How Much Is My Personal Injury Case Worth?

Personal injuries can occur because of many different events. These injuries have long-term, life-altering effects and, in some cases, may be life-threatening. Often, victims of such accidents will require lifelong medical care, which leads to high medical bills and can affect the victim’s quality of life. Before filing a personal injury lawsuit, you may want to know how much your case is worth. This will help you plan and ensure all bills are settled. However, each case is unique; your lawyer will consider several aspects when calculating the claim’s value.

How Much Is MY Personal Injury Case Worth?

There are different types of personal injuries. Considering their permanent nature, these injuries can be costly to treat. In addition, you may also suffer other types of losses. In the end, no two personal injury cases are alike. Therefore, the amount of compensation you get will depend on the circumstances of your case.

Who Is Liable for Personal Injuries?

When you suffer catastrophic injuries, not only do you want to seek compensation for those injuries, but you also want to make sure that you hold all liable parties accountable for their actions. To determine who bears liability for your injuries, your lawyers will need to discover who owned you a duty of care and how that duty of care was violated in a way that led to your injuries.

How Much are Wrongful Death Settlements?

What is the Average Settlement for Wrongful Death?

Wrongful death lawsuits involve significant damages. Losing a loved one is one of the worst things a family can face. The jury verdict numbers and the settlement amounts for wrongful death claims are typically noteworthy. Wondering how much are wrongful death settlements in Houston?

Houston wrongful death settlements at Baumgartner Law Firm often reach multi-million dollar amounts. Factors like liability and insurance coverage can impact the amount a wrongful death claim can bring.

A wrongful death lawsuit payout varies depending on liability facts, insurance coverage, and the closeness of the relationship with the deceased. Many of our wrongful death cases have settled between 3 and 5 million dollars, with some substantially more.

Wrongful death settlement amounts are unique to each surviving family member because it is damages for the loss of the relationship with the deceased that is valued in wrongful death compensation.

Let our experienced and undefeated Houston wrongful death attorneys evaluate your case and explain your options.

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The average settlement for a wrongful death case in Texas will vary greatly depending on many factors. Wrongful death case results can range from millions to tens of millions or be more limited depending on the facts and the insurance available to pay. It is recommended that you get a qualified wrongful death attorney in Houston.

Circumstances Matter

Wrongful death lawsuits can arise from many different circumstances. A person can be tragically lost when being struck by a semi-truck, hit by a drunk driver, premises liability, or other accidents. Different cases can have different liability factors that may impact values for the loss of a family member.

Why the accident happened is an issue that can impact the liability portion of a wrongful death case evaluation. Texas uses a comparative responsibility method, which impacts settlements and the amount recovered in fatal accident cases.

Insurance Issues

Insurance issues will impact the value of a wrongful death case. Very seldom, in Texas, is a plaintiff able to collect more than the available insurance coverage. The settlement value will also likely be limited if all available insurance is limited.

Every case is unique, and getting a value on a wrongful death case is nearly impossible without knowing all the facts. Even then, Houston’s most skilled wrongful death lawyer can only give the family a range of potential settlements or verdicts.

Wrongful Death Lawsuits

Often, it is only after a wrongful death lawsuit has been filed and discovery in the case conducted that an experienced wrongful death lawyer determines a fair wrongful death settlement amount.

When it comes down to a jury trial, there is never any crystal ball on what a jury could do. However, the best wrongful death attorneys with a wealth of experience can estimate a value for the family.

Liability Considerations in a Wrongful Death Lawsuit

The cause of the accident will have a significant impact on the value of a wrongful death settlement. Wrongful death lawsuits with clear liability will have a larger wrongful death settlement value. Cases with contributory negligence by the deceased will have smaller wrongful death settlements.

For instance, if your loved one was stopped at a red light with numerous witnesses and was struck from the rear by a drunk driver, liability will not be in much dispute. But because Texas is a comparative responsibility state, damages would be reduced if the decedent were partly at fault.

