Common Kinds of Personal Injury Cases (Car accident attorney)

The term personal injury refers to injuries inflicted on a person’s body, emotions, and reputation. Property damages do not apply to personal injuries though some lawyers handle them concurrently if a need arises. 

Here are the most common types of personal injuries. 

1. Birth injuries. Certain things could occur during labor that negatively affects your baby due to the negligence of medical workers. For instance, prolonged labor or delayed birth, poor delivery techniques, and physical injuries could be attributed to the negligence of the attending health workers. 

Actually, many birth injuries are preventable by good medical practices. According to this site 7 out of 1000 birth are born with birth injuries yearly in the united states many of which are due to the negligence of health workers. 

Depending on how severely your baby was injured, the average settlement amount for birth injuries is somewhere between $1-2 million. Each case will be evaluated differently and also the degree of medical negligence plays a bigger part.

2. Spinal cord injuries. This consist of a bundle of nerves that runs from the base of your skull and stretches to your buttocks. On each level, the nerve branches off and delivers electrical signals/impulses to different parts of the body.  

You normally feel a painful stimulus, you can tell if the food is salty or not, and you can easily lift or move your foot just because the nerve pathways to the foot are intact. Paralysis usually results if the nerve damage to the paralyzed part of the body is completely damaged. All 5 senses of your body depend on your intact nervous system.

Every part of your body is controlled by a specific nerve pathway. Injury to the nerve means you will not control or feel the part of the body whose nerve supply is damaged. For instance, you may not wiggle, or feel a painful stimulus on your toes if the nervous system that serves it is damaged. 

Several attorneys, I consulted were able to agree that the average settlement amount for personal injuries involving the spinal cord is close to $1 million. I recommend you speak to an attorney if you have been unlawfully injured, especially if you sustained spinal cord injuries.

3. Head and brain injuries. Common head injuries include intra-brain bleeding, concussions, contusions, fracture of the skull, and many others. Head injuries are very difficult to treat and usually cost thousands of dollars especially if surgery is required as part of your treatment. 

Head or brain injuries can be recognized by the presence of headache, dizziness, nausea, loss or diminished cognitive functioning and so many others. Head injury is an example of personal injury that is very common in car or any automobile accident. 

The average settlement for a head injury like a concussion is somewhere between $20,000 and $80,000. The minimum settlement for brain injuries is usually $100,000.

4. Workplace Accidents. These are also called occupational accidents. They are occurrences in the course of your work that result in physical or mental harm. The 5 most common workplace injuries include:

• Being struck or injured by moving machinery.
• Trips, slips, and falls.
• Fire and other explosions
• Automobile accidents
• Burns and others. 

Though many workplace injuries settle for millions of dollars, my independent study showed that the average settlement for most workplace injuries is in the range of $2,000 and $40,000.

5. Emotional injuries. According to this site, emotional injury refers to the damage to your psyche after living through extremely distressing or frightening experiences. Such damages will make you unable to cope later in your life. 

People who suffer from emotional injuries usually present with the following symptoms:

• Too much or eating too little.
• Low energy levels.
• Withdraw from friends. They want to be alone
• Hopelessness
• Unexplained or vague pains and aches
• Depression
• Swinging moods
• Loss of interest in their previous favorite things
• Suicidal behaviors and many others. 

What you should know is that emotional injuries qualify as both special and general damages. This implies that emotional distress will be accounted for by the jury while awarding damages for pain and suffering. 

The average settlement for pain and suffering is usually $15,000. This will depend on how much your medical bills are worth. Jurors usually award pain and suffering damages that are 2-5 times your medical bills. If you are living in the UK, you will most likely receive over £1,500 and up to around £5,000 as damages for your emotional injuries.

6. Bone and muscle injuries. These are physical injuries that affect your bones and soft tissues. Examples include whiplash and bone fractures. Though I have seen plaintiffs scoop around $1-2 million for life-threatening soft tissue injuries, the average settlement for a whiplash injury is somewhere between $10,000 to $100,000.

If you sustained a fractured bone, your average settlement will most likely be close to $85,000. If you suffered multiple fractured bones, expect an amount close to the number of broken bones multiplied by $85,000. For instance, if the plaintiff suffered 4 fractured bones, his/her settlement amount will be around $340,000 or more.