Brain Injury Lawsuit: What Is the Average Settlement?

If you are unfortunate enough to be the victim of a brain injury due to the actions of another party, you might reasonably wonder about your legal options. How do you file a brain injury lawsuit in Kansas? Do you need a Kansas brain injury lawyer to represent you during a brain injury claim? What is the average settlement for a brain injury lawsuit? The answer to that final question can be surprisingly complicated.

No Such Thing as an Average Settlement Value

If you talk to any two brain injury attorneys in Kansas and ask them what the average settlement value in a brain injury case is, you will probably get two different answers. This isn’t because one lawyer is necessarily better than another. This is because the settlement value in a Kansas brain injury claim is based on several factors, and those factors are different in every case.

Even if a lawyer could calculate the average settlement value of every brain injury lawsuit that was ever filed, that value would be meaningless. It wouldn’t tell you how much your case should be worth. Instead, what Kansas brain injury lawyers at Palmer Law Group do is look at the circumstances of your case and estimate the value of your personal injury claim.

Factors That Influence the Settlement Value of Your Case

Several factors will influence the settlement value of your case. Your lawyer will discuss these factors with you in detail, especially if they are relevant to your case, during your free consultation.

How Soon You File a Lawsuit

Kansas applies a two-year statute of limitations to all personal injury claims. If you wait too long to file a lawsuit, your lawsuit will be dismissed. Insurance companies are aware of the statute of limitations. If you allow the deadline to pass while negotiating for a settlement, the insurance company is likely to significantly reduce any settlement offer or may even refuse to pay anything.

How Seriously You Were Injured

This is usually the biggest factor in determining the value of your settlement. The more seriously you are injured, usually, the more your medical treatment will cost and the more work time you will miss. That adds up to more expenses for which you will need to be compensated.

But comparing the severity of any two brain injuries isn’t always easy. The top end of compensation will involve brain injuries that leave you permanently disabled. For those injuries, the starting value for any settlement will typically be the cost of a lifetime of medical treatment plus the cost of a lifetime of lost wages. The latter can be roughly calculated by multiplying your yearly income by the number of years you would expect to continue working. The former is more complicated to calculate, but our legal team has the experience to accurately estimate that value.

Did you suffer a serious brain injury in Kansas? Contact Palmer Law Group at to discuss your legal options with experienced lawyers who will fight for your rights.

The bottom end of compensation is usually only a few thousand dollars. This is uncommon for brain injuries, though, because your doctors will usually want to perform several tests, potentially across several years, before ending treatment. This is an important precaution for a type of injury that can potentially result in lifelong consequences.

How Much Evidence You Have to Support Your Claim

A settlement differs from a trial verdict in one important way. Both sides agree to the results of a settlement. The insurance company will typically agree to a settlement only if it believes it will save money by settling. If it doesn’t, it will take the case to court. This is why evidence matters so much. The more evidence you have supporting your claim, the less likely the insurance company is to prevail in court. If the insurance company’s lawyers believe they do not have the advantage, they will usually try to save money by avoiding court and attorney costs from a trial, even if that means paying you everything you ask for. There is little advantage to the insurance company in paying a lawyer to represent it at trial and then still having to pay everything you asked for when the verdict goes against it.

Whether or Not You Are Partially Responsible for Your Injury

Kansas uses a concept known as comparative negligence to determine how much compensation you can get from a trial verdict. Under this rule, if you are partially responsible for your injury, your compensation will be reduced by a percentage equal to the percentage you are responsible for. If you are more than 50% responsible for your injury, you are precluded from receiving any compensation. While this rule applies only to trial verdicts, insurance companies will also apply it to settlement negotiations. Thus, if your brain injury should be worth $100,000, but you are roughly 20% responsible for your injury, you will likely receive an offer near $80,000.

Even though comparative negligence legally applies only to trial verdicts, insurance companies use the principle during settlement negotiations.

Whether You Are Represented by an Experienced Kansas Brain Injury Attorney

If you are not represented by a lawyer, the insurance company will probably try to take advantage of you when you file an insurance claim. It knows that the average person doesn’t have the training or experience to accurately determine the value of a brain injury case, especially one that involves years of medical treatment. However, if you have a Kansas brain injury lawyer representing your interests, you are likely to get more compensation than if you aren’t represented. In some cases, the difference could be thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

Contact Palmer Law Group After Suffering a Brain Injury in Kansas

Getting a fair settlement after suffering a brain injury can affect whether you fully recover from that injury. You shouldn’t risk getting a low settlement by filing an insurance claim without legal representation.

When you need legal representation for a personal injury claim in Kansas, you should trust the law firm that has been fighting for injured people since 1980. Contact Palmer Law Group today to learn more about your options.