When you are filing a personal injury claim, you’ll want to know what your case is truly worth. To help give you a better understanding, this personal injury lawyer in Plant City, Florida is going to explain the factors that increase or decrease a case’s value below.
What does the case value represent?
Case value is the total of legally compensable losses that can be proven and collected. When a personal injury lawyer in Plant City, Florida calculates your case’s value, they factor in both economic and non-economic losses.
Economic losses include money you have already lost or will have to spend. Examples are medical care, future treatment, lost income, reduced earning capacity, household help, and repairs or replacement to damaged property.
Non-economic losses account for the human cost. For example, pain, sleep loss, physical limitations, changes in mood or relationships, and the loss of parts of your life you could enjoy before the injury.
What Florida rules do you have to follow so you don’t lose money?
Deadlines: Most negligence lawsuits in Florida must be filed within two years. If you miss that deadline, the claim is gone. After an accident, you must also get initial medical care within 14 days to unlock Florida PIP benefits that will pay for early treatment.
Fault: If a jury assigns you more than 50% of the blame for the accident, you collect nothing. If you are 50% or less at fault, your recovery is reduced by that percentage. Because of this law, insurance companies will aggressively push fault to get you over the 50% line.
What factors move the case value up or down?
Your medical record is the backbone of your case value: Early medical evaluation can protect your PIP rights. Objective findings like imaging, neurological tests, and specialist notes lend the narrative weight. A clean, chronological record lets an insurance adjuster or juror see a straight line from impact to ongoing loss.
Fault can increase or erase the case value: Photos, crash-scene geometry, vehicle event data, and neutral witnesses can reduce or eliminate blame placed on you. If the defense succeeds in pushing you past 50%, the case will fail regardless of the injury.
Only certain medical numbers reach the jury: Expect the defense to argue that only paid amounts or Medicare-anchored rates count as “reasonable” damages. The only durable counter is a tight causal narrative and a supported projection of future care.
Lost work and life changes turn into dollars: Wage loss, reduced earning capacity and changes in sleep, mood, mobility or daily routine all land in the value column when documented and tied to the accident.
What does a personal injury lawyer do to protect and maximize your case value?
A good lawyer locks down evidence before it disappears: Police and EMS records, 911 audio, nearby camera footage, vehicle data, and neutral witnesses can disappear within weeks. Your local personal injury lawyer in Plant City, Florida will secure them early and fix fault before the defense can rewrite the story. On the medical side, they will gather records and billing in formats admissible under the current statute.
They get the medical experts on record the right way: Three expert opinions drive value in Florida. These are causation (the incident caused these injuries), permanency (the injuries will not fully resolve) and future care with real projected cost. Without these opinions, even severe injuries can be priced softly. With them, the defense must confront a funded future need, not just past bills.
They fight any attempt to put blame on you: Your lawyer will reconstruct the scene when needed, challenge bad assumptions in crash reports, and fill factual gaps that the insurance company would use to push you over 50%.
They build pressure on the insurance companies to pay within limits: That can mean stacking all applicable policies (at-fault driver, employer or commercial carrier, product owner, and the client’s own UM/UIM) and timing demands. They do this so the insurance company faces risk if it refuses to pay within limits under post-HB 837 rules.
Looking for a personal injury lawyer in Plant City, Florida?
If you want to learn how much your case is worth, do not hesitate to reach out to an experienced personal injury lawyer in Plant City, Florida. Tonya Stewart and her legal team will map fault, coverage and admissible medical costs under today’s Florida rules to give you a clear plan to protect and maximize your case value. Contact us today at (863) 279-4473 to get started.