Nerve damage from painful injuries can cause numerous medical complications and be very expensive to treat. While the average payout for nerve damage is hard to calculate, many cases involve significant damages.
It is difficult to assess the average payout for nerve damage injuries because each case is unique. Numerous factors, including the extent of your injuries, medical costs, complications, and pain, might influence your total damages. How you recover compensation might also influence how much the ultimate payout is worth. Settlements may be faster, but a full trial can help you get paid for the full extent of your injuries and damages.
For a free case review, call The Reiff Law Firm’s Philadelphia personal injury lawyers at (512) 612-3110.
How Much Compensation Can I Get for Nerve Damage in Pennsylvania?
Figuring out an average payout for nerve damage cases in Pennsylvania is tricky since each case is unique, and the ultimate payout is based on numerous factors. To understand how much money your nerve damage injuries might be worth in a lawsuit, you should consider the unique circumstances of your situation.
Types and Causes of Nerve Damage
There is no single kind of nerve damage injury. Many injuries might involve nerve damage as the main medical complaint or a secondary symptom of something larger. Even if there were two similar cases with similar nerve damage injuries, the cases might result in very different payouts.
Settlement vs. Trial Awards
You must also consider whether you get compensation through a trial or a settlement. Settlements might help you get compensation faster than a trial, but they are often smaller than the payouts from trials and jury verdicts.
A trial can help you get compensation for the full extent of your injuries and damages, economic and non-economic.
Damages Available
Personal injury claims – including nerve damage cases – usually involve these three major areas of damages:
Medical Bills
Both past and future medical bills to treat your injury can be paid. They should cover the full cost of medical treatment related to the injury.
Lost Wages
If your injury stops you from working for a short or extended period, lost wages should be paid to cover the full amount of wages you will lose.
Pain and Suffering
Along with mental anguish, emotional distress, and other “non-economic” damages, you can claim damages for pain, mental suffering, and discomfort. Nerve damage is often incredibly painful, and lost sensation and motor function can lead to severe distress.
Calculating Damages in a Nerve Injury Case
Damage calculations usually involve these steps:
Gather All Bills and Financial Records
“Economic” damages like medical bills and lost wages are shown through bills and financial records. Things like pay stubs from pre-injury work can show the income you lost, while medical bills show the costs of care.
Adding all of these amounts up is a starting place for damages.
Project Future Costs
Some injuries will harm you into the future, especially if they need ongoing medical care or you cannot work because of the nerve damage. Our Pennsylvania personal injury attorneys can use reference tables and consult with financial experts to project your medical needs, lost earnings, and other economic damages into the future.
Calculate Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering damages have no financial value from bills, but we can estimate them with some common calculation methods. One method is to apply a multiplier to your economic damages, based on the severity of your injuries, and use that value for non-economic damages. Another is to assign a per-day value to your pain and suffering and multiply it by the number of days you faced or will face pain and suffering.
Nerve Damage On Its Own vs. Nerve Damage from Another Injury
Nerve damage can occur as a concrete injury on its own or as a consequence of other injuries. This can affect your ability to prove your case and get damages paid.
Nerve Injuries Alone
If you only faced a nerve injury, it can be harder to verify. There are tests a doctor can run to assess your reaction to pain and touch, and whether the nerve is working properly, but defendants often call these tests into question and call victims liars.
It can be hard to settle a case for a fair value if they don’t believe you about your injury.
Nerve Injuries from Other Injuries
If your nerve damage happened as part of another injury, it can be simpler to prove. Visible injuries like cuts, broken bones, and abrasions make it easier to prove the injury exists, and nerve damage is just one of many effects of that injury.
However, sometimes conditions like CRPS (also known as RSV) can be hard to connect to an injury because of the intense pain often associated with mild or moderate injuries.
CRPS and Nerve Injuries
Some nerve damage victims suffer from a condition called CRPS – complex regional pain syndrome. This can involve increased pain, often stemming from an underlying injury or nerve damage.
Proving this condition can be difficult, as it is often quite an invisible disorder. Victims with CRPS may be entitled to additional medical care costs and increased pain and suffering damages if they can prove their condition to the court.
