One of the most common questions I get from potential clients and current clients is, "what is my case worth?" There are many factors that goes into determining case value. It is important to have an experienced Florida injury trial attorney by your side to guide you through the process.
Generally, in Florida, you can obtain damages for: past medical care, future medical care, lost wages (past), loss of ability to earn future wages, past non-economic damages (such as pain and suffering), and future non-economic damages.
Determining future medical care costs often requires the assistance of a life-care planning expert. Similarly, calculating the loss of future wages requires the assistance of a vocational expert. Often insurance companies ignore these modicums of damages. An experienced injury lawyer can help you obtain these experts, and explain the losses to the insurance company.
Once you have totaled the losses, it is important to look at liability or fault in the injury case. Florida is a comparative fault state, so if you are found 30% at fault by the jury, your damages will be reduced by that much after trial.
Finally, it is important to determine the collectability of the Defendant. Does the defendant have enough damages to cover your losses? If not, are there available assets that can be obtained? Determining case value is a complex task that cannot be reduced to a blog post; however, this gives you a primer on the main issues that need to be explored.
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