Comparing your case to your Aunt Sally's case

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Hi, my name is Robert Mansour, and I'm broadcasting to you this brief video today from my home office in Los Angeles, California. One of my areas of practice is personal injury, and I wanted to spend today's brief video talking to you about aunt Sally. Aunt Sally got $40,000 on her case many years ago, and this is the problem that I sometimes have. Clients walk in and they compare their case to their aunt Sally or to their cousin Bill or to their friend Jose or whatever the case may be. They say, well, I don't understand. Why is my case worth this, or why are you concerned about this when my aunt Sally or my uncle Bill got $40,000, $60,000, $25,000, whatever the case maybe.

One of the biggest dangers that you can get involved in when either doing a case like this, a personal injury case, is comparing your settlement or your result to other people in your friends and family circle. The reason is that they might not live in the same region as you do. Their accident may have been more severe than yours. Their accident occurred in a different time. Frankly, as I record this video insurance companies don't like to part with their money. 

They used to part with their money a few years ago a little bit more readily. Now, not so much. In these economic times everybody is watching their bottom line, including the insurance companies. So while it might have been worth x ten years ago, not so much today. Frankly, in my region of the country juries are very stingy for the most part.

Another variable is the insurance adjuster that you're dealing with. Sometimes, you deal with an insurance adjuster who's very reasonable, willing to talk about the big picture. Other times you get an insurance adjuster who's not so reasonable and very difficult. Some of them maybe had a bad childhood. I don't know. The point is that you have to deal with the variables that are involved in your case, and don't get hung up on whether so and so got this much or so and so got that much for a similar case. That's going to lead you to a road to nowhere.

You need to evaluate your case under your circumstances in the time and region that your case is being handled. Then try to fashion the best result that you can, given the scenario that you have. You can't always control it and there are many variables that you cannot control, but at the very least one thing you can control is your tendency or the propensity, rather in many cases, to compare your result with the results of others.

My name is Robert Mansour, and I thank you very much for watching this brief video.  If you need help with your personal injury case and would like to discuss your options, feel free to call my office at (661) 414-7100.