Personal injury lawsuits work their way through the court system all the time. If you hire a lawyer and pursue one, that’s usually because some individual or entity harmed you or a loved one. Maybe they hit your car and harmed you. Perhaps you hurt yourself by using some defective product.

In these situations, you’re usually looking for economic damages and sometimes non-economic ones as well. Non-economic damages can include money you might collect because you can’t do certain things anymore that you once enjoyed.

Understanding the variables that influence a lawsuit’s value becomes very important if you’re trying to calculate how much money you might get if you win. In this article, we’ll discuss some of these variables.

How Badly Did This Person or Entity’s Actions Harm You?

If you’re bringing a personal injury lawsuit against someone or some entity that you allege harmed you or a family member, you must make sure you hire an excellent lawyer. You’ll want one skilled at this type of lawsuit. They should have a proven track record of winning these kinds of cases.

Once you have an attorney on your side, you can consider how badly the person or entity you’re suing harmed you. Did you use a defective product and get food poisoning, for instance? Maybe you felt sick for a few days, but then you recovered without suffering significant damage.

If so, you can imagine you would not collect a great deal of money, even if you won your case. The jury would probably agree that the product’s manufacturer hurt you, but you should only get your salary for the few days you missed work and perhaps a little extra money in non-economic damages. 

Can You Eventually Recover, or Have You Suffered a Permanent Loss?

The previous question ties directly into this one. Did the person or entity you’re suing harm you so badly that you will never recover completely?

If someone hurt you so badly that you’ll never feel the same again, and you must completely change your life’s outlook going forward, you can probably expect much more money from that. The jury will presumably understand that your life’s whole trajectory has changed, and not for the better.

When you deliver your testimony, you can emphasize this. If you can make them understand how much you’ve suffered and how different your life looks now, you can feel confident you’ll get a major payday in the end.

Will You Accept a Settlement Offer for a Lesser Amount?

The amount you get will also depend on whether you accept a settlement offer from the defendant at some point. Before the trial, the defendant might offer you a settlement if their lawyer tells them it’s a smart idea. That depends on how much evidence you and your attorney have collected.

If you have irrefutable proof that this person or entity harmed you or someone you love, the defendant will likely want to settle. Will you accept the amount they offer? If you don’t feel like it’s enough, you may proceed to trial in the hopes that you’ll get more.

The defendant might also offer you a larger settlement during the trial if they see that it’s going against them. Again, you must decide whether to take the new offer or move forward to the eventual verdict.

Precedent Matters in These Cases

You can probably look at one additional factor when figuring out how much money you might get out of this lawsuit. You can look at the precedent that previous similar cases established.

To some extent, you can calculate how much money you should receive based on economic losses, like medical bills and lost wages. However, if you also want non-economic damages, you can’t quantify or calculate those as easily.

Your lawyer likely knows about previous similar cases, though. Maybe they even had personal involvement in those lawsuits. They can tell you how much former clients got. That can help you get a ballpark estimate of how much you might walk away with if you win.

You can never tell an exact dollar amount you might get if you settle a personal injury lawsuit or if you win after a jury’s verdict. Your lawyer may tell you an approximate number, but they will also likely caution you that you can never predict these things with complete accuracy. Ideally, you can collect enough money to feel that the jury meted out justice.