When A Pedestrian Fatality Because Of A Vehicle Accident Triggers A Legal Case

A pedestrian will be killed in a car accident every one hundred and eleven minutes. Some of these will turn into a wrongful death claim. These are sophisticated claims which are generally powerfully defended by insurance companies and involve difficult medical, accident reconstruction and legal issues.

For any fatal car accident lawsuit, insurance company adjustors, when they recommend any settlement whatsoever, will structure the offer based not on the victim’s loss but rather on the risk faced by the insurance company. There are many ways in which insurance companies try to reduce 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 (including whether the victim was married and had any children (especially minor children), the age and general health of the victim, and the loss of future earning capacity) that influence the worth of the case; and (4) non-economic issues that affect case valuation. A lawyer handling one of these cases thus should have the skill and experience to deal successfully with the many challenges that might arise in the case. Consider:

In one case the victim was a 66 year old woman who was trying to cross a street. The female pedestrian was hurled 27 feet by the force of the accident. The impact and her fall left her with a fracture to her ankle, fractures to various ribs, a fracture to her clavicle, and fractures to her skull. She was transported to a hospital where she died from her injuries. She left behind a husband, five children, and six grandchildren. The law firm that represented her family reported that they obtained a $725,000 settlement at mediation. The victim in the second case - a man who was the father of two children and who held down part-time work - died as a result of the accident. A settlement in the amount of $1,150,000 was reported by the law firm that handled the matter

Each lawsuit involved the death of a pedestrian. Both cases dealt with significant recoveries. Still the reports of these cases fail to discuss the way the settlement amount was calculated. Perhaps each signifies the upper range of available insurance. Possibly each recovery could reflect the historical range of awards by juries in the jurisdictions where each of the cases would have been tried. Possibly each settlement might reflect other ıssues. For example, in the second lawsuit the victim worked part-time while in the first case there is no indication of the victim having a job. Considering the age of the victim in that claim, however, it is very likely that she did not work. Further, In the second first claim the victim had children. The reports do not point out ıf the children were minors or adults. In the first matter the victim had five children, but given her age, it is likely all her children were adults. Grandchildren frequently have no standing to make a claim for the death of a grandparent. These differences may be the reason for why the settlement in the second case was 53% larger than in the first lawsuit.

Insurance companies take making as large a profit as possible extremely quite seriously. Factors that suggest a low risk to taking the case to trial include plaintiffs with little credibility and little sympathy factors, an attorney with a reputation for settling cases or for not doing well at trial, and a poor preparation. An insurance company adjuster who perceives a high risk of an adverse award will make a proportionally higher offer. Factors suggesting a high risk include highly credible and sympathetic plaintiffs, a skilled highly experienced attorney with a history of trial successes, and a thoroughly prepared case. Plaintiff attorneys understand that, paradoxically, preparing the case for trial is often the best way to position the case for settlement.

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