EP02 S03: How Much Am I Going to Get For My Car Accident Case?

What drives lawsuit value and case worth in auto accident lawsuits, get the tips from a NY Personal Injury Lawyer with 20+ years of experience

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 Full Transcript:

Welcome to Trial Stories an informative discussion of civil justice with a focus on the human story. I’m your host. Arkady Frekhtman a New York City trial lawyer passionate about helping serious injury victims and their families.

Hi, everyone. So by now, you’ve watched a lot of videos, listened to a lot of podcasts. You probably know a lot about the car accident process, but you still may be wondering, and this is a question that we get so often from our clients, how much am I going to get from my car accident case? How much am I going to get in a car accident? What is the value of my case? And ultimately value really depends on a few different factors, right? One of the factors is who is suing? Who is the plaintiff? Is the plaintiff somebody that’s likable? Is the plaintiff somebody that’s grumpy or a malingerer? Where are we bringing the lawsuit?

Some counties are better than others. The Bronx is considered better than Westchester. Brooklyn is considered pretty good. Manhattan is okay, although it’s conservative. And what? What is the case that I’m bringing? First of all, what is the liability? Am I at fault? If I’m not at fault, for example, I got hit in the rear, now I can get more compensation because I can get 100% of my damages from the other car that hit me.

If I’m 50% at fault, such as a lane change where both people say, “Hey, you changed lanes illegally,” now even if a jury gives me $100,000, I can get money for the percentage of fault that is my own, so I’ll only get $50,000 if I was 50% at fault. And also the realities, right? The practicalities. For example, what is bodily injury insurance?

If the bodily injury insurance is 25,000, even if I was hit in the rear of my car, even if I have the most catastrophic injuries that could be worth millions, I can’t really get more than 25,000 because that’s the entire policy of the car that hit me. I could, of course, go to court and I could win a judgment of a million dollars, but usually, people that have the minimal $25,000 insurance policies aren’t going to have any assets, and you’re not going to be able to get anything. They’re usually people that rent an apartment and just keep a few dollars in the bank.

You’re never going to be able to enforce that judgment. It’ll just be like a piece of paper or a paper judgment. In reality, these are the kinds of things that we have to look at. We have to look at the damages, the injuries, whether we meet the serious injury threshold. We have to look at the policy limits. We have to look at where we can bring the lawsuit, and we have to look at what the lawsuit is, what is the liability. These are the kinds of things that drive value.

And if you want to learn more, we have a lot of other videos and information and documents that can help explain how we determine what a case is truly worth on our personal injury website. I hope this has been helpful. Have a great day, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Bye, bye.

So I hope this had been helpful. Let us know if you have any questions. You can text us, call us, email us, drop a comment below. If you want to see any video in the future, we’d be happy to shoot a video answering your questions. Have a great day and bye-bye.

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