Personal injury cases can have dramatically different values based upon where they occur. According to insurance industry research from the Insurance Research Council, Oregon has the 7th lowest case outcome values in the United States, and dismal compared to our neighboring states like California and Washington. People aren't worth less in Oregon than in California, but the reality is that a case that might get a $15,000,000 jury verdict in California, might only receive a $50,000 verdict in Oregon. That is a dramatic difference for the injured person. (It is also important to keep in mind when comparing national firms with California settlements or verdicts to Oregon based law firms that report only Oregon settlements and verdicts.)
Even within Oregon, the same personal injury case can have dramatically different values depending upon the county in which a case can be tried. (The state and county in which cases can be filed and tried is referred to as jurisdiction and venue). Insurers look at this issue carefully and make much lower settlement offers in a county with low jury verdicts that is right next to another with higher average verdicts. As trial lawyers, we are well aware of how this impacts settlement and jury verdict values.
This case demonstrates how our office used strategy and the law to obtain a better financial outcome for a client injured in a rural county in Oregon where the average jury verdict is very low.
This was a complex case involving cases against the at-fault driver and then against the client's own insurance company. It demonstrates our ability to make difficult decisions, and how our extensive experience in multiple areas of law resulted in the best possible outcome for the client.
The client was hit from behind by a driver in The Dalles Oregon. (She lived in a much smaller town nearby with less than 1000 people.) The crash caused a mild traumatic brain injury that impacted the client's cognitive abilities, and produced significant behavioral changes that deeply impacted her relationships with her husband and children. The impact caused severe migraine headaches, and she became sensitive to the sounds and visual stimulus common to parenting. Once considered a dedicated mother, she changed into a person who couldn't participate in normal activities. In time, the client's husband filed divorce, she lost her job, and she lost custody of her kids in the divorce case.
Our Portland Oregon brain injury lawyers are best known for our work representing injured people with traumatic brain injuries. The client hired us to guide her through her life changing injuries and her legal case.
As with 80% of all brain injury cases and nearly 100% of mild traumatic brain injury cases, the client's brain imaging was negative. Since the nearest brain injury specialist for this client is in Bend or Portland, many hours away from her home, she received little adequate care for her TBI early in her care. This impacted the insurer's evaluation of her case and the settlement offer.
The at-fault driver's insurance company refused to make a reasonable settlement offer given the history of low jury verdicts in Wasco County Circuit Court, and forced the client to trial hoping for a low verdict. After several years waiting for trial during the COVID pandemic, and multiple set overs (in which the client incurred the costs of paying for expert witnesses preparation), the case finally went to trial. Motions were filed by our office to limit the testimony of defense witnesses' use of improperly interpreted psychological testing, narrowing how the insurer could defend the case. The expertise to know how to file such motions is critical for experienced brain injury lawyers.
The parties selected the jury and a full week of trial was completed with plaintiff producing all of its witnesses and case in chief. Our case involved a physiatrist who specialized in brain injuries from The Center in Bend, a neuro-optometrist, a neuropsychologist from OHSU, a vocational rehabilitation expert and an economist, as well as the client and several lay witnesses.
After the last day of plaintiff's witnesses, defense counsel notified the court that she had contracted COVID-19. A mistrial was granted by the court. A motion for costs associated with the mistrial was denied by the court, so the injured plaintiff personally incurred all costs of the defense lawyer getting COVID, as well as the costs for all of the earlier trial delays where expert witnesses prepared. (All of these were unfortunately outside our control due to COVID-19 with Oregon courts closing, opening and then closing multiple times between 2020 and 2022.) Plaintiff was forced to settle for part of the policy amount ($137,000), but took an offset of the full $250,000 of the at fault driver's "policy limit." Our office felt this was the best choice for the client as the average verdict in Wasco County less than $5,000 and plaintiff did not want to incur duplicate costs of another full trial in a county where the verdict could be low. There was also concern that given the small community in which the plaintiff lived, that jurors would judge her unfairly due to her community members viewing her as a poor quality parent after the crash.
Plaintiff's insurer provided permission for an Underinsured Motorist claim, accepting the full $250,000 policy limit as an offset.
After accepting the underinsured motorist claim, our client's insurer offered their policyholder $0. This meant that in order to get any compensation from her insurer, the client had to file litigation against her own insurance company and go through all of the stress of litigation a second time for the same injury. The client was clear she did not want to go through the litigation process again or incur the significant costs of yet another trial. But her insurer left her no choice.
After the Oregon Supreme Court's decision on insurance bad faith claims in Moody v. Oregon Community Credit Union, our office sent another request for insurance coverage. Oregon insurance bad faith lawyer Aaron DeShaw notified Safeco of a pending insurance bad faith claim if the arbitration case resulted in an outcome of more than $0. A deposition taken during this time revealed the client continued to have ongoing symptoms from the crash, but had repaired her relationship with her children and was able to return to work full time after several years working part time. This limited the financial losses from the injury. After negotiations, the case was resolved for an additional $350,000. The total equivalent value was $600,000 with $487,000 collected ($137,000 collected of a $250,000 policy, plus $350,000 in Underinsured Motorist insurance), far in excess of an expected jury verdict in Wasco County. Arriving at this outcome took a great deal of time and experience to obtain this outcome for the client in a rural county with a history of very low jury verdicts.