Factors That Influence the Payout for Nerve Damage in Pennsylvania
A myriad of factors and circumstances might influence your final payout from a nerve damage injury case. While the nature of your injuries and related medical expenses are significant components of your case, they are far from the only ones.
Injury Types
Nerve damage injuries are often worth quite a bit of money because they are often very serious. Generally, there are three types of nerve damage injuries.
- Avulsions occur when a nerve is pulled up by the roots, completely disconnecting from the body.
- A stretching injury might cause the nerve to stretch too far.
- A rupture causes the nerve to become severed.
Injury Severity
In addition to this broad categorization of nerve injuries, injuries might be further classified based on their severity and effects on the body. While some nerve injuries, such as those from overstretching, might recover over time, others are permanent. Damage from a nerve ripped out from the roots is unlikely ever to recover, and the victims might live with permanent loss of sensation or mobility.
Some nerve damage injuries are so severe that victims are rendered completely paralyzed. Many others have trouble moving limbs or experiencing certain sensations. Overall, a nerve injury can upend your life and leave you with devastating complications that deserve significant compensation.
Medical Expenses
Depending on your nerve damage, you might have very high medical bills. Medical bills are included in your overall economic damages, and they should include emergency treatment, medications, physical therapy, and other treatments needed for your nerve injuries.
Since nerve damage is commonly associated with long-term complications like limited mobility, pain, or loss of sensation, long-term care and treatment are somewhat common. As such, we should account for the medical bills you have already incurred and those you will likely incur in the future.
Long-Term Complications
As said, nerve damage injuries often come with severe, long-term complications. Injured victims might lose mobility in certain body parts or even experience total paralysis. Depending on the injury, a person might be paralyzed from the hips, waist, or neck down, making life very difficult. Other complications include chronic pain, loss of sensation, weakness, and more.
Simply having a long-term complication might be enough to justify a greater payout for your case. Many complications last for months, years, or a lifetime, and plaintiffs have to adjust their way of living. If your complications constitute a disability or otherwise interfere with how you were previously living your life, your compensation should reflect this loss.
Pain and Suffering
Physical and emotional pain and suffering can be intense in nerve damage cases. Not only are your injuries physically painful, but living with long-term complications might be emotionally devastating. Pain and suffering are considered non-economic damages as they often do not cost plaintiffs any money. Their value is usually based on how deeply they impact the plaintiff’s daily life.
Nerve Injury FAQs
Does Insurance Cover Nerve Damage?
It depends on the type of accident and who caused your injuries, but insurance typically covers nerve damage alongside any other physical injuries. Car insurance, homeowners insurance, business liability insurance, and other common insurance policies will pay for these injuries if the policy applies to the accident.
Do I Need to See Specialists for Nerve Damage?
The medical care you need for a nerve injury often includes appointments with specialists. These can be more expensive than other medical appointments.
How Do I Know What My Injury Case is Worth?
It can be difficult to know what your case should be worth without consulting with a Bucks County, PA personal injury lawyer. Never trust the insurance company or defendant to get it right.
Who Pays for Nerve Damage Injuries in a Lawsuit?
The defendant can be ordered to pay for your injuries, including nerve damage, if they caused the injury through a breach of a legal duty they owed you.
What is CRPS?
Often, nerve injuries result in a condition called complex regional pain syndrome. This often includes sensitivity, pain, throbbing, changes in skin and hair texture in the affected area, joint stiffness, and other severe effects.
Proving CRPS can be challenging, and you should always work with a lawyer and doctor to collect evidence. This is often an invisible disorder that causes severe pain and suffering.
Do I Need a Lawyer?
It can be difficult to know what your case is worth without having an attorney help with your case. Insurance companies are often willing to take advantage of injury victims and pay them low settlements if they don’t have a lawyer.
What is a Good Settlement Amount?
The right amount for your case will be different for everyone. It is important to settle only for an amount that actually covers your damages, or else our lawyers can take your case to court.
Call Our Pennsylvania Nerve Damage Attorneys for Help Now
Call The Reiff Law Firm at (512) 612-3110 for a free case review with our Delaware Count, PA personal injury lawyers.
