Why more and more personal injury attorneys don't want soft tissue cases anymore is a much less complicated question than you might think. First of all, these are more and more common due to safer cars, laws regarding seat belts, and yes, due to the freeway congestion. The slow speed makes it increasingly more difficult to meet the g-forces involved normally in a high speed, extreme impact, car accident. High speed, high impact accidents have traditionally been the main source of injury in cases taken by personal injury lawyers on behalf of their clients. In the old days, a personal injury lawyer could call the insurance adjuster and get a size-able check, say $20,000.00 for a low impact, soft tissue rear ender. Not anymore!!
What is a Soft Tissue Case?
There are a lot of things: to soft-tissue damage to joints, ligaments, muscles, and tendons. Many common results include aggravation, swelling, abrasions, discomfort and blemishes. There are about 4 categories:
Strain
A strain is from an injured muscle or tendon. It can come from many things like overuse, striking force, or hyper extending or stretching. If there is a tear in the muscle it could need surgery.
Sprains
Sprains are injuries to ligaments.
Whiplash
Occurs often in car accidents since your head and neck are core stabilizers in your body and usually the last to move or snap. The body moves forward quickly, the neck is stationary, and body is returns with conflicting energy.
Contusions
A contusion, is a "bruise," is a soft tissue injury from a punch, kick, fall, or drop. Can cause pain, swelling, or discoloration.
But increasingly, insurance companies have launched media campaigns to make it seem like people don't get hurt anymore in car accidents unless they have broken bones, or it is simply fraud. Nowadays, insurance companies treat virtually every insurance claim as if it was fraud and say that the victim over treated with the chiropractor, or physical therapist, wasn't hurt that bad, or under treated for his or her particular injuries. "It's all soft tissue", etc. You simply can never win when arguing with an insurance adjuster. Your attorney ends up getting a ridiculous offer like $3,000.00 when you really have like $5,000.00 in medical bills.
This forces your attorney to pay a $320.00 filing fee, go to court, and spend tons of money that you will have to pay him back later if you recover. In the meantime the insurance company spends like twice as much paying their lawyers to try and get out of it, than they could have paid. This leads why more and more personal injury attorneys don't want soft tissue cases anymore. In all events, it has created a vacuum for Los Angeles personal injury lawyers and lawyers in Orange County and other major cities in California. It has created a need for a new breed of injury attorneys. But so far, the risks, are seemingly outweighing the benefits to your injury attorneys.
The big insurance companies are achieving their apparent goal of lawyering Plaintiffs attorneys to death, rather than offering fair settlements for California car accident victims.
Why more and more personal injury attorneys don't want soft tissue cases anymore is obvious. There simply is no way to make money when your client complains that's "All I got? . . . Do I still have to pay you your fee?" Yup you guessed it, more and more clients are trying not to pay their lawyers, because they think their cases are worth a lot of money and they simply aren't unless you are a very good lawyer.
Assuming you have good Los Angeles injury lawyers for example, they will hire a doctor who will focus on you as an individual and your uniqueness and unique injury. You need a doctor who gives a thorough medical report that covers future damages like costs of pain killers. Even then, these cases just aren't paying like they did in the glory days of the 1980's.
We are Southern California's premier Los Angeles injury attorneys and are recognized as excellent Los Angeles car accident lawyers. We litigate and teach about cruise ship accident law, car accidents, dog bites cases, boating accidents, DUI law, how to recover for pain and suffering and medical bills resulting from negligent acts of a tortfeasor. Learn more by visiting us.
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