By the Numbers: Personal Injury Statistics in the U.S.

What is a Personal Injury?

A personal injury occurs when you’re involved in an accident that’s caused by someone else. This could be a car crash that wasn’t your fault, a fall at work because of health and safety negligence, or even a bite from someone else’s pet.

When someone makes a personal injury claim, they’re looking for compensation for their injuries. The amount you get is based on how your injury affected you and is designed to cover any financial losses you’ve faced because of the incident. Just a few of the reasons you might get compensation include:

• Medical treatment costs
• Reduced income or loss of income due to inability to work
• Property damage or loss
• Pain, suffering, and emotional distress

If you think you might need a personal injury lawyer but aren’t sure, make sure you read up on when you should get one.

Personal Injury Cases Statistics

When it comes to personal injury cases, the courts don’t actually see a lot. According to findings reported by the U.S. Department of Justice, only 4% of personal injury cases ever see trial, with most settled out of court. They found that around 16,397 cases were put on trial every year.

With these findings, it seems that there are over 400,000 personal injury claims each year, which is a huge number! Personal injury lawyers sure have a lot of work to do.

The U.S. Department of Justice released a  lot of personal injury lawsuit statistics. Here’s some of what they found.

The Most Common Personal Injury Case

Out of all of the personal injury cases, motor vehicle accidents were the most frequent causes of injury. In fact, they made up over half (52%) of all cases! This could be anything from a car crash to being hit by someone on a motorbike.

The remaining 48% of cases were made up by medical malpractice (15%), product liability (5%), and ‘other’ (28%).

These statistics show just how much of a range of personal injuries there are. But, clearly, there are far more accidents on the road than there are malfunctioning mobile phones or dodgy dental work!

Success Rates of Cases

As you now know, not many cases actually end up going to trial. But out of those that do the success rates vary quite a lot depending on the cause of the injury. Accidents involving motor vehicles were the most likely to be successful for the plaintiff (the person making the claim), with a 61% success rate.

Here’s how the rest look with the success rate referring to the plaintiff:

• Intentional tort trials saw a success rate of 50%
• Premises liability trials saw a success rate of 39%
• Product liability trials saw a success rate of 38%
• Medical malpractice trials saw a success rate of just 19%

For medical malpractice claims, the reason it’s so low is because of how hard it is to ever prove medical negligence. Unless you have hard evidence it’s not going to be a positive outcome for the plaintiff.

How Much is Rewarded for Different Cases

When it comes to accident cases, the amount of money awarded in compensation varies a lot from case to case. Overall, the median amount given to the plaintiff for any case is $31,000, and half of the cases usually don’t receive more than $24,000.

Product liability has the highest average compensation of $748,000, and motor vehicle accident claim have the lowest at $16,000 being the average payout. That’s a pretty big difference between the two!

Other average payouts include:

• $90,000 for premises liability
• $100,000 for intentional tort
• $679,000 for medical malpractice

It’s clear that you can get a lot of money for personal injuries so it’s not hard to see why there are so many claims.

Personal Injury Facts 

Aside from the facts and figures about cases, there are plenty of statistics looking at the personal injury accidents themselves. For example, did you know that the third-highest cause of death in America are accidental injuries? Whilst these can be self-inflicted, such as from food poisoning, they’re also often personal injuries caused by others.

In 2017, 169,936 Americans died from accidents. That’s 49.4 people for every 100,000 Americans, which is quite a lot! Be careful out there; you never know what might happen.

Let’s take a look at some other personal injury facts.

Motor Vehicle Accidents 

In America, there are an average of 6 million car accidents every year. To put that in perspective, that’s an average of 16,438 every day! It also leads to 3 million injuries, with 2 million permanent injuries every year, so if you’re looking for recent car accidents you’ll be likely to find a lot.

The causes of car accidents are most likely to be alcohol (40%), speeding (30%) and reckless driving (33%). 1 in 5 crashes also report some kind of distraction, so make sure to keep your eyes on the road when driving! You’re also 23 times more likely to crash whilst texting so put that phone down and stay safe.

You also aren’t safe on motorbikes. In fact, in 2017 there were 89,000 motorbike injuries. That means that per every 100,000 registered motorcycles, 1,018 of them were involved in a crash.

Personal Injuries at Work

It’s not uncommon for injuries at work to be someone else’s fault. From trailing wires causing falls to faulty equipment causing accidents, there are so many ways people can be hurt whilst on the job.

In fact, in 2018 there were 5,250 fatal accidents at work, which was up to 2% from 2017. That gives a rate of 3.5 per 100,000 workers.

Most workers’ compensation accidents were transportation incidents. They accounted for 40% of the total figure at 2,080. The most dangerous jobs according to these figures were drivers/salespeople and truck drivers, with tractor-trailer truck drivers being the worst of all.

Slips and Falls

You might not think much of a little fall, but they can actually do a lot of harm! The older you get, the more likely you’re going to suffer some pretty serious damage from a fall, and a lot of them are the fault of someone else.

Here are some facts about slips and falls you might now know:

• Slips and falls result in over 1 million emergency room visits in the US every year
• More women have slip and fall accidents than men, although they’re less fatal for women
• 5% of all people who have a fall experience a fracture, making it the most common and serious consequence of this type of accident
• Slips and falls are the biggest reason for time off work due to occupational injury
• 1 in 3 people over the age of 65 in American will have a fall, and half of them will fall more than once
• Slips and falls are the biggest cause for compensation from injury amongst people in the trucking industry

Other Injuries

There are plenty of ways you can become accidentally injured, and a lot of cases fall under the category of ‘other’. Let’s check out some of the facts from these injuries.

• Around 4.7 million people in the United States are bitten by a dog every year, and there are about 16 fatal cases
• There were 776 incidents and accidents from children’s products that resulted in 58 product recalls in 2019, which was less than in 2018.
• Every 15 seconds, 1 accidental exposure to poison is called in to the U.S. poison control centers.

What to Do if You Have a Personal Injury

As you can see, personal injuries aren’t uncommon. Whether you’re at work or out for an evening walk, they can happen anywhere at any time! If you have a personal injury, the first thing you need to do is visit a medical professional who can check your injuries and treat them properly.

You should also find an experienced personal injury lawyer who can help you make a claim. If you’ve been injured and it wasn’t your fault, don’t sit by and let the consequences affect your life. Take action and get the help you need!

Find a Doctor Today

If you’ve enjoyed these personal injury statistics, be sure to take a look at other articles on our website!

If you’ve had a personal injury, call 1-800-897-8440 to make sure you get the right medical help. From an auto accident to a spine injury, we’ll help you get the treatment you need.