Most disfigurement claims in Arizona do not go to trial but are settled out of court. The amount you can receive in a settlement payout for a disfigurement claim depends entirely on the nature and severity of your injuries, and the range of settlement amounts varies considerably.
A minor disfigurement claim may settle for around $5,000, while a claim based on severe disfigurement and other severe injuries can easily run into six-figure settlements or even more than a million dollars.
In this article, we examine the considerations that go into valuing how much compensation you might receive if you have suffered a disfiguring injury.
Stone Rose Law represents clients in all kinds of disfigurement claims in Arizona. To speak with one of our attorneys regarding your disfigurement claim, call us at (480) 631-3025.
Not all disfigurement injuries are the same. It follows that the more grievous your injury, the more valuable your potential settlement may be.
The types of permanent disfiguring injuries you may experience include:
For example, let’s assume you are bitten on the hand by a dog. The wound requires stitches and leaves a small scar on your hand.
Each of these kinds of disfigurement injuries is more serious than the one before it, and the potential settlement value is higher for each. It is also important to take into account whether the disfiguring injury has long-term or permanent physical effects.
The visibility and physical effects of a disfiguring injury will have bearing on the value of your settlement. A minor scar that is not readily visible and largely cosmetic may not carry the same potential settlement value as one that involves a readily visible amputation or avulsion, or major facial scarring, or a disfiguring injury that makes it hard for you to move or work.
Disfigurement injuries can occur in combination with other potentially serious injuries that do not involve disfigurement. For example, the car accident example above can result in injuries like whiplash, broken bones, and internal injuries, none of which are disfiguring but each of which requires medical treatment that factors into the cost of the overall personal injury settlement.
Consider further whether your disfigurement injury and other injuries require you to miss work, lead to medical expenses, or limit your future income-earning capacity. These factors go into your settlement as economic damages, even though they may have no connection with the disfigurement.
Finally, although they are not physical in nature, some forms of harm can also factor into your settlement compensation value for a disfiguring injury. An accident can leave you with feelings of anxiety, depression, inability to sleep, damaged personal relationships, post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, and lingering pain. All of these can be compensable in settlement as non-economic damages.
Non-economic damages can have a significant impact on the total value of your personal injury claim settlement. But they are hard to calculate in advance.
One method of calculating non-economic damages is the “multiplier,” which takes your economic or “direct” damages settlement value (for tangible harm like medical bills, physical therapy, and lost wages) and assigns a multiplier to it. Attorneys sometimes informally use the multiplier approach in valuation, although Arizona law does not prescribe or require this method.
If, for example, your economic harm is set at $50,000, and your non-economic damages multiplier is set at 3, then your total settlement will be $200,000 ($50,000 in direct harm plus three times that amount in non-economic damages).
Another method uses a “per diem” calculation, which sets a daily dollar amount for your noneconomic harm and then multiplies it by the anticipated number of days it will take you to recover from your injury. This method may be appropriate for injuries that have long recovery periods or when their effect on your daily life is significant.
Under Arizona law, punitive damages may be recoverable if you can show by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant’s conduct involved intentional harm or reckless disregard (gross negligence) for the safety of others.
The Arizona Supreme Court has held that punitive damages apply only when the defendant’s actions were meant to cause harm, motivated by spite or ill will, or were so outrageous that the defendant knowingly created a substantial risk of significant injury.
If you suffer a disfiguring injury at work, then Arizona’s workers’ compensation insurance ordinarily applies, and you do not have a personal injury claim against your employer absent intentional conduct that caused your injury. This can have a significant impact on the value of your disfigurement injury.
For example, in a case involving facial disfigurement or lost teeth, Arizona’s workers’ compensation system provides up to 18 months of compensation at 55% of your average monthly wage (AMW), up to an annually adjusted statutory maximum. Note that you cannot sue your employer in Arizona for damages even if you believe that the employer’s negligence caused your harm, though there are cases where you could sue a third party whose negligence led to your injury at work.
No matter how large the agreed settlement amount may be, if the at-fault party cannot pay it then you may receive considerably less and even nothing.
For example, if you are injured in an accident on the premises of a large business, and you suffer disfiguring chemical burns on your body, chances are good that this business will have business liability insurance that can pay for the settlement amount.
Compare this to getting into an auto accident with an uninsured, unemployed motorist who is living in his car, and you do not have uninsured motorist coverage. How much do you think you can collect in settlement, no matter how liable that person is or how severe your disfigurement and other injuries are?
Given how expensive a disfigurement injury claim settlement agreement can be, you can count on insurance company negotiators and defense attorneys to look for any way possible to avoid liability entirely or to reduce the potential value of your claim. One of the most common tactics these people will use is the legal doctrine of comparative fault.
Comparative fault generally means that the injured plaintiff in a personal injury claim can be partly to blame for causing the accident that led to the plaintiff’s harm. For example, if a multi-car accident was the direct cause of your injuries, the defendant may try to show that you did something behind the wheel that contributed to the accident, like speeding or distracted driving.
Arizona is a “pure” comparative fault state. What this means is that your settlement or trial verdict recovery amount can be reduced by your assigned share of the blame for the injury-causing event. So, if the value of your settlement is $100,000, but you are found to be 20% at fault, then your recovery will be reduced by 20% to $80,000.
Unlike some other states that use different comparative fault systems, in a pure comparative fault system like Arizona’s, your claim cannot be thrown out even if the defendant can prove that you were 50% or more at fault for the accident. Technically speaking, you can be 99% at fault for a disfiguring accident and still be able to collect the remaining 1% of the value of your settlement payout or judgment award.
The above considerations are not exhaustive, but they should give a good indication of why it is difficult to estimate what an “average” disfiguring injury claim may settle for.
According to some estimates, a settlement for a leg amputation may be several hundred thousand, or a settlement involving major disfigurement and permanent disabilities can range between $100,000 and $1 million. Still, there are too many variables to take into account for us to say here what you might expect for your disfigurement injury claim without doing a thorough analysis of the facts of your specific case.
With that being said, here are a couple of examples of known Arizona disfigurement injury trial verdict awards.
One of the key considerations in reaching a settlement value for a disfigurement injury that we have not mentioned above is the quality of your representation in settlement negotiations. This is where having experienced legal representation matters. And this is what you will have if you retain Stone Rose Law to represent you.
A Stone Rose personal injury attorney will help to maximize the potential value of your disfiguring injury claim in the following ways:
To speak with an experienced Arizona personal injury law attorney in a free consultation, call us at (480) 631-3025. Or you can use our online contact form.
