Pedestrian Accident Case Value

Answer:

When we have clients come into our office who have been injured in a pedestrian accident, one of the first things they want to know is the value of their case. Determining the amount of compensation is a very tricky process. There are a lot of factors that go into it, and one of those factors is how you’re going to recover from your injury. There’s no way to know the value of your claim at the outset because, at that point, you don’t know what your recovery is going to be. If you recover fully from an injury, your case is worth less than if you suffer permanent damage. It’s not until you’ve either gotten all the way better or improved as much as you’re going to improve before you can really start to determine what the value of your injuries may be.

Under Georgia law, there are various things that you’re entitled to recover if you’ve been injured by someone else’s negligence. The first category of those damages is called special damages, which includes things like your medical expenses and lost wages. It’s pretty easy to determine what those are. The harder category to assign is what’s called non-economic damages. These are things like the pain and suffering that you endure, along with your disruption of life. In looking at those things, there’s a lot of variability in how they can be seen. Another major factor for how much your case may be worth is the amount of liability insurance that the at-fault driver carries. Under Georgia law, a driver is only required to carry $25,000 worth of at-fault insurance at minimum. If you have a couple hundred thousand dollars in medical expenses and the at-fault driver only has $25,000 in coverage, chances are — unless you have purchased uninsured motorist coverage through your own policy — that $25,000 is going to be all you can get. The best thing that you can do is as soon as you’re injured, consult an attorney and have an attorney that can walk you through the process and make sure that you’re doing all the right things so that your case can be put in the best position possible to try to maximize your recovery.