Lawsuits By Families Of Pedestrians Who Died In A Car Accident With Significant Recoveries

All too many pedestrians die every year as a result of a car accident

. Some of these fatalities will result in a wrongful death lawsuit. These are sophisticated claims which are regularly strongly defended by insurance companies and involve hard medical, accident reconstruction and legal issues.

For any fatal car accident case, insurance company adjustors, if they make any settlement offer at all, are going to structure the offer based not on the injured person's loss but rather on the risk faced by the insurance company. There are numerous ways in which insurance companies attempt to decrease their risk. For example, these cases often involve (1) denials of liability by the defendants and the insurance companies insuring the defendants; (2) insurance issues (including the unavailability of insurance, and excess insurance); (3) economic issues, the age and general health of the victim, and the loss of future earning capacity) that affect the worth of the case; and (4) non-economic issues that affect case valuation. An attorney handling one of these lawsuits thus needs to have the skill and experience to deal successfully with all of the issues that will likely arise in the case. Consider the following:

In the first case, the pedestrian who was hit was a female, aged sixty-six. She landed twenty-sever feet from the point of impact. She had fractures to several ribs, to her skull, to her clavicle, even to her wrist. Following the accident she was transported to a hospital where she died from her injuries. She was survived by her family that consisted of a husband, five children, and six grandchildren. The law firm that represented the victims family reported reaching a settlement in the amount of $725,000. The male victim in the other case had a part-time job. He had two children. The victim died because of the accident. The law firm which represented the family of the victim reported a settlement for the sum of $1.15 million.

Both cases had to do with the death of a pedestrian. Both cases dealt with significant recoveries. Yet the documentation of these cases fail to explain how the settlement amount was computed. Perhaps each signifies the upper range of available insurance. Maybe each recovery could reflect the historical range of awards by juries in the jurisdictions where each of the cases would have gone to trial. Possibly each settlement could reflect other factors. For example, in the second claim the victim worked part-time while in the first case there is no indication of the plaintiff working. Due to the age of the victim in that case, however, it is rather likely that she was retired. Moreover, In the second first case the victim had children. The reports fail to reveal whether the children were minors or adults. In the first lawsuit the victim had five children, but given her age, it is likely all her children were adults. Grandchildren generally have no standing to make a claim for the death of a grandparent. These dissimilarities might be the reason for why the recovery in the second case was 53% more than in the first case.

By comparing these lawsuits it becomes apparent that settlements involving the death of a pedestrian resulting from a motor vehicle accident can be considerable. Insurance company adjustors, if they make any settlement offer at all, are going to make an offer based not on the victims loss but on the risk faced by the insurance company. Thus, a lawyer handling one of these cases on behalf of the plaintiff must never assume that the case will settle. Instead, the lawyer can typically position the lawsuit to best improve the possibility of a settlement by preparing the case as though it will have to go to trial.

by: Joseph Hernandez

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