After an accident, you might be considering filing a lawsuit or an insurance claim to get compensation for what happened to you. It can be helpful to see examples of previous settlements for a similar injury so that you know what your case could be worth, but getting this information is often impossible.
Although we would like to provide you with examples of herniated disc settlements, our lawyers are usually unable to disclose those amounts with any helpful details. Generally, courts and lawyers do not publish or post amounts for their settlements, as these are often confidential. In the case that these data points are available, you will be unable to tell if the details of your case are comparable to yours. Nonetheless, we can explain what your settlement could be worth and what goes into a settlement offer for a herniated disc injury.
For help with your case, contact Howe Law’s Alabama personal injury lawyers at (844) 876-4357 today.
Why Examples of Settlements for Herniated Disc Accidents Are Unavailable in Alabama
Finding examples of what an injury case like yours could be worth is not easy. While attorneys are usually permitted to give examples of settlements they’ve achieved for clients in the past, these examples are often stripped of any information that could be helpful for you. In most cases, they are also tied to the type of accident – e.g., work injury, car accident injury – rather than the type of injury – e.g., herniated disc, broken vertebrae.
Even if a lawyer advertises that they’ve had multimillion-dollar settlements for clients in the past, it is often difficult for them to reveal any information about the specific effects on that client’s life. This makes it hard to tell if your injury is like theirs in type or severity, and it is also impossible to tell what other damages you could face that they might or might not have faced in their case.
All in all, it is important for anyone facing a spinal cord injury or herniated disc to speak directly with our Birmingham personal injury lawyers to get help understanding what their specific case could be worth. Our lawyers offer free case reviews where we can begin to assess exactly this question for you.
How Much Should My Herniated Disc Settlement Be Worth in Alabama?
Knowing what your specific case should be worth is impossible without examining the specifics of your case. Every injury case is different in a few important ways, and those differences usually go a long way toward calculating damages. Even so, calculating the following damages can help you begin to understand what your case might be worth:
Medical Expenses
Medical expenses will be one part of your injury settlement. You should be paid back for 100% of the medical expenses you suffered because of your injury.
When it comes to spinal injuries, the medical bills can be very expensive. Often, a herniated disc injury can require surgery, plus months of rehabilitation and physical therapy. If the injury is not bad enough to warrant surgery, it can nonetheless leave you with substantial pain and suffering that often needs pain medication, physical therapy, and other therapies (such as massages) to treat you.
Lost Wages
Back injuries account for one of the most common reasons for missed work. Whether your herniated disc injury was tied to a work injury – such as an acute back injury while lifting boxes – or completely unrelated to your job, you could miss work because of the injury. The party who caused your accident and injury should be responsible for paying you back for the full value of all lost wages related to the back injury.
In many cases, this can mean very high dollar amounts. If you miss work for a set period and are able to return at full working capacity, then you can calculate lost wages on your own by multiplying your normal wage by the time missed. If your injury is going to keep you from working for a long time or require a career change, then you could make less money or be completely unable to work for many years. Calculating these lost wages is much more complex and often requires help from a financial expert to testify about what potential raises and promotions you are missing out on because of your injury.
All in all, calculating lost wages is going to be difficult, and you should not accept any settlement that fails to account for this high-dollar area of damages without having a lawyer review your case first.
Pain and Suffering
Back injuries can be one of the most uncomfortable and painful injuries because you constantly need to use your back whether you are sitting, standing, walking, or even lying down. The constant irritation to a herniated disc can make these injuries incredibly painful, and the long-lasting nature of back and spinal injuries can mean that pain and suffering last for many months or even years. As such, pain and suffering damages are often high.
For ongoing injuries, pain and suffering damages can often be estimated as a multiple of your damages for medical bills and lost wages. This means that your pain and suffering damages could, on their own, be worth something like 2 or 3 times your other damages.
This is also an area where your damages will vary greatly compared to someone else’s damages. Lawyers who do post past results on their websites often do so with the most exceptional cases. Thus, any data you see about a past back injury settlement could be one that had the highest pain and suffering ratings, resulting in higher settlements than you might be able to achieve in your case. Even so, when our lawyers review your case, they can explain what your pain and suffering might be worth so you know what to look for as settlement offers begin coming in.
Call Our Alabama Back Injury Lawyers for Help Today
To get a free review of your injury case, call the Mobile, AL personal injury attorneys at Howe Law at (844) 876-4357.
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