Driving home from the store, our client was struck head-on. The insurance company said her injuries were no big deal, and that she had fully healed. Twelve jurors disagreed, unanimously, in fifteen minutes.
Our client was driving home from the store when another vehicle struck her head-on. The crash fractured both the radius and ulna in her dominant hand, injuries serious enough to require surgery, including two plates and twelve screws to reconstruct the bones.
We offered, on three separate occasions, to settle the case for the insurance company's own policy limit of $100,000. Each time, the insurer offered less than its own maximum: first $50,000, then later refusing to go above $70,000. The gap between what we were asking for, its own policy limit, and what it was willing to pay revealed how little the company was crediting her injuries.
With no reasonable offer on the table, a jury trial was the only path left. At trial, the defense's position hadn't changed: the injuries weren't serious, and she had recovered. That argument didn't hold up against the medical evidence of a hand rebuilt with hardware.
The jury didn't need long to see through it. Within fifteen minutes, a unanimous panel of twelve signed a verdict form valuing her damages at $750,000, more than ten times the insurance company's last offer.
Our client offered to settle at the insurer's own policy limit, three separate times. An insurance company that won't even pay its own maximum is making a calculated bet that the case won't go to trial. That bet doesn't always pay off.
Two plates and twelve screws are difficult to characterize as a minor injury. When the physical evidence is this concrete, a defense built on minimizing the injury has very little room to work with in front of a jury.
Juries that take fifteen minutes to reach a unanimous decision usually aren't wrestling with a close call. That speed reflects how clearly the evidence favored our client once it was in front of the people who'd actually decide the case.
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