There is a a lot on the line in matters involving the death of a pedestrian from a car accident. Some of these deaths will result in a wrongful death lawsuit. These are challenging lawsuits which are generally powerfully defended by insurance companies and involve hard medical, accident reconstruction and legal issues.

Plaintiff attorneys know that with any vehicle accident claim, insurance company adjustors, when they recommend any settlement offer at all, will make the offer dependent not on the injured person's loss but rather on the financial risk faced by the insurance company. There are several ways in which insurance companies attempt to reduce their risk. For example, these cases often involve (1) denials of liability by the defendants (driver, employer, others who contributed to the accident) and the insurance companies insuring the defendants; (2) insurance issues (including the unavailability of insurance, underinsurance, multiple insured defendants and excess insurance); (3) economic issues (including whether the victim was married and had any children (especially minor children), the age and general health of the victim, and the loss of future earning capacity) that affect the valuation of the case; and (4) non-economic issues that affect case valuation. An attorney handling one of these lawsuits thus should have the skill and experience to deal successfully with the many challenges that will likely arise in the matter. Consider the following:

This pedestrian accident happened a brief time after 6 in the morning. The police conducted an investigation of the accident and documented that the vehicle was low on break fluid and had no windshield cleaning fluid even though it had a dirty windshield.

The victim in this case was 66 year old woman who was trying to cross a street. The female pedestrian was thrown 27 feet by the force of the accident. The impact and her fall left her with a fracture to her ankle, fractures to several ribs, a fracture to her clavicle, and fractures to her skull. After the accident she was transported to a hospital where she died from her injuries. She left behind a husband, five children, and six grandchildren. The law firm that represented the victim's family reported reaching a settlement in the amount of $725,000.

This case involved a pedestrian accident that occurred at the beginning part of the evening. The female driver of the vehicle involved did not stay at the scene of the accident. The male pedestrian had a part-time job. The victim had two children. The pedestrian died due to the accident. The woman who was the cause of the accident was tracked down by the investigating police officers. She was arrested. She was charged for leaving the scene and for the negligent operation of a vehicle resulting in a death. The law firm which represented the family of the victim reported a settlement for the sum of $1.15 million.

Consider the differences. In the second case the victim held a part-time job. In the first case there is no discussion of the victim having a job and, given her age, it is very likely that she was retired. In the second first case the victim had children. The reports do not indicated whether the children were minors or adults. In the first case the victim had five children, but given her age, it is likely all her children were adults. Grandchildren generally have no standing to make a claim for the loss of a grandparent. These differences may reveal why the recovery in the second case was 53% larger than in the first case.

The reports do not describe the way the settlement amount was reached in each case. One possible explanation for this difference could be that each settlement represents the upper range of available insurance. Another explanation might be due to the historical range of awards by juries in the jurisdictions where each of the cases would have been tried.

The smaller the risk an insurance company adjuster believes they face by taking the matter to trial, the lower the offer they will make, if they make any offer at all. Handling pedestrian death cases requires experience and skill. A lawyer representing the victim's family should not be in a rush to reach a settlement. Indeed, typically the best way to approach these cases is to conduct a complete investigation, have a deep understanding of the accident scene, know the way in which witnesses describe the accident, have a sense of how the parties and the witnesses will be perceived by a jury, and have a good knowledge of the range of awards typically given for similar cases by juries in the jurisdiction where the claim will need to be tried.