If you sustained neck and back injuries after an accident, you may wonder how much your spinal cord injury is worth in a lawsuit or insurance settlement. The good news is that an experienced spinal cord injury attorney can secure compensation. However, there is no way to calculate an average settlement for spinal cord injuries.
These cases involve many factors, including the severity of injuries, duration of pain and suffering, and state jurisdiction. Contact a local spinal cord injury lawyer today. After learning the specifics, they can better gauge your spinal cord injury's worth.
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Types of Spinal Cord Injuries Warranting Compensation
A spinal cord injury (SCI) involves damage to any part of your spinal cord, including damage to the nerves at the end of your spinal cord. SCIs can occur in the neck (cervical spine), mid-back (thoracic spine), and lower back (lumbar spine) and are one of the most devastating personal injuries due to severity and involved damages.
Common SCIs include:
- Whiplash
- Contusions
- Herniated discs
- Spinal fractures or broken vertebrae
- Tetraplegia or quadriplegia
- Paraplegia
- Spinal stenosis
Recent spinal cord injury statistics demonstrate that motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause, accounting for more than 37 percent of all SCIs. Slip and fall accidents account for 31 percent. Injured parties should seek medical attention and retain legal counsel to assess damages and protect their legal rights immediately.
In addition to physical symptoms, accident victims suffering from a spinal cord injury may also experience emotional, mental, and social side effects. These symptoms of spinal cord injuries warrant additional compensation, known as pain and suffering.
Factors Affecting How Much Your Spinal Cord Injury Is Worth in a Lawsuit
Determining how much your spinal cord injury is worth in a lawsuit or insurance settlement involves assessing many factors.
A spinal cord injury lawyer is best qualified to assess and determine damages based on:
- Liability: The degree of liability for the at-fault party in an accident dramatically affects your settlement amount. Your attorney will identify all liable parties to ensure maximum compensation.
- Insurance Coverage: The amount of insurance coverage liable parties have will significantly impact your final compensation amount. Your lawyer will comprehensively investigate all viable damages to maximize your claim.
- Severity of Injuries: Generally, the more severe the spinal cord injury, the higher the settlement. For example, complete injury resulting in paralysis will yield higher compensation than partial injury.
- Age of Injured Party: Your age significantly impacts how much your spinal cord injury is worth in a lawsuit. Younger accident victims may receive higher compensation due to the longer potential period of lost income.
- Healthcare Costs: Medical treatment and rehabilitation costs will greatly affect your settlement amount. Higher medical bills result in larger economic damages, directly influencing the amount of non-economic damages in your case.
- Pain and Suffering: The degree of your pain and suffering significantly impacts the value of your spinal cord injury. Substantial injuries that cause physical and emotional distress and dramatically influence your quality of life are worth more in a lawsuit.
- Income Losses: Missing work or the inability to return to work establishes the need to compensate for income losses. Lost income ranges from lost income to diminished or lost earning capacity with disability. Your attorney will assess all viable income losses.
- Long-Term Care Needs: The need for long-term care with a spinal cord injury greatly influences the settlement amount. If your injuries facilitate a need for in-home health care services or nursing home facility care, your spinal cord injury is worth more in a lawsuit or insurance claim.
- Evidence and Documentation: The amount of evidence you have in your spinal cord injury case and its quality. Your spinal cord injury attorney will gather medical records, eyewitness statements, expert testimony, and other relevant evidence to your accident to substantiate financial compensation.
Having legal counsel represent your interest also significantly impacts how much your spinal cord injury is worth in a lawsuit or insurance claim. Spinal cord injury lawyers have extensive law knowledge, are skilled negotiators, and are passionate about helping spinal cord injury victims recover from devastating loss.
Types of Damages Involved in a Spinal Cord Injury Lawsuit
The damages you seek in a spinal cord injury lawsuit or insurance claim are calculated to determine final compensation. Your settlement amount will consider medical and surgical care, rehabilitation, disability, long-term care, mental health, professional and property damages, household services, and pain and suffering.
