This post will examine the average settlement payout value for hand and wrist injuries in tort cases such as auto accidents, slip and falls, premises liability, and more. Our hand injury lawyers will analyze some statistics on verdicts and settlement amounts for hand and wrist claims.
Our attorneys also summarize recent verdicts and reported settlements from prior cases in which the plaintiff’s primary injury was a hand, wrist, or finger injury so that you can get a feel for jury payouts and settlement amounts in hand and wrist injury lawsuits.
Hand and Wrist Injury Settlement Amounts
How much is a typical hand and wrist injury worth in a personal injury case? Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for calculating how much compensation you should get in a settlement for a wrist or hand injury. The potential value of a hand or wrist injury is very case-specific and will depend on several different factors. The most important fact will always be the injury’s severity.
Hand and wrist injuries can be severe and have a significant impact on your ability to work and do the things you like. We use our hands for literally everything, from driving and griping to typing and performing manual labor. There are very few jobs that do not require the use of your hands. This means that any sort of permanent hand or wrist injury can potentially result in full or partial disability.
The hand is one of the most commonly injured body parts in workplace accidents. Hand injuries rank second behind back injuries as the most frequent type of occupational injury. Hand injuries are also prevalent outside the workplace, partly because we use our hands for many things. Approximately 20% of all visits to the hospital emergency room involve injuries to the hand.
In personal injury cases, hand and wrist injuries occur most frequently in the context of auto accident cases. They are also reasonably common in slip and fall cases, but auto accidents are where we see the most injuries involving the hand, wrist, and fingers.
What is the Average Settlement for a Hand or Wrist Injury?
The average settlement payout value for a hand/wrist injury in an accident lawsuit is approximately $38,000-$92,000. The reason this is such as broach settlement estimate range is that the settlement value of a hand/wrist injury can vary significantly depending on the specific type and severity of the injury to the hand or wrist. This is a very wide gap between the potential settlement value of a sprained wrist and the value of a crushed hand or fractured wrist.
Average and Median Verdicts in Hand/Wrist Injury Cases
Nationally, the average verdict award for hand and wrist injuries is approximately $630,000. The median verdict for hand and wrist injuries is significantly lower at $70,000. Why is there such a big gap between the average and the median verdict amount? The reason is that there are a small handful of hand and wrist injury cases that cause permanent, life-impacting consequences, and these few cases end up generating substantial verdicts that skew the overall average. The median verdict award reflects the typical amount of damages awarded for a hand or wrist injury.
Types of Hand and Wrist Injuries and Their Settlement Value
Our accident lawyers have extensive experience handling cases involving hand and wrist injuries. These lawsuits are more likely to settle and tend to generate higher settlement payouts, partly because insurance companies want to avoid the risk of a big verdict. Below is a summary of the hand and wrist injuries we most commonly see in personal injury cases.
- Bone Fractures: Fractures of one or more of the bones in the hands or wrists are probably one of the most common hand and wrist injuries in car accident cases. For the most part, bone fractures in the hands are not very severe and have a lower value, but wrist bone fractures are more serious, and those cases have a higher value.
- Nerve Damage: The hands, wrists, and fingers are connected to the brain through nerve pathways. This is how the brain sends signals to control the movement of the hands. Injuries to the hands and wrists in car accidents can cause damage to the nerves and result in permanent impairment. These are high-value cases, but you often must file suit and litigate to force the insurance company to make a fair offer.
- Crush Injury: A crush injury is one of the most severe types of hand and wrist injuries. In our attorneys’ experience, a crush injury in a car crash usually happens when the hand gets crushed between objects like the steering wheel and the dashboard. It is usually a permanent injury. This can lead to significant tissue damage, fractures, and even the loss of fingers.
- Sprained Wrist: A sprained wrist is the most minor type of hand or wrist injury that we see in accident cases and these cases are obviously at the lowest end of the settlement value range
The “Best” Hand and Wrist Injury Lawsuits
Let’s drill down a bit more on the most severe hand and wrist injury lawsuits. These are the best and the worst cases. They are the worst cases because the injuries are awful. But the reality of our lawyers’ world is that the worst injuries fetch the higher settlement compensation:
- Scaphoid Fractures: A scaphoid fracture occurs in the scaphoid bone, one of the small bones in the wrist. It is particularly problematic because the blood supply to the scaphoid is limited, which can lead to nonunion—where the bone doesn’t heal properly—or avascular necrosis, which is the death of bone tissue due to a lack of blood. This is an awful injury because of nonunion, and it often leads to large settlements, particularly when the victim is younger.
- Complex Intra-Articular Fractures: Complex intra-articular fractures involve a break that extends into the joint surface. If not treated properly, they can lead to joint instability, arthritis, and loss of movement.
