Many accidents leave victims with permanent injuries. These are disabilities that stem from serious brain injuries, spinal cord damage, or amputations. Accident victims will carry into the future physical or mental limitations that dramatically alter the trajectory of their lives.
McCravy, Newlon, Sturkie & Clardy is an experienced law firm focused on helping personal injury victims obtain compensation for permanent injuries. Our clients need ongoing care, as well as compensation to replace lost income. We can help. Call us today to speak with a Greenville personal injury lawyer about your case.
What Are Average Permanent Injury Settlement Amounts?
Permanent injuries include:
- Amputation
- Blindness
- Hearing loss
- Scarring or disfigurement from cuts or burns
- Moderate or severe brain injuries
- Spinal cord injury
- Paralysis
No one, to our knowledge, has collected information on the “average” permanent injury settlement amounts. To arrive at that number, you would need to find out all the settlements in the state and then average them.
However, some sources have collected average settlement amounts for certain accidents:
- In 2019, the average dog bite claim in South Carolina was $44,661. These numbers came from the Insurance Information Institute, which collected information from insurance companies.
- According to Injury Claim Coach, car accident settlements for severe injuries range from $100,000 to more than $6 million. More serious injuries, like paralysis, would fall toward the higher side of this range.
How to Calculate Permanent Injury Compensation
After suffering a catastrophic injury, victims should hire the right law firm to represent them. These injuries are different from cases where a person fully heals after six months or even a year. Someone with a permanent injury can request future damages in addition to out-of-pocket expenses.
Here is how we analyze permanent injury cases:
Medical Treatment (Past, Present, and Future Care)
We request compensation for all medical care our clients have received before they even hired us.
Those amounts include the cost of ambulance transportation, lifesaving surgery, time in the Intensive Care Unit, and doctors’ visits. We can also request compensation for ongoing care while the case works its way toward settlement.
Someone with a permanent injury will also likely have future expenses for the rest of their lives:
- Someone with an amputation will probably need future stump surgeries, antibiotics, and new prosthetics. They might also need at-home help.
- A serious TBI or spinal cord injury could send someone to the hospital in the coming decades. A severe injury could leave someone incapacitated, so they need nursing home care for the rest of their life.
- A blind person probably needs prosthetics like a cane or the assistance of a guide dog.
We work closely with medical experts to fully understand your permanent injury. We can then request compensation to cover expected future care.
Lost Income and Loss of Earning Capacity
Accident victims can also receive compensation for any lost wages or income. It is common to miss work while recovering. Someone who has surgery will probably spend a week or more at home.
With a permanent injury, however, our clients will have future lost income, called loss of earning capacity. Someone with paralysis in their arm might be unable to return to their high-paying job as a surgeon, or a blind taxi driver will need to find a lower-paying receptionist job. Over decades, these victims lose out on considerable income.
Loss of earning capacity is tricky to calculate. No one really knows with 100% accuracy what you would earn if you were not injured. But we can work with experts to calculate your likely earning capacity based on education and work experience.
Pain and Suffering
Our Greenville personal injury lawyers can also request future general damages for pain and suffering. When a person fully heals, we request damages for the pain they suffered for the duration of their injury. But with permanent injuries, our clients suffer long into the future. Permanent injury compensation is much higher.
For example, someone who cannot walk will never enjoy going on moonlit walks with their spouse or pushing their child’s bicycle from behind. A permanent brain injury can prevent a person from leaving the house, so they never enjoy restaurant meals with friends or even going to the movies.
And permanent scarring or disfigurement causes severe mental anguish. Some people withdraw from friends because of embarrassment about their appearance. A burn on their face could prevent them from dating or even going outside.
Pain and suffering damages are hard to calculate, even with injuries of a short duration. We always pay attention to what accident victims with similar injuries have received. Those numbers provide a ballpark estimate of what is a realistic amount.
What Will You Receive?
Even if we knew permanent injury settlement amounts for South Carolina, those numbers would not tell us anything about what you can receive. We need to analyze the specific facts of your situation.
There are also limitations on what you can receive. Here are three factors which can reduce a settlement:
- Comparative negligence. Did your own negligence contribute to the accident? If so, your compensation is reduced. Suppose you were speeding at the time of a car crash. If you are 30% at fault, then your settlement will be 30% lower to account for your own contribution to the wreck.
- Failure to mitigate damages. Anyone hurt in an accident must take reasonable steps to treat their injuries. Going to the hospital and following a treatment plan are reasonable steps anyone can take. If you delay receiving treatment, you can receive less.
- The defendant’s lack of resources. We negotiate aggressively with defendants, but they might lack the resources to fully compensate you. Someone paralyzed below the waist could suffer more than $1 million in medical bills, with an equal amount for pain and suffering. But the defendant could have little money or only a small insurance policy.
Trust Our Experience in Personal Injury Law
If you suffered a permanent injury, you should meet with an established law firm, like our trusted team at McCravy, Newlon, Sturkie & Clardy, to discuss your case. Contact our Greenville personal injury lawyers to schedule a meeting.