Our Personal Injury Settlements
After a serious injury, the questions pile up fast. How will the medical bills get paid? What happens if you can’t go back to work? What is your case actually worth?
There’s no single number that answers that last question, but there is a method. On this page, we explain how settlements work, how we build the value of a claim step by step, and the results our team and our sister firms have achieved for injured people and their families.
How Personal Injury Settlements Work
A settlement is an agreement that resolves a claim without a judge or jury deciding the outcome. A verdict comes after a trial, when the jury weighs the evidence and decides who is responsible and what the injured person should receive. Personal injury settlements can happen before a lawsuit is filed, during litigation, or even in the middle of trial.
What a Settlement Can Cover
Depending on the case, a settlement may cover medical bills, rehabilitation, lost income, reduced earning ability, and pain and suffering. When an injury is permanent, it may also account for future medical care, help with daily activities, and the long-term effect on your career and family life. In fatal accident cases, our wrongful death lawyers evaluate the losses Massachusetts law recognizes for surviving families.
How a Case Moves Forward
We start by gathering the evidence: photographs, incident reports, witness accounts, medical records, employment information, and insurance documents. Once we understand the full extent of your injuries, we present a demand to the insurer and respond to any defenses it raises. Before any offer is accepted, rejected, or countered, and before any case heads to court, we talk it through with you.
How We Build the Value of Your Claim
Valuing a claim isn’t a formula, but it isn’t guesswork either. Here’s the order we work in, and why each step matters.
Step 1: We Add Up Your Economic Losses
We start with the costs you can measure: medical bills, future care, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity. In a Massachusetts car crash, your own PIP coverage pays the first $8,000 of medical bills and lost wages regardless of who was at fault, so part of this is covered before any claim against the other driver begins.
Step 2: We Confirm Whether Pain and Suffering Damages Are Available
In motor vehicle cases, Massachusetts requires more than $2,000 in reasonable and necessary medical expenses before you can recover for pain and suffering. The exceptions are cases involving death, loss of a body part, permanent and serious disfigurement, a broken bone, or loss of sight or hearing. Without a qualifying injury, a claim is limited to economic losses.
Step 3: We Show the Real Impact of Your Injury
This is where case values diverge the most. A herniated disc that heals in four months and one that ends a career share the same diagnosis but carry very different value. What separates them is documentation: treatment records that track your recovery, the activities you can no longer do, and the people who see your daily reality.
Step 4: We Account for Shared Fault
Massachusetts reduces your recovery by your share of fault and bars recovery entirely if your share is greater than the combined fault of the parties you’re suing. A $200,000 claim with 20% fault assigned to you is worth $160,000.
At 51%, it’s worth nothing. That’s why details like speed, lighting, footwear, and warning signs matter so much.
Step 5: We Find Every Source of Payment
A claim is only worth what someone can pay. A minimum-limits auto policy caps recovery no matter how strong the first four steps are, so identifying every responsible party, whether an employer, a commercial carrier, a property owner, or a product manufacturer, often matters more than any argument over damages.
Two more factors work in your favor. Prejudgment interest in Massachusetts tort cases runs at 12% per year from the date the lawsuit is filed, so delay grows more expensive for the defense. An insurer that fails to settle promptly and fairly when liability is reasonably clear may face liability under Massachusetts consumer protection law.
Neither guarantees an outcome, but both help explain why a case prepared for trial is valued differently from one that isn’t.
Results Our Team Has Helped Achieve
Here are some of the more notable results our team has helped win for our clients.
$55.7 Million Landmark Cyberstalking Settlement
A Massachusetts couple was targeted by a coordinated harassment campaign carried out by former eBay employees after the couple reported on the company. Diller Law and Finkelstein & Partners handled the litigation and prepared the case for trial, securing a record settlement with part of the funds supporting First Amendment causes.
$28.75 Million for a Paralyzed Young Motorcyclist
An 18-year-old rider was paralyzed from the waist down after a commercial van cut across his lane in Palmer, Massachusetts. With Marc Diller and Andrew Finkelstein serving as trial partners, a forensic animation of the crash helped drive the case to settlement two years before trial.
Results from Our Sister Firms
Diller Law is part of a family of firms that share resources, experience, and a commitment to injured people. Here are some of the most significant results obtained by our sister firm, Finkelstein & Partners:
- $125 million for a man catastrophically injured in a gas explosion caused by a utility’s unmarked lines, believed to be the largest settlement for a single injured person in New York history.
- $50 million in a confidential settlement for a worker hurt in a construction accident.
- $34.3 million jury verdict against Wyeth and Pfizer for a woman who developed breast cancer after years of hormone replacement therapy.
- $31 million jury verdict for a driver rear-ended on the Mid-Hudson Bridge by a box truck driver using his phone.
- $28.3 million unanimous jury verdict for a roofer who fell 18 feet after the contractor failed to provide a lift, following a $2.5 million offer from the insurer.
- $27.385 million structured settlement, expected to pay over $35 million, for a woman catastrophically injured when a truck struck her from behind.
- $16.5 million settlement during a federal trial for the family of a worker killed by an industrial machine with a known, unfixed design defect.
- $13.5 million unanimous verdict for a woman hurt in a low-damage rear-end crash, despite the insurer blaming her prior injuries.
- $13.5 million settlement, paid over her lifetime, for a teenage passenger seriously injured when the car she was riding in left the road.
- $13 million jury verdict for a man injured at a water park by an improperly installed underwater hook, after the defense suggested $200,000 at most.
- $12.75 million settlement for a delivery driver who lost a leg after a store disabled the safety gate on its delivery lift.
- $11.1 million settlement against a town whose police officers told a junior driver to break the law, leading to a crash that critically injured a teenage passenger.
Past Results Can’t Predict Future Results in Similar Cases
Every case has its own evidence, injuries, insurance, and defenses. A result in one case doesn’t mean the same amount or outcome is available in another, even when the facts look similar. That’s why we evaluate every claim individually and don’t put a number on a case until we understand the evidence and how the injury has affected your life.
What to Expect When You Meet with Our Boston Personal Injury Team
Our Boston personal injury lawyers represent people and families hurt in motor vehicle crashes, on unsafe properties, by defective products, in construction accidents, and in animal attacks. We’ll listen to what happened, explain how the process works, and discuss what may come next under Massachusetts law.
What to Bring
Helpful materials include photographs, medical records, bills, insurance letters, police or incident reports, witness information, and proof of missed work. Don’t worry if you don’t have everything. Some records need to come from doctors, employers, businesses, or government agencies, and we can help request them.
Why Timing Matters
Massachusetts generally requires personal injury lawsuits to be filed within three years under General Laws Chapter 260, Section 2A, though some cases have different deadlines or notice rules. Video footage gets erased, conditions change, and witnesses become harder to find over time. Reaching out early helps protect both your deadline and your evidence.
Request a Free Consultation
Contact our Boston office to tell us what happened and request a consultation. Contacting us doesn’t guarantee that we can take your case or obtain a particular result.