Medical and Surgical Care
A significant portion of what your spinal cord injury is worth involves the total costs of your medical and surgical care.
These are economic damages and frequently include:
- Emergency Care—Ambulance and EMT services, emergency room and urgent care visits, stabilization procedures, initial medical assessments, hospital admissions, diagnostics, and imaging services.
- Surgical Care—Surgical assessments, anesthesiology, and post-op care following surgical procedures. Common spinal cord surgeries include spinal fusions, laminectomies, discectomies, vertebroplasty, and kyphoplasty.
- Primary Care—Medical assessments of spinal cord injuries and follow-up primary care appointments to further document symptoms, order tests, grant referrals, manage pain, and document your recovery.
- Pharmaceuticals—Spinal cord injury pharmaceutical pain management can include prescription medication costs for anticonvulsants, opioids, NSAIDs, muscle relaxers, and antidepressants.
All costs associated with medical treatment and surgical care should be documented for your attorney. You can prove these damages by granting your lawyer access to your medical records and providing copies of hospital, medical, and surgical billing statements.
Keep receipts for out-of-pocket costs, including copays, travel expenses, and time to and from medical and surgical appointments.
Rehabilitation Services
Rehabilitation costs include all inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services injured parties undergo to recover.
Standard rehabilitation care services associated with spinal cord injuries include:
- Physical Therapy—Working with a physical therapist to complete exercises to improve range of motion, muscle strength, balance, and gait training (improves walking ability).
- Nerve Physical Therapy—Stimulates and retrains the nerves affected by the spinal cord injury using techniques including functional electrical stimulation (FES), sensory stimulation, stretching, and targeted exercises.
- Bladder and Bowel Management—Implementing strategies to manage urinary and bowel functions following a spinal cord injury, including catheter use and bowel regimens.
- Assistive Technology Training—Discovering how to use mobility assistive devices, such as wheelchairs, braces, walkers, canes, prosthetics, and other adaptive equipment.
- Spasticity Management—Managing spasticity with stretching, oral medications, injections, intrathecal therapy, casting or bracing, and other techniques to control muscle stiffness.
- Occupational Therapy—Learning activities that enhance self-care life skills, including bathing, dressing, eating, and transferring from one surface to another.
- Vocational Therapy—Getting assistance with returning to work in a diminished capacity or locating new employment opportunities to accommodate a disability.
Rehabilitation costs can add up quickly and shouldn't be absorbed by accident victims. Your attorney will work with experts, such as economists and occupational and vocational therapists, to determine the full extent of these damages, including future rehabilitation costs.
Disability Damages
Disability damages relating to a spinal cord injury include home mobility and vehicle modifications.
Depending on the nature of your spinal cord injury, additional disability damages may involve seeking compensation for:
- Loss of mobility
- Impaired sensation (numbness and tingling sensations)
- Loss of muscle control
- Paralysis in the torso, arms, and legs
- Difficulty with balance, coordination, and motor skills
- Inability to walk or transfer from surfaces independently
- Difficulty with daily self-care (bathing, dressing, and eating)
- Need for assistive mobility devices (wheelchair, prosthetics, braces)
- Impaired ability to return to work in full capacity or at all
- Bladder and bowel dysfunction
- Sexual dysfunction
- Pressure or bed sores due to prolonged sitting or lying down
Proving disability damages in a spinal cord injury lawsuit or insurance claim requires comprehensive medical documentation detailing the extent of your disability.
Additional evidence includes expert witness testimony, witness statements from family and friends, a post-accident journal, and video documentation of how your spinal cord injury impacts your daily life.
Long-Term Care
Severe spinal cord injuries may require long-term care, including ongoing physical therapy, spasticity management in-home support, or nursing home facility care. Your attorney will consult experts to determine the worth of these damages in your spinal cord injury lawsuit or insurance claim.
Mental Health Services
Accident victims suffering from spinal cord injuries often go through a wide array of emotions and trauma, negatively affecting their mental health. Managing common psychological challenges, such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), may require mental health services.
