I just received this month’s Georgia Trial Reporter.  This is a monthly report that publishes settlement and jury verdicts from around Georgia.  It is what attorneys use to research the value of your case.  Your attorney, if they have a subscription to the report, can go online and query for facts similar to yours to figure out how much your case is worth.

This month’s publication reports the average value (settlement & verdicts) of a case involving a lumbar (i.e. lower back) disc injury with surgery is $115,000.  The average value of a cervical (neck) disc injury with surgery is $125,000.  Keep in mind these are only averages.  Most of the cases we see that involve back surgery usually also involve a herniated disc that is pushing on a nerve.  So why the $10,000 difference in the two types of injuries?  First, a ten thousand dollar difference represents less than a 10% gap.  If I had to guess what is behind the numbers I would have to say that many people (i.e. jurors) suffer from lower back pain so they tend to diminish the value of such a problem because they have all felt the pain themselves.  Versus most of us instinctively protect our necks which would lead jurors to take such an injury more seriously, not that every spinal injury is not serious.