Articles Posted in Personal Injury Verdicts

On this page, I look at settlement amounts and jury verdicts in ankle injury cases. The short answer is that a serious ankle fracture can have substantial value, especially when surgery, permanent hardware, arthritis, instability, or a lasting limp changes how you walk and live. But there is no honest average that can tell you what your case is worth without the medical records, liability facts, insurance coverage, and jurisdiction.

I have a good handle on the settlement value of ankle fracture cases. My first major foot and ankle case was 17 years ago, when I sued the New England Patriots and their team doctors in a case that ultimately settled. I met with about a half dozen of the best foot and ankle surgeons in the country while preparing that case.

Since then, Miller & Zois has handled scores of foot and ankle injury cases and recovered millions of dollars for our clients. My last ankle injury verdict in Prince George’s County was the sixth-largest verdict reported in Washingtonian Magazine that year. I am telling you this because ankle cases are easy to undervalue. A lawyer needs to understand the films, the surgery, the hardware, the likely future problems, and the difference between a healed fracture and a patient who has actually recovered.

Foot injuries are uniquely difficult personal injury cases. One-fourth of the bones in your body are in your feet, and many of those bones are small and tightly packed together. A fracture can disrupt the joints, ligaments, tendons, nerves, and weight-bearing mechanics around it. There are simply too many things that can go wrong.

The settlement value of a foot injury depends heavily on whether the victim can return to walking, standing, running, and working without significant pain or restriction. A fracture that heals in eight weeks is one type of case. A Lisfranc injury, crushed heel, open fracture, or failed surgical repair that permanently changes the victim’s gait is an entirely different claim.

Our lawyers at Miller & Zois have handled scores of foot fracture claims arising from car accidents, truck crashes, pedestrian collisions, construction accidents, and dangerous property conditions. Call us at 800-553-8082 or contact us online for a free case review.

According to a recent Jury Verdict Research report, plaintiffs on motorcycles receive higher awards for collisions than bicycle plaintiffs. Makes sense. They are driving much faster and frequently roads where speed is more of an issue.

Their analysis, based on plaintiffs’ verdicts rendered from October 1999 to October 2006, examines motorcycle and bicycle categories involving collisions with other vehicles, objects, and pedestrians. The study found that the award median for motorcycle accidents was $73,700 compared to $40,912 for bicycle plaintiffs.

I assume they base the difference in the fact that motorcycles generate greater speeds that lead to more serious accidents. Interestingly, Jury Verdict Research provided average verdicts> with this data, which it rarely does. To underscore the difference between median and average, the average motorcycle accident case was $561,065 and the average bike accident case was $500,353.

This page will look at the average settlement payout in injury or accident cases involving herniated disc injuries in the cervical region of the spine.

Metro Verdicts Monthly’s graph in this month’s issue is median settlements and verdicts in cervical (neck) herniated disc cases in Maryland, Washington, D.C, and Virginia. The median cervical herniated disc case in Maryland is $40,000. The Washington D.C. and Virginia medians are $50,000 and $36,000, respectively.

Settlement Values Vary Wildly

What is the settlement value of a personal injury claim where you have lost your vision in either one eye or both?

Metro Verdicts Monthly has a graph that reflects the median verdicts and settlements when the injury victim loses vision in one eye in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

What Is the Average Settlement Compensation for Loss of Sight in One Eye?

The median for compensation for losing vision in one eye in Maryland is $231,000. You could drive a truck through the gap between Washington, D.C., and Virginia’s median settlements and verdicts with loss of vision in one eye cases: Washington, D.C.’s median is $162,500; Virginia’s is $320,000.

These numbers are a bit misleading.   I think because most loss of vision cases are product liability cases. Many product liability cases have questionable liability, decreasing the average and median eye injury settlement amounts. If liability is not an issue, the compensation payouts in loss of sight in one-eye cases are much higher.

What Kind of Money Can I Expect for an Eye Injury at Work?

Workers’ compensation laws work differently than claims against other third parties. So if the claim is against your employer, a different set of laws apply. You can typically expect less in an eye injury settlement in a workers’ comp case against your employer than you would for the same injury when a third party was responsible.

But in some cases, the victim has two claims: a workers’ comp claim and a claim against the party that caused the harm.

On this page, we will look at average verdicts and settlements in breast cancer malpractice cases.

Metro Verdicts Monthly’s cover graph is failure to diagnose breast cancer settlements and verdicts in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. By some estimates, between 8% and 12% of cancer cases are initially misdiagnosed.

It is hard to call one type of cancer misdiagnosis case more tragic than another. Every misdiagnosis is going to decrease the chance of treating and defeating the cancer.

But many cancer misdiagnosis cases are not medical malpractice cases because the cancer is so aggressive, but breast cancer misdiagnosis cases are fueled by tragedy because breast cancer is often extremely manageable when caught early, and often fatal when missed. Continue reading

Our lawyers have handled scores of lawsuits where the primary injury was head injuries and headaches.  This page is about projecting settlement amounts and jury payouts in head injury and headache lawsuits.

Juries Struggle to Place Compensation on Headaches

Juries struggle with figuring out how to value personal injury cases when the primary injury is a closed head injury that caused —  and may continue to cause — headaches.

Arthritis is such a severe injury because it is permanent. Our clients who suffer from arthritis do not get better over time. They get worse.

This page looks at the settlement compensation you can generally expect in personal injury claims where arthritis is a significant component of the victim’s injuries.

Personal Injury Claims Alleging Arthritis

Our lawyers have handled scores of car accident and product liability cases where the injury is an amputation or serious injury to the victim’s toe or toes.

This page is about the settlement compensation payouts in toe injury and amputation cases and the issues that are presented in these injury claims.  This page was last updated on February 22, 2023.

How much is a toe worth?

A recent Jury Verdict Research analysis of jury verdicts found that the overall median award for the amputation of one toe is $119,008. The median award for foot nerve damage or tarsal tunnel syndrome accident cases was $143,265. Underscoring the difficulties of the healing process in the complex structures that are our feet, the median award for foot injuries is $98,583.

Metro Verdicts Monthly came out today with a new statistic on the trial and settlement value (they are lumped together) of fractured hip cases. The median settlement values for fractured hip cases are:

Maryland: $160,000