Tequila Severance 
A soft tissue injury occurs when you sustain damage to your body’s soft tissues rather than your bones. Muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, fat, and other tissues that connect and support tissues, bones, and organs throughout the body are examples of soft tissues. Although not as visible as other injuries, soft tissue damage can be excruciatingly painful and require weeks of recovery.
If you suffer a soft tissue injury due to another person’s actions, you may be able to hold them accountable through a personal injury lawsuit or insurance claim. The amount of compensation you may receive through your claim is determined by the facts of your case and your ability to prove your right to damages.
Factors That Can Affect Your Injury Settlement?
- Wage Loss in the Short and Long Term: The extent to which an injury affects an individual’s ability to earn a living will influence the amount of the case’s financial settlement.
- Actual and projected medical bills: With any significant injury, your medical bills will quickly mount. The costs of your ambulance ride to the emergency room, your hospital stay, any x-rays, medications or treatments, and surgeries are all easily quantifiable. The prognosis and long-term forecast of how this injury will affect your livelihood and well-being, on the other hand, will be equally important.
- Level of Impairment: Even with long-term injury, soft tissue injury settlements may be lower if your ability to work or earn a living has not been affected. They may also consider whether you have lost the ability to pursue a favorite hobby, such as a runner or skier who can no longer participate in their sport, or whether you can still enjoy these pastimes.
- Liability: Not every case has a clear-cut answer to who is to blame. In fact, in most cases, blame can be assigned to more than one person. Other factors such as road conditions in a vehicle accident and whether someone has a history of similar legal infractions or crimes can all play a role.
Assigning blame becomes easier if one party admits fault, especially if documented in the police report.
- Pain and suffering: One of the more esoteric considerations in forming a soft tissue injury claim is how the injury affects a person’s quality of life. If an injury prevents a person from participating in activities that were once central to their lives, it must be weighed against the bigger picture.
Personal well-being and quality of life are impacted by the physical and emotional pain and suffering caused by an injury. That loss is a genuine and legal aspect of any personal injury case (just ask any personal injury lawyer).
Is There A Standard Settlement Amount For A Soft Tissue Injury?
Soft tissue injury claims are difficult to obtain, but they are not impossible. While insurance companies have a habit of making a low initial offer and often only making one offer in soft tissue injury settlements, there have been cases where fair and equitable payouts have been made.
When it comes to soft tissue injuries, the average payout for ankle sprains is around $15,000, while it is about $20,000 for shoulder injuries. Herniated discs and whiplash injuries typically result in settlements ranging from $100,000 to $350,000 and $2,500 to $10,000, respectively.
Soft tissue cases can be worth much more. You will have to fight to ensure that you receive the total value of your settlement. You can demonstrate to the insurance company that you have a strong case by obtaining the testimony of an experienced medical professional who has treated patients with soft tissue injuries.
This, along with corroborative evidence of how your injuries have harmed your life, will go a long way towards assisting the jury in determining the total value of your damages.
Determining the Value of Your Soft Tissue Injury Settlement
You may be able to receive pain and suffering indemnification in the event of a minor accident settlement. You will need to demonstrate the amount of pain and suffering you are undergoing to do so.
The most customary method of computing pain and suffering damage is to multiply economic damage such as lost wages and medical costs by a multiplier in the range of one to five, depending on the ferocity of the injury.
For minor injuries, for example, the multiplier is often 1 or 2. As a result, if your medical costs are $4,000 and the multiplier is 1, you are bound to receive $4,000 as a settlement.
A multiplier of 4 or 5 on the other hand, is assigned for severe and long-term cases, or even permanent injuries such as brain injury, internal organ injury, spine injury, and many others.
How Can You Prove Your Soft Tissue Injuries?
Because of the pushback from insurance companies on these injuries, soft tissue injury claims are some of the most difficult to build a case for.
As a result, soft tissue injury settlements become challenging to obtain, and you must document your injuries and losses as thoroughly as possible to ensure that you receive an equitable soft tissue injury insurance settlement, given what you have been through.
- Seek medical attention as soon as possible after the accident as any delay for an extended period can be used against you.
- Take photos of the scene and the injuries.
- Keep meticulous records of how and when your soft tissue injury affected you.
- Maintain detailed treatment records.
- Make duplicates of all test results and doctor’s appointments.
- Do not miss your follow-up appointments or treatment with physical therapists.
- Keep a record of all the work missed due to your injury.
Soft Tissue Injury Average Settlement Examples
JOHN
John was involved in a heavy rear-impact collision on the ten freeway. After the airbags deployed forcefully, John was left with minor soft tissue injuries amounting to $10,000 in medical bills. After hiring excellent lawyers, he was able to win the claim. The damages were awarded a multiplier of 2, which means he could receive $20,000 as the average settlement.
KIM
Kim was involved in an accident and sustained soft tissue injuries. A case of water bottles fell directly onto her and hit her right shoulder, neck, and hip. She required three to four months of medical treatment, which included physical therapy and chiropractic treatments, which amounted to $650,000 and the multiplier was 5. Therefore, Kim received $3,250,000 as the average settlement for his claim for the injury.
