When an Injury Lawyer in Mississauga work with their clients, in order to compose a demand letter, the injured client often asks if there is some average figure for a demand in a letter to the insurance adjuster. Unfortunately, there is no average personal injury case.

There may be similar cases.

Indeed, both lawyers and adjusters devote some of their time to studying similar cases. Their examination of each case invites the need to ask one significant question: How is my on-going case/claim different from this one that I have just studied?

Frequently, another question pops into the head of the lawyer or the adjuster. This is that question: What sort of assessment might a juror make, after learning about the evidence in this particular case? Jurors do not always have the same verdict, even for similar cases.

How to judge the value of a median figure, such as one posted on a website?

Median does not mean average. The median emerges from a group of data points. There is no way of knowing the size of the group that supplied the data points. It would not have to be a large group. If the data points have come from a large group, each of them would represent one point on a range of points. Typically, it is a wide range. Some of the points on that range could be especially high, or especially low.

Why is that fact important? Because an average value for a group of wide-ranging points would get skewed in the direction of the very large or very small values. For that reason, an average value does not serve an especially useful purpose.

When you begin to negotiate with an adjuster, you could start with two very different bids, yours and the adjusters. Yet, the 2 of you would hope to arrive at a single figure, to use as the amount of the settlement. How can that be achieved?

You will need to learn about the weaknesses in your argument, and the adjuster must learn more about the nature and extent of your injuries. In that way, each of you should be able to imagine a figure that reflects the facts that the 2 of you have discovered. It could be very different from any figure that was used before in a demand letter from a plaintiff.

The figures would be different, because no 2 cases are exactly alike. Indeed, their many differences are what would create a challenge, if someone tried to match any settlement figure with a number that could be described as average. Hence, an identification of that average would not increase your understanding of any particular case.