Claim Value Evolves as Evidence and Legal Risk Become Clearer
A Detroit injury claim is not calculated with a universal multiplier, average settlement, or online score. A defensible range develops from documented loss, responsibility evidence, causal proof, Michigan fault and no-fault rules, insurance, collectability, litigation expense, liens, timing, and uncertainty. Each assumption must be visible and capable of revision.
Construct the Loss Ledger Before Applying Risk
For a bodily injury claim, create separate entries for health-care expense, income effects, damaged property, substitute help, projected needs, and personal impact when legally recoverable. Each entry should show dates, source, causal basis, payer status, calculation, and unresolved assumption.
An injury claim lawyer should distinguish incurred amounts from projections and eliminate duplicate categories. Compare charges with payment data, wage assertions with payroll or business records, future needs with qualified support, and functional effects with contemporaneous evidence.
Apply Responsibility, Causation, and Michigan-Specific Filters
Test competing event accounts, witness credibility, prior conditions, later causes, treatment sequence, defenses, and the evidence connecting each alleged act to each loss. Michigan generally applies a proportional reduction based on claimant fault. When that allocation exceeds 50 percent, noneconomic recovery is ordinarily unavailable, while economic damages are still reduced, within the governing statute's limits and exceptions.
When a motor vehicle is involved, Michigan no-fault benefits and tort thresholds add another analysis. Policy language, optional UM or UIM coverage, multiple defendants, public entities, workers' compensation, products, and professional claims may change available routes or damages. Do not apply one case's filters to another.
Model Collection and Net as Independent Layers
Maintain separate fields for the asserted loss total, negotiation proposal, potential court award, amount realistically collectible, and projected client net. Coverage limits, exclusions, defendant resources, liens, reimbursement, fees, expenses, taxes, approvals, and collection risk affect different layers.
Update the range when testimony, records, diagnosis, work status, expert opinion, coverage, fault analysis, a ruling, litigation cost, offer, or lien changes. Preserve each prior version and identify the new source behind the revision. A valuation explains assumptions and uncertainty; it cannot promise recovery, settlement, or final net. Add a sensitivity table showing which unresolved fact would change the range most and what evidence can answer it. Record the date, reviewer, source, and quantified effect for every material revision in the workbook. At S&S Law, we help Detroit clients with claim valuation.