A wrongful death lawsuit in Houston with strong evidence and adequate liability insurance can lead to significant wrongful death compensation for the surviving family members. Particularly with the best wrongful death lawyers on your side.

Getting the best lawyer for your case is vital for those reasons and more. Speak with an undefeated wrongful death attorney in Houston at Baumgartner Law Firm to protect your best interests.

Impact of Insurance Coverage

Collecting damages from an individual without money or insurance coverage is difficult in Texas. So, the amount of insurance can impact a wrongful death claim.

A few examples:

Your family member is hit from the rear in a car accident. The negligent party had only a minimum liability policy. Unless there is other coverage, like an underinsured motorist, another defendant, or the negligent driver is independently well-off, the insurance coverage will probably be all that is reasonably recoverable.
A truck accident was caused by a negligent 18-wheeler driver who lost control of the tractor-trailer, killing an innocent family member. The insurance coverage can be substantial and may be more than one layer.
Likewise, death is caused by a dangerous and defective product that can involve deep-pocketed defendants, where the collection of the judgment is not a factor.
On the other hand, Texas has capped the damages against medical providers, which means many people find a good attorney to help them with this type of case.

Claims of the Deceased Person’s Estate

If the decedent survived after the accident, the surviving family members can also recover compensation through the deceased’s estate. This compensation can include such damages as pain and suffering, burial expenses, medical expenses, and other personal injury damages of the deceased. Getting an experienced attorney is the first step to filing a wrongful death case.

Relationship With the Deceased

Because a wrongful death case in Texas values the loss from the perspective of the family member suing, the relationship of the individual family member with the deceased will be assessed.

Most folks don’t understand that the value of a wrongful death claim is not putting a number on the life of the deceased but rather the amount of their loss.

Wrongful death lawsuits consider individual factors for each family member involved in a lawsuit, and juries in a wrongful death suit will determine what is fair wrongful death compensation if a wrongful death settlement can’t be reached.

The closer the relationship with your lost loved one, the greater the wrongful death compensation.

How Much Does Each Family Member Get From the Wrongful Death Insurance Payout?

Typically, the value of a wrongful death claim is considered by the family hierarchy when valuing the claim. Each person who can file a wrongful death claim has their case. Each will be valued on its own merits.

Here is a general breakdown of which family member usually gets the most money from a jury from our experience and review of jury verdicts in Houston and settlements in Harris, County, Texas (in order):

Spouses
Minor children who have lost a parent
parents who have lost a minor child
adult children who have lost a parent and
parents of an adult child

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Thank you for a job well done!

I can never express how grateful me and my family are to Greg Baumgartner and his team of truck accident lawyers in Houston. He took care of our injury case and got us a great settlement. Thank you for a job well done!

- R. G. ClientHouston Personal Injury Victim

Highly Recommended!

I was hit in the rear by an 18 wheeler and was lucky enough to have found Greg – I was overjoyed with the results and highly recommend him.

- RaymondHouston Personal Injury Victim

Thank you for a job well done!

- R. G. ClientHouston Personal Injury Victim

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Case Results

Confidential Settlement

18-Wheeler Accident - Wrongful Death

Wrongful death case involving an 18-wheeler. The trucking company disputed liability. Yet, the insurance companies were forced to pay us the highest damages ever for the trucking company.

$6,000,000.00

Daycare Injury

We represented a young child injured at a daycare center. The case was settled before trial for millions above the daycare liability policy.

Confidential Settlement

Commercial Vehicle Crash - Wrongful Death

Commercial vehicle accident in which we uncovered numerous violations of the trucking regulations. The trucking company required a confidential settlement so others would not know how much they had to pay us.

$5,750,000.00

Truck Accident - Wrongful Death

We represented a truck driver who lost control of his rig and jackknifed across the roadway, killing two innocent victims. We obtained more money for the death of the truck driver who caused the accident than the other “truck accident lawyers” got for the families of the innocent victims killed by the truck driver in the accident.

Confidential Settlement

Burn Injury

Our client was burned in a house fire. The insurance company denied any responsibility. But they paid our full demand after filing a lawsuit and before trial.

See More Results