A devastating accident in California can cause a variety of serious injuries for victims. One of the most common and potentially painful outcomes of accidents is a herniated disc. This injury is common in accidents like a traffic collision or a slip-and-fall at a business.

Patients with this spine injury can suffer mobility issues, chronic pain, and may even have a difficult time picking up the lightest of things.

It’s common for victims to wonder if the person or business responsible for their injury could be held accountable for their negligence. Naturally, the next logical question is to wonder how much a herniated disc injury settlement is worth.

Contact a California Lawyer for a Free Consultation After a Herniated Disc Injury

You will, of course, have many questions after a personal injury accident leaves you facing a lifetime of pain and soreness after suffering a ruptured disc.

A skilled legal representative is the only person who can truly explain the benefits available to you and how much your injury could earn your family. An insurance representative certainly won’t be the one to inform you of all the support you may receive.

Martin Gasparian, the founder of Maison Law, offers all California victims a free consultation on their case. You are under no obligation to hire him. But you should take this no-risk opportunity to make sure you don’t get robbed of the compensation you’ll need in the months and years to come.

What Is a Herniated Disc?

Discs are supportive shock absorbers that separate the vertebrae in the spine. Discs serve as cushions and are made up of a hard exterior and a soft, rubbery center. A herniated disc (or slipped or ruptured disc) is a spinal cord injury that forces a portion of that soft core through a crack in the outer disc.

Slipped discs can occur anywhere along the spine. They more frequently occur in the lower back (lumbar spine) but rupturing also occurs in the neck vertebrae.

Unfortunately for victims, when the core of the disc is displaced there’s little room for it to go. The core will often press on nerves in the spine and cause excruciating pain.

Symptoms of a Ruptured Disc

Some disc damage causes no pain at all and doesn’t require treatment. Sadly, this isn’t the case for many victims. This pinching and damage of local nerves often result in pain, numbness, or weakness in the extremities.

The pain is often centered in the lower back. The pressure put on nerves contributes to the sciatic nerve causing pain, tingling, numbness, and even a burning sensation. This pain often radiates from the buttock down the leg and into the foot. Some patients describe the pain as being similar to an electric shock.

A slipped disc in the cervical spine or neck causes pain in the neck and between the shoulder blades. Symptoms can include pain that radiates into the arm and down to the fingers.

As you can imagine, these very serious symptoms can greatly affect a victim’s everyday life. This is why it’s so important to secure adequate support for victims through a personal injury claim. A skilled California Personal Injury Lawyer has experience in cases involving these types of injuries and knows the level of compensation victims often require.

Herniated Disc Treatment Costs and Settlement Amounts

Determining the amount of a settlement check you may receive through an insurance claim proves very difficult. Herniated discs affect victims very differently.

It’s impossible for a legal professional to estimate the support you could receive before going over your case with you and investigating every factor of what happened.

There are ways to get an idea of what your ruptured disc injury may be worth by looking at what factors into insurance settlements.

The cost of care is a huge factor in what you may receive. This involves how intensive the care you require is and how long you receive treatment.

Surgery to correct a herniated disc can run anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 or more depending on how invasive the surgery will be. Spinal fusions may be necessary. This is when the vertebrae must be fused together in order to provide stability to the patient. This procedure could cost well over $100,000.

If someone’s negligence caused your accident and left you with a spine injury, their insurance providers should be fully accountable for your surgery costs and your recovery expenses.

Factors in Your Slipped Disc Settlement

The severity of your injury and the estimated costs of your long-term care play a major role in the largest insurance settlements involving herniated disks.

Other important factors can increase the compensation you will see. And not all of them are economic damages, like hospital bills.

Here’s a look at the other big factors in determining the amount of your settlement check:

Beyond your medical bills, the cost of any medical equipment you need and the long-term costs involved if your spine injury leads to a permanent disability must be considered. Your personal injury lawyer would thoroughly calculate these potential costs to make sure you weren’t stuck with expenses years down the road.
Physical and emotional pain. The chronic pain associated with a herniated disc can be devastating. Medication and constate physical therapy may help. In some cases, doctors find that they really can’t do much to treat nerve pain. The emotional toll of such an injury can lead to a loss of enjoyment of life, a loss of consortium (intimacy) with a spouse, and other types of non-economic, yet very devastating, damages.
Lost income. A pinched nerve can make your old job nearly impossible to perform. You might need compensation to train for a new career. In severe cases, a return to work is impossible. This would require an insurance company to provide enough compensation to support you over a lifetime.
The limits of insurance coverage. This can be a problem in traffic accidents when other drivers carry the minimum amount of car insurance required in California. You can reach the limits of their policy quickly and end up facing any bills left unpaid. If you take a fall at work or in a grocery store, the liability insurance a company or corporation carries will have higher caps. Unfortunately, these businesses have more resources to hire lawyers to try to discredit you and your injury so they can avoid liability.
The effectiveness of your personal injury lawyer. Having a lawyer negotiate your case is the best way to ensure you receive the maximum compensation available. A skilled attorney prevents you from falling for insurance tactics meant to limit what they have to pay you. An attorney with extensive experience in these types of cases also has the best negotiating skills and knows when to send settlement offers back and demand more. Settlement amounts awarded to injury victims vary wildly and the main reason is that some lawyers accept less for their clients and some know to fight for more.

Using a Personal Injury Settlement Calculator

A personal injury calculator is an easy way to estimate what your herniated disc may be worth in an insurance claim. However, the figures you are given are unofficial and can often be quite a ways off from what you should be expecting. There’s just no way to provide an accurate settlement estimate when the costs and hardships caused by disc ruptures vary so much.

You can try out Maison Law’s personal injury calculator here. This calculator is not intended to provide legal advice. The best use of this calculator and others is to encourage you to explore the options you have with a legal professional.

Contact a Personal Injury Lawyer Serving California Victims

The most important thing to know is that you don’t have to guess about the strength of your personal injury case or how much your injury is worth. Maison Law of California provides a free case consultation to all victims so they don’t have to sit and wonder.

It’s a no-risk way for the victims of a serious injury like a herniated disk to have their options explained. This is an important step because insurance adjusters like it when victims aren’t informed of their rights. They go right to work trying to rob victims of the support they need to rebuild their lives. Don’t let that happen to you or your family.

California Herniated Disc Settlements