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Enclosed Is Your Check For $1 Million Dollars

By Gerry Oginski

Two days ago I received this letter:

"Dear Mr. Oginski,

Enclosed is your check for $1,000,000. This represents the full and final settlement of this action."

Looking at this remarkable check, I couldn't help but think how useful this will be for my client who suffered permanent and irreversible injury due to medical wrongdoing. So often we read about injured victims who abuse the legal process for their own financial gain, as well as lawyers looking to make a quick buck at the expense of their clients. However, little is written about the seriously injured victim who goes quietly into the night after settling their case with a "no publicity" clause.

In New York, many insurance companies demand that the attorney and injured victim agree not to publicize the terms of the settlement. The injured victim is often left without much choice should they wish to settle their case for the number being offered by the insurance company. Obviously, if the settlement offer is unacceptable and the case goes to a verdict, the winner is free to publicize that verdict in any way they choose.

There are some people who think that a $1 million settlement is a windfall. There are others who look at it as a winning lottery ticket. Yet there are similarly injured victims who look at it as insufficient compensation for the horrible and irreversible injuries this person suffered through no fault of their own.

You think $1 million is a lot of money for an injured victim? Let me put this in perspective.

A classic closing argument involves an attorney asking a jury to imagine that they open the newspaper and see a classified ad saying "Get $1 million for free." As you can imagine, thousands of people line up at that person's door trying to be the first one to get that million-dollar offer.

However, suppose there were conditions that you had to meet in order to obtain that $1 million? The first condition was that you had to be involved in a horrible accident. You then had to be transported by helicopter to the nearest trauma center. You had fractures of your femur, your skull and your arm. You required emergency surgery to fix the fractures and internal bleeding.

If that wasn't enough, one of the other conditions involved your hospitalization for four weeks and then undergo four weeks of physical therapy and rehabilitation. You think people would still be standing in line asking for that free $1 million?

In addition to that, what if there were additional stipulations before you could ever get that free $1 million dollars? Those preconditions involve staying at home for the next seven months being unable to work. You lost your job because you could not return to work. You are unable to support your family and have to declare bankruptcy because of it. You rack up medical bills totalling $150,000. How may people do you think would still be asking for that free $1 million dollars?

The example above is used to show to a jury that nobody would want to take that kind of money and have to go through all the problems, surgeries, hospitalizations, pain, or rehabilitation that this person went through. It is simply is not worth.

So, when I saw the check addressed to my client and my law firm telling me "Here's your $1 million dollar settlement, I couldn't help but think about the injuries, the suffering, and the turmoil my client endured to justify obtaining a $1 million settlement on his case.

Full post as published by New York Medical Malpractice Blog on May 08, 2009 (boomark / email).