How Much Is My Kennesaw Accident Case Worth?

Hi, this is Roger Ghai and I wanted to talk today a little bit about a very common question which I get, and the question is, how much is my case worth? As you might imagine it’s a little difficult for a lawyer to answer that without knowing all the facts. Plus, not knowing what type of case it actually is. Let me put it to you like this, there’s a variety of cases and I want to talk a little bit about the different tiers of injury cases. For example, you can be involved in a motor vehicle accident and you can treat let’s say for example, just with a chiropractor for maybe two months or something, and maybe without any medical treatment as far as an emergency room, or having to have been transported via ambulance to the emergency room.
If you have just strictly what we call soft tissue injuries, that is strain and sprain of the ligaments, and you’ve treated let’s say for example for the or with the chiropractor for maybe just two months or three months, that case is going to be worth a lot less than if you’ve been involved in the motor vehicle accident and maybe you’ve been having your arm in a locked position on the steering wheel and at the time of the impact the impact traveled up your arm and maybe you’ve sustained a rotator cuff injury, and you’ve required surgery.
A surgical case obviously is worth more money than what a soft tissue injury case is. It depends exactly on what the doctors say. Let’s say you have had to have surgery, the value on the case may well depend or be a significant factor as to what your doctor is willing to say or not testify to if the case went to court. I had a case recently where the client clearly sustained a rotator cuff injury to her left shoulder because of the car accident case, but her own treating physician, believe it or not, would not testify that way in favor of the client. The case settled out for a lot less money than what it normally would have been.
On the other hand, I had a case where the doctor was so cooperative and so supportive of the patient, and testified specifically that, yes the motor vehicle accident caused the rotator cuff injury to tear, and he went further to say that the client was going to have future problems for the rest of her life despite the progress that was made as a result of the surgery. You’ve got those types of factors that are involved in the value of the cases. The other type of case, of course, you might have a wrongful death and within the wrongful death, it would depend on a multitude of factors as to: number one, whether you can actually prove the other party was negligent.
And number two, factors such as age, income, what type of profession did the person have. All those factors tie in to the value of the case. Now interestingly, I had another case very recently where we had to file a lawsuit, hopefully you don’t get offended, but this was in a very rural Timbuktu County in Georgia. And those folks out there in those rural counties are not as liberal with the money that they will give on a case to an injured person. And so one of my clients had a torn rotator cuff injury again, we had to file it out in Carroll County and the case was significantly less because we knew from doing our research the history of the jury verdicts in that County.
Now had the case been filed in Fulton County, or Cobb County, or DeKalb County, if we would have been able to file up there, the case would have been worth significantly more. Let me say this, if you’re going to call me up and tell me what your brother got on this case, or his uncle caught on the case, or your nephew got on the case, it’s irrelevant to me, and it’s really frankly, to be honest with you, it’s an irritant. It’s a very irritating question to get from a client, because there’s just so many factors that we don’t know and I can’t possibly know what transpired in that case.
so If you do call me up and you want to know the value on the case, I’ll be happy to give you my best estimate, but just don’t tell me what somebody else’s case went for. If you have any questions, call me at 770-792-1000. Thank you.