While the recession has hit the county hard, one segment of the population may be benefiting — plaintiffs in personal injury cases.

Several attorneys in Wisconsin say the chances of getting a favorable jury verdict are as good as they have ever been.

“I think juries, with the economy being bad, are making this a good atmosphere for plaintiffs,” said Jeffrey R. Zirgibel, a plaintiffs’ attorney at Pasternak & Zirgibel SC.
Zirgibel and others said this is especially true in soft tissue injury cases, which include sprains, strains and “whiplash.”

Traditionally, juries have been reluctant to rule in favor of plaintiffs in those cases, because the injuries may not seem significant enough to warrant compensation. But that is changing, said Green Bay attorney Tricia A. Nell.

“Juries won’t know in a case if an injured party has insurance, so one thing we’re finding is they do want to award people money for medical bills,” she said.

According to data from Florida-based Jury Verdict Research, which maintains a national database of personal injury verdicts and settlements, the median plaintiffs’ verdict in 2007 (the most recent year available) was $40,000, an increase of more than $5,000 from 2006. Head-injury verdicts, which include cases involving concussions and head lacerations, jumped from a national median of $12,775 in 2006 to $15,900 in 2007, the highest figure since 2003.

In his experience, Zirgibel said it’s easier to get plaintiffs’ verdicts because high medical bills don’t “shock” jurors anymore.

“Some of them may have lost jobs and they have the same bills at home,” he said.
Nell said the trend has given plaintiffs’ attorneys more confidence to take cases to trial that they may have otherwise settled.

Nell, a plaintiffs’ attorney at Liebmann, Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry SC, said that juries are more sensitive to the possibility that someone’s injury may have occurred while he or she was unemployed or buried in debt.

“A lot of lawyers in my community are really of the opinion that if they are not [given] a decent offer, take it to a jury and let them decide what is fair,” she said.

Defense lawyers disagree

But other attorneys suggest any dramatic increase in verdicts for injured parties is more myth that reality.

Simpson & Deardorff defense attorney Michelle D. Johnson said that she hasn’t noticed an increase in jury awards for plaintiffs.

“I really haven’t seen juries being more sympathetic to plaintiffs in the last year or two,” she said.

If anything, she has fewer cases going to trial, maybe two a year, and more settlements.
But even in those cases, said Boardman Law Firm defense attorney Catherine M. Rottier, insurance companies are not paying out record sums.

“I haven’t seen cases settling for significantly larger amounts that they would have two years ago,” she said. “Companies evaluate the claim, but they are not adding 10 percent because the economy is bad.”

Nell said that in some cases, clients who are financially strapped are willing to settle for less than their case may be worth.

She recently mediated a case involving a couple that had two young children and a home in foreclosure. Nell said the couple settled for far less than they could have received had they gone to trial.

She said that plaintiffs’ lawyers need to advise their clients to look beyond their current financial circumstances in weighing a settlement offer.

“You need to have a conversation with clients and tell them their debt ratio is not equal to what the value of the case is,” she said. “Just because you owe $20,000 does not mean your case is only worth that much.”