How Are Some Car Crashes Worth Millions Of Dollars In Massachusetts?

For car crashes that end up with settlements or verdicts over one million dollars, we typically see a pattern that involves four key factors:

• Clear liability
• Adequate insurance coverage
• Medical records that reveal significant damages
• A sympathetic victim

Accordingly, if you are looking to maximize the value of your case, you want your attorney to pay close attention to each of these factors.

Liability

Crashes that lead to large settlements or verdicts typically feature clear liability. Something vividly demonstrates that the other driver is at fault for the crash.

It could be that the other driver was speeding or looking at their phone. In many cases, these cases may feature strong police reports that support your claim. The types of evidence may vary, but the pattern is that these cases don’t leave much doubt about who caused the crash. Sometimes the acts of the other driver “shock the conscience,” such as going twice as fast as the speed limit, being intoxicated, or leaving the scene of an accident.

Adequate Insurance

In nearly every crash lawsuit, it’s the insurance company that pays the settlement or verdict. This means that the size of the settlement or verdict is often limited by the policy limit purchased by the insured.

Accordingly, one of the keys to pursuing a larger settlement or verdict is to investigate every possible pathway to applicable insurance. This could mean exploring employer coverage, such as when the other driver works with a rideshare or delivery company. It could also mean working with your underinsured motorist coverage or investigating the crash scene to see if anyone else may have contributed to your injuries.

For example, if you were injured when another driver sideswiped you, you would naturally focus on that driver. But when your attorney digs deeper into the situation, interviews witnesses and reviews the camera footage, you may learn that the driver who sideswiped you was reacting tob the sudden move of another driver. That second driver may also be at fault to some degree, and a good attorney will help open a pathway to that driver’s insurance coverage as well.

Severe Damages

After a crash, the point of filing a lawsuit is to seek repayment for the damages you have suffered. Accordingly, crashes that lead to massive payouts usually feature serious damages.

These crashes may involve pedestrians or bicyclists who are not protected by a vehicle surrounding them. You might see fractured necks or other disabling injuries.

The damages, however, may not be enough on their own. It is also important to portray the damages convincingly. These injuries change whole lives. They go far beyond the medical bills, and it is important to create a clear picture of how these injuries will affect the rest of their victims’ lives. Expert medical evaluations go a long way toward predicting a victim’s suffering with a reasonable degree of certainty.

Sympathetic Victim

The victim’s profile is also important to the size of a settlement or verdict. The truth is that juries and even insurance claims people who review the case at every stage are people who have emotions. If they do not like someone, they will be less inclined to give them things. If they sympathize with someone, they will be more likely to reward the person with a big recovery. In our decades of experience, we have seen this tendency demonstrated time and time again. It helps to represent likeable people. This is not taught in law school!

Therefore, it is important for your attorney to use information from your background and personal story to make sure the jury understands the human angle of your case. Even if you end up negotiating a settlement, you want your attorney to make the insurance company understand how a jury would sympathize with your case. You want your attorney to help the jurors truly understand the awful impact that your injuries have had on your life.

The most serious attorney will take time to get to know you and learn how to tell your story in such a way that an insurance company or a jury will empathize with you.