- Comminuted Fractures: The bone is broken into several pieces in these fractures. They are difficult to treat because aligning the fragments for proper healing can be challenging. The result is often a permanent injury. When you can tell a jury that an injury is for life, they pay more. This fact inflates settlement amounts with this awful fracture.
- Open (Compound) Fractures: These are where the bone breaks through the skin. They are particularly serious because of the high risk of infection and the need for immediate medical treatment. The picture in these cases is worth a thousand words. It is not pretty.
- Barton’s Fracture: A Barton’s fracture is a distal radius fracture with dislocation of the radiocarpal joint. It requires precise treatment to avoid long-term complications, such as loss of wrist motion and strength.
- Smith’s Fracture: A fracture of the distal radius with volar (palm side) displacement. It is less common than a Colles’ fracture but can be more difficult to treat.
- Rolando Fracture: This is a comminuted fracture of the base of the thumb (first metacarpal). Due to its complexity and the thumb’s importance in hand function, it often requires surgical intervention.
- Complex Phalangeal Fractures: Fractures of the fingers (phalanges) that are comminuted, involve the joint, or are accompanied by ligament injuries can lead to significant functional impairment.
Calculating Settlement Amounts in Hand and Wrist Injury Lawsuits
The impact of a hand or wrist injury can vary widely from person to person. Factors such as an individual’s age, overall health, occupation, and lifestyle can all influence the perceived severity of the injury. For example, a professional musician may experience more significant financial losses and emotional distress from a hand injury than a couch potato.
Here are some of the critical variables attorneys, insurance adjusters, judges, and juries look to when calculating what a compensation payout should be:
Medical Bills
When putting a settlement number on a hand or wrist injury case, you start with the medical bills. It is a crude way to do it, but it really is where everyone starts, even plaintiffs’ lawyers. This includes all costs associated with your treatment, such as hospital bills, surgical procedures, doctor’s visits, prescription medications, physical therapy, and any medical equipment or assistive devices you require
Future Medical Costs
Our hand injury lawyers develop expert testimony to determine whether the patient may need more physical therapy, additional surgeries, long-term medication needs (which can be surprisingly significant), or adaptive equipment.
Lost Wages
When determining your settlement, consider the income you have lost or will continue to lose due to your hand and wrist injury. This involves accounting for missed workdays, reduced working hours, or any diminished earning capacity resulting from the injury. Past and future lost wages should be considered, making it essential to document your employment history and any changes in your ability to work.
Pain and Suffering
It is hard to imagine a significand hand injury where the biggest part of the settlemetn calcuation is not pain and suffering. That is what these cases are about.
Quantifying non-economic damages like pain and suffering can be complex. These damages encompass the physical and emotional distress you’ve experienced due to your hand and wrist injury, as well as its impact on your overall quality of life.
Settlements often incorporate a multiplier applied to your economic damages to estimate the value of pain and suffering, though this can vary widely based on the specifics of your case. But sometimes the medical bills and other economic damages are not high in these cases. So hand injury lawyers sometimes do not put the medical bills into evidence to focus solely on the pain and suffering.
You have to remember that pain perception is subjective and can differ significantly from one person to another, impacting settlement compensation payouts. Some victims may have a higher pain tolerance and be more resilient in coping with the discomfort associated with a hand or wrist injury. This subjectivity can affect how they perceive the injury’s impact on their daily life and, consequently, their settlement expectations.
The extent of disability or impairment resulting from your hand and wrist injury is a significant factor in determining your settlement. Medical experts – often the treating doctors – can evaluate the level of permanent impairment, which plays a vital role in assessing the financial compensation you should receive.
Similarly, the effectiveness of rehabilitation and recovery can also vary from person to person. Some individuals may respond well to treatment and achieve a near-complete recovery, while others may face ongoing challenges and limitations. These individual outcomes can influence settlement amount calculations. Because this, and all of these elements of pain and suffering, are baked into the cake when determining compensation payouts.
Insurance Coverage
You need the coverage to bring a claim in 99% of these cases. But there is often insurance to be found in odd places. So you have to dig.
Venue
What jurisdiction or judicial venue your injury case is in can also significantly impact the potential settlement value of your hand or wrist injury. Certain jurisdictions (or venues within a jurisdiction) are much more plaintiff-friendly than others. Juries in plaintiffs-friendly jurisdictions tend to be more willing to side with individual plaintiffs and hit big companies with large verdicts. If your case is in one of these plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions, it will push the settlement value up because the insurance company will be less willing to risk going to trial.
Hand and Wrist Injury Verdicts & Settlements
Below are summaries of recent verdicts and publicly reported settlements from cases involving hand and/or wrist injuries.