Injured parties may seek costly mental health care from professionals, such as:
- Rehabilitation Psychologists: Rehabilitation psychologists assist spinal cord injury rehabilitation teams. They focus on psychotherapeutic interventions to help accident victims with processing emotions, emotional adjustment, and family coping. Their educational efforts focus primarily on coping and adjusting to new spinal cord injuries.
- Psychiatrists: Psychiatrists provide a psychological assessment of the injured party's emotional state, coping mechanisms, and potential psychiatric symptoms following a spinal cord injury. Psychiatrists may develop a treatment plan, including individual and group therapy and medication management.
- Clinical Social Workers: Clinical social workers provide emotional support, facilitate family communications, and assist with keeping injured parties informed about community services and benefits. They also help spinal cord injury victims navigate life adjustments and community reintegration.
Mental health professionals may choose from several treatment approaches for overcoming symptoms, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and trauma-focused therapy. Depending on the severity of psychological symptoms, you may require ongoing mental health care.
Keep receipts for all out-of-pocket expenses associated with mental health services, like medications and workbooks. Your attorney will include these expenses in their demand letter to liable insurers. You deserve to heal without absorbing the costs of life-altering accidents that weren't your fault.
Professional Damages
Spinal cord injuries can lead to significant loss of earnings due to the inability to return to work after the injury. SCIs frequently force accident victims to leave previous employment due to physical limitations.
Income losses that are calculated in the total worth of your spinal cord injury lawsuit include:
- Loss of income, salary, and overtime
- Lost non-salary compensation (tips, commissions, bonuses)
- Lost benefits (healthcare, retirement, pension)
- Lost progress toward promotion and salary increase
Your attorney will examine many factors when calculating professional damages.
Depending on the severity of your spinal cord injury, they may consider:
- Recovery Time: The initial recovery time following a spinal cord injury, which typically entails extended time off, lost income, and missed non-salary compensation.
- Job Modifications: The need to make accommodations or job modifications to make returning to work plausible.
- Reduced Work Capacity: The severity of injuries may cause accident victims to return to work at a diminished capacity or part-time, drastically reducing overall earnings.
Finally, if your spinal cord injury prevents you from returning to work, your lawyer will assess your lost earning capacity and calculate income replacement through the remainder of your life.
Spinal cord injury attorneys understand that the loss of income creates overwhelming hardship, especially for parties who were the primary breadwinners in their homes. Your lawyer will demand fair compensation to accommodate the financial impact of lost earnings.
Property Damages
All personal property damages sustained in your accident are recoverable damages in your spinal cord injury lawsuit or accident claim.
Property damages often include vehicle repairs or replacement. However, they may also involve compensation for smartphones, portable electronics, clothing, glasses, and bicycles.
Household Services
Spinal cord injury victims often require hired assistance for performing daily tasks and maintaining their households. These household or domestic services may include childcare, housecleaning, cooking services, lawn maintenance and garden care, grocery delivery, and prescription medication delivery.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering are the non-economic damages that your lawyer will determine a value for in your spinal cord injury case.
Depending on the nature of your spinal cord injury, your attorney may seek pain and suffering damages for:
- Life-long pain management
- Partial or complete paralysis
- Emotional distress from the impact on daily life
- Loss of consortium (impact on relationships with spouse and family)
- Humiliation and loss of self-esteem
- Decrease in quality of life
- Decrease in enjoyment of life
- Disfigurement
- Sleep discomfort and disturbances
- The worsening of previous injury
- A diagnosed shortened life expectancy
- Anger and frustration following a spinal cord injury
- Sexual dysfunction and loss of spousal relations
The mental suffering you may endure with having difficulty adjusting to your new spinal cord injury and subsequent life changes also constitutes pain and suffering. Document your pain and suffering in a pain journal. A dated and detailed pain journal with consistent entries will help your lawyer prove pain and suffering to maximize your compensation.
Consult a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer
If you received a spinal cord injury due to the negligence of another, consult a spinal cord attorney immediately. You'll want to determine a plan to secure financial compensation for your damages.
Due to the nature and severity of spinal cord injury accidents, SCI lawsuits and insurance claims tend to have higher settlement amounts.