[youtube]https://youtu.be/4v_TV90RkRE[/youtube]
One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is, “How much is my case worth?” And, I want to try to answer that in this short video.
So, if a defendant violates the safety rules that govern our society, breaks the rules of the road, acts unsafe, acts negligent, and that negligence causes injury to you, you’re entitled to your damages, and what are those damages? Damages include things like medical expenses, wage loss expenses, past and future, future medical, future wage loss, whatever disability you have, disfigurement you have, any other consequential damages, property damage, other things, and those damages, some of them are quantifiable, some are intangible, so things like medical expenses and wage loss damages, we go prove those damages, we get the records, sometimes we have to hire experts for those.
Things like pain and suffering and disability, those are even more important than frankly in the medical expenses because no one sits on a hospital bed and says, “Oh, I’m worried about my medical expenses,” less frequently. You’re sitting and worrying about, “Am I going to be able to walk again? Am I going to be able to hold my kids? Am I going to be able to go back to work? How am I going to provide for my family?” So, when an accident happens like this or surprise like this happens, it impacts you greatly and is a surprise and folks have to weather that financial storm until we can get a recovery for them.
So, in terms of how much your case is worth, really it’s what do you think a jury is going to pay, and what do you think a jury, an independent group of your neighbors, and friends, and other people in the community, who are there through this amazing judicial system and this amazing civil justice system we have to right the wrong that has been done to you.
To assess what your case is worth, we do things like look at other jury verdicts, I try a lot of cases, we kind of know what the range and what fair values are, but it really depends on the path that the case leads and the defenses that are raised in the case.
If there’s a clear liability case where the defendant injures you and you have clear concrete damages, those are easy to prove. However, if there are cases where the defendant that throws up defenses, says you’re partially at fault, says their client wasn’t at fault, says that the negligence that they did did not proximately cause your damages, you may have had damages from something else or something else happened later. Those are defenses that are raised by defense insurance companies and corporations a lot, and we navigate around those and are pretty successful at doing it.
So, in terms of what your case is worth, I hate to not answer the question in this video, but it’s really hard to say, and what I tell folks is it would be irresponsible for me to tell you exactly what your case is worth the first day I meet you because I don’t know. I haven’t done the investigation, I don’t have the medical records, you don’t know typically how injured you are, but I can assure you that at our firm, we do get full compensation for our clients, or we try the case. So, that’s what we do: we establish what the damages are, we get a range of what we think is a fair recovery, and we will go file suit, litigate, and try that case if necessary to get it.
Many times cases settle. They say that 95% of cases settle, so many times along the way the defendant appreciates the wisdom of our position and pays and settles the case. And when they do, not only do we try to get as much money in the front end of the case in terms of recovery for you, we try to reduce the liens as much in the back end of the case, so payments to other medical providers, your health insurance company, a disability company, if you’re on Medicaid or Medicare, we try to minimize those liens, so we negotiate those liens down, and we don’t charge you anything extra for that. So, we put as much money in your pocket and the money that you get put in your pocket in a personal injury settlement is tax-free.
We don’t charge any fee unless we’re successful and we recover for you. We charge a percentage of the recovery. So, that’s a little video on that question. If you have any questions, I personally will represent you in your case. My name is Gary Burger. I’m at Burger Law, www.burgerlaw.com. We’re at 866-599-2222, in Illinois we’re at 618-272-2222, and in Missouri at 314-542-2222. Thank you.