- $10,857 (Pennsylvania 2024): The plaintiff was a 41-year-old female who claimed that she was rear-ended by the defendant. The plaintiff allegedly suffered a right wrist sprain and a sprained back with disc protrusions. Prior to trial she was awarded $38,000 at arbitration. The additional $10k in damages were for past pain and suffering, but it was much less than she was probably hoping for.
- $650,000 (Massachusetts 2024): This is a slightly different type of hand/wrist injury case because it involves a dog attack causing bite wounds and lacerations to both the plaintiff’s hands and to her right wrist. She also suffered a broken middle finger during the incident. She sued the owner of the dog under the state’s strict liability law for dog bites. The case went to trial because the defense claimed that the plaintiff was trespassing and teasing the dog.
- $100,000 (New York 2024): The plaintiff, a minor, was riding his electric scooter at an intersection in the Bronx. The defendant made an illegal u-turn and struck the plaintiff on his scooter. The plaintiff suffered a fractured right tibia, fractured left wrist, and a laceration near his groin. The $100,000 was likely a policy-limits settlements so this doesn’t tell us all that much about the value of the wrist fracture, other than that is was likely close to $100k.
- $511,000 (Maryland 2023): A 70-year-old woman suffered multiple finger fractures after being struck by a vehicle. Despite incurring only $11,000 in medical expenses, the impact on her life was substantial. The injuries drastically reduced the mobility and functionality of her hand, necessitating extensive physical therapy and pain management. The limitations imposed by her injuries curtailed her ability to continue her work as a caregiver, a role she valiantly fulfilled at her age. This lawsuit exemplifies the inadequacy of using medical bills alone to determine compensation in hand or finger injury cases. The insurer, Penn National, initially overlooked the broader implications of her injuries, focusing instead on the relatively low medical costs. However, a Baltimore County jury recognized the severity of her situation and the profound effect on her quality of life, awarding her a just compensation of $511,000. This verdict highlights the importance of considering the full extent of an individual’s suffering and loss beyond just the immediate medical expenses.
- $36,627 Verdict (Ohio 2023): The plaintiff, a female zookeeper, struck the front of the defendant’s car after he negligently made a left-hand turn before her without yielding. The plaintiff suffered injuries to her right wrist in the accident. She sought $21,00 for medical expenses, $70,000 for lost wages, and $79,000 for pain and suffering, but the jury only awarded $36,000.
- $100,000 Settlement (New Jersey 2023): The plaintiff, a minor, was riding his bicycle when he was struck by the defendant’s vehicle. The plaintiff suffered a fractured wrist and a fractured leg, and the case settled for $100,000. More than half of the settlement was probably attributed to the leg fracture.
- $82,370 Verdict (Washington 2023): The plaintiff, a grocery store manager, suffered a wrist injury resulting in carpal tunnel syndrome with decreased grip strength in an auto accident caused by the defendant who ran a red light. The verdict included $17,000 for past medical expenses and $19,000 for lost wages.
- $22,386 Verdict (California 2023): The plaintiff suffered injuries to his right hand and wrist in a car accident. The verdict included $7,000 for past medical expenses, and the remainder of the award was for past pain and suffering. No damages were awarded for future pain and suffering or lost wages, so this case gives us a good idea of how much juries value the pain associated with a moderate wrist and hand injury.
- $90,000 Arbitration Award (Washington 2023): The plaintiff was walking on the public sidewalk in Tacoma, Washington, when she tripped on a buckled/raised portion, landing face-first on the concrete. She suffered a fractured wrist and cuts and scraps to her face and brought a premises liability lawsuit against the business adjacent to the sidewalk for negligently failing to warn.
- $117,500 Verdict (Alabama 2022): The plaintiff injured her right hand when it became stuck in a forklift as she slipped when getting off. The injury caused nerve damage, resulting in chronic pain, and she underwent surgery to relieve the nerve pressure on the wrist and hand. The verdict included a large portion for past medical expenses.
- $124,779 Verdict (Louisiana 2022): The plaintiff and her daughter were at church services when a mechanical shade and its motor fell from the ceiling and struck them. The plaintiff suffered injuries to the ulnar side of her left wrist that required her to undergo arthroscopic surgery.
- $175,000 Settlement (Idaho 2021): The defendant rear-ended the plaintiff. She suffered a fracture of her left hand and wrist, which required multiple surgeries to correct. The case eventually settled for $175,000. Part of the reason for the high value in this case was that the medical expenses were likely very high due to the numerous surgeries.
Contact Miller & Zois About Hand and Wrist Injuries
If you have suffered a hand or wrist injury in a car accident or slip and fall, call our personal injury lawyers at 800-553-8082 for a free consultation or contact us online.