually when a disability or death is the result of a car crash [3]. Once the case settles, the insurance company and the accident victim agree on the amount that will end the claim. The disorder commonly occurs as the result of an automobile accident and may include injury to intervertebral . As proof, Ill mention that a large body of literature supports the fact that approximately 40% of soft tissue injuries resulting from car accidents are permanent. The jury awarded $238,000. Tom Fowler Law | All Rights Reserved. Expansion 0.36-0.72 inches 0.4-0.76 inches. Injuries associated with airbag deployment. The recovery days can take almost three days, excluding the rehabilitation process, such as physical therapy, regular physician visits, and chiropractor visits. In this way, they can easily and effectively make amendments when needed. Serving nationwide in all 50 states on a case-by-case basis with a national network of relationships and on a Pro Hac Vice basis. Your average car accident settlement might be approximately $21,000. JAAOS-Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons,19(6), 359-367. Platelets form part of blood. This allows your attorney to address the issue before the at-fault insurance company uses it against you. If employees, especially drivers, cause soft tissue injury without their fault as the fault driver, then the settlement procedure will be affected. Delaware Average: $350,787 Median: $100,000 It depends on how convinced the jury is about the injury in the trial with a lawyer. Consequently, the insurance companies have adopted a number of pre-suit strategies that make it harder for the victims to win a fair settlement. This minor claim of the plaintiff will then be used in the proceedings. However, paying as much as $800,000 is also possible if the future is guaranteed to be in pain and suffering brought by the injury. Settlement for a client who was injured in an automobile accident while on the job when another driver ran into the rear end of his vehicle while stopped in traffic. In 2004 the minor injury cap was $4,000 and that has moved up due to inflation to $5,365 in 2021, a 1.3% increase from 2020. February 2022 - Texas $2,168,000 Verdict: A 40-something man was rear-ended. In many cases, mild to moderate whiplash claims can result in anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 worth of compensation. Soft tissue is therefore in all parts of the body, including things like the heart, that are not classified as a bone. Yes, a grade 3 soft tissue injury is the most severe of all soft tissue injuries. The record can be from the doctor, photos of the bruise, scape, or cut, and any other else. Aaron, D. L., Patel, A., Kayiaros, S., & Calfee, R. (2011). If the injured accident victim has to seek physical therapy, injections, or other procedures to treat the soft tissue neck or back injury, the accident victim's settlement compensation may be in the neighborhood of $30,000. Treatment for contusions includes rest, ice, compression, and elevation (R.I.C.E.). Injuries can happen anytime and anywhere, but most of them are found on the road. $300,000 verdict for a woman in a car accident who sustained disc herniations, required surgery and experienced a 60% loss of range of motion in her neck. Soft tissue cases can be worth more than this. However, if the legal service is mediocre, then the expected outcome for the compensation for your injuries, medical expenses, medical records, lost wages, property damage, and more could not end in your favor. After hiring excellent lawyers, she was able to win the claim, and the injuries were awarded a multiplier of 4. Aviation, space, and environmental medicine,74(10), 1085-1090. Physical therapy can help you to recover from your injuries and also help you to strengthen the tendons and the muscles that have been injured in your car accident. Therefore, if the medical costs amount to $5,000 and the multiplier is 2, you will receive $10,000 as the settlement. He suffered a concussion and briefly lost consciousness. Clients had soft-tissue damages and medical bills that totaled $11,342. The industry-guarded computer scoring systems are designed to consider specific factors (such as your geographical location, type of injury, and similar factors) that affect your settlement amount. Many injuries, such as soft tissue injuries, have a maximum settlement that needs to be compensated by those at fault for the accident. But, according to some revenue reporting, the average amount for a personal settlement in 2013 was around $24,000. Took case to jury trial in Baltimore City but lost. This injury can cause you to have a cracking sound when you move the injured body part, overall difficulty moving at all, as well as swelling and pain and tenderness. Because of this, it is important to take these injuries seriously and get treatment as soon as possible. Yes, these are serious injuries and they require serious attention to be paid to both diagnosis and treatment. This can include injuries like: Strain: This is usually an injury to your tendons or muscles. The bills, serious vehicle collision impact, value, and injuries will be compensated in full. The amount depends on the serious, suffered, and injured neck situation of the soft tissue injury. Colossus is designed to calculate a settlement award that the claimant should get after the adjuster feeds it with the information. A personal injury attorney from a respected law firm will also secure the quality of the procedure and the fair settlement procedures wherein both parties involved are well-compensated and found responsible for their wrongdoings during the auto, vehicle, or car accident. This can be a treatment on its own, or in conjunction with surgery. CALL US:(515) 231-1438 | SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION . You will have to fight to ensure you get the value that you deserve from your settlement which will require making a case as to why you are right and why the defendant was at fault for your injury. Whiplash injuries and herniated discs have typical payouts of $2,500 to $10,000 and $100,000 to $350,000 respectively. The debilitating nature of myalgia also often leads to depression due to the constant nature of the pain. This is because of new get tough tactics used by insurance companies who do everything they can to deny soft tissue injury claims and limit room for insurance adjusters to negotiate on settlements. For example, if your injury-related treatment bills are $1,000,000, a jury is likely to award you more money than if your injury-related treatment bills are only $1,000. Plus, as we age, ligaments and tendons show wear and tear. As mentioned above, computer-generated offers are not perfect as they ignore many factors that should play a role in determining your settlement. The adjusters are allowed to make only one additional offer before these files are sent to defense counsel. One method of dealing with more minor cases of soft tissue damage is to focus on getting rest and keeping the injured area immobilized long enough to ensure that it has time to recover. To get in this range of settlement for general damages, the soft tissue injury must be at least persistently troubling in excess of one year. Some of the most common symptoms which may indicate that you have a soft tissue injury are: It is important however to know that you need prompt medical care and assessment to know what injury you have and exactly which soft tissue injury your car accident has caused you to sustain so that there is concrete documentation. Tears and rips in tendons and connective tissues may require surgery and there can be weeks to months of downtime before you are back to normal. Insurance companies have to deal with thousands claims from accidents. Mr. Benyamin is a registered member of the following legal organizations: Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles(CAALA), theLos Angeles County Bar Association(LACBA), theState Bar of California, theAmerican Bar Association (ABA), and the American Association for Justice (AAJ). Soft tissue damage happens when you suffer trauma to your tendons, ligaments, and muscles.