You’ve hurt your back—and now it feels like your entire life is out of alignment. You can’t sit comfortably. You can’t sleep well. Even simple tasks like getting out of the car or picking up groceries can rattle you with fear of pain. And every time you get another medical bill, you wonder: what’s this going to cost me, and who’s going to pay for it?
When you evaluate the cost of a back injury, you must consider medical bills and other expenses. You must also know that the very challenges we alluded to, like physical pain and a life in disarray, can also entitle you to compensation. Only with a personalized evaluation can we tell you what your back injury will be worth in a lawsuit (or insurance claim).
Get your personalized evaluation from Englander Peebles, a trusted Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer team and South Florida injury attorneys who know how devastating back injuries can be—and how a fair financial recovery is integral to healing.
Key Takeaways - Back Injuries and Calculating Worth
- Back injuries can be physically, emotionally, and financially life-altering, as they significantly impact your ability to work, sleep, and move comfortably, often altering your daily routine completely.
- The severity, type of accident, and long-term prognosis all affect the value of a back injury claim: Have a personal injury attorney evaluate your unique case so they can provide an accurate valuation of your damages.
- Compensation can include both economic damages and non-economic damages: Back injuries cause financial expenses (like medical bills) and non-economic harm (like pain and lost quality of life), and your claim or lawsuit must reflect both categories of damages.
- The South Florida back injury attorneys like Englander Peebles work with medical professionals to bolster our cases: Their experience ensures that your case is valued accurately and presented convincingly, adding another layer of credibility to an already strong case.
- The sooner you hire a lawyer from our team, the fewer risks you face (and the stronger case you may have): Florida’s statute of limitations for filing back injury lawsuits, and the fleeting nature of critical evidence, are two compelling reasons to call Englander Peebles today.
The Restricted, Painful Reality of Living With a Back Injury
A back injury isn’t just a sore muscle you should ice for a bit and tough out. A back injury can affect virtually every aspect of your life, from how quickly you get out of bed to your ability to exercise and the amount of joy (or agony) you experience day to day.
The back is the core of nearly every movement, including bending, twisting, walking, sitting, and driving. When it’s injured, you can be vulnerable to:
- Chronic or radiating pain: This often extends down the legs or arms, signaling sciatica or nerve compression.
- Muscle spasms: These sudden, severe contractions can make standing or walking nearly impossible.
- Stiffness or reduced mobility: This limits your ability to turn, bend, or perform simple physical tasks.
- Numbness or tingling: These sensations signal possible nerve involvement and deserve immediate attention.
- Weakness or loss of balance: This increases the risk of further injury or falls during recovery.
Back injuries are among the leading reasons for emergency care and can be both persistent and disabling. Severe spinal injuries can require years of rehabilitation, and some victims never fully recover. This reality isn’t just physically draining—it’s also emotionally and psychologically exhausting.
People with chronic back pain often struggle with anxiety, depression, irritability, and sleep deprivation. They might stop their daily jogs, which bring them joy and keep them in shape. They might withdraw socially, show less affection to their significant other, and cannot pursue their career—they might stop being themselves.
This is the restricted, painful reality that often follows back injuries. This is the reality Englander Peebles’ attorneys demand fair compensation for on behalf of our clients.
Common Causes of Back Injuries in South Florida
Not every back injury justifies an insurance claim or lawsuit. Some arise from routine actions, such as bending and lifting, and these types of injuries may or may not justify a claim or legal action.
Many serious back injuries don’t result from such subtle causes, but instead from rare, devastating events. These events (and resulting injuries) are often grounds to seek compensation from an insurance company or negligence party, and these events include:
- Car and truck crashes: Rear-end collisions frequently cause herniated discs, whiplash, and spinal strain.
- Bicycle and pedestrian accidents: When drivers fail to yield or glance at their phones instead of the crosswalk, cyclists and pedestrians can suffer severe spinal or disc injuries from even a single impact.
- Motorcycle accidents: Without the protection of a car’s frame, riders are highly vulnerable to spinal cord trauma, fractures, and herniated discs when struck or thrown from their bike.
- Train accidents: Collisions or stoppages involving Brightline or freight trains can happen with tremendous force, potentially resulting in crushed vertebrae, paralysis, or other adverse health outcomes for victims.
- Medical malpractice: Surgical errors, improper anesthesia, or delayed diagnoses can damage the spine or worsen pre-existing back conditions. When negligence in a hospital or clinic leads to lasting pain, victims deserve full accountability and compensation. Medical errors can be catastrophic, and back injuries are one of those potentially catastrophic outcomes.
- Slip-and-fall incidents: Wet floors, uneven pavement, clutter, and other slipping hazards can cause falls that result in victims sustaining compression fractures, disc bulges, and other back injuries.
- Boating and jet ski collisions: South Florida’s waterways see far too many accidents that cause serious back injuries.
When Englander Peebles represents clients with back injuries, we always consider how the injury happened. Investigating how can lead us to other damages (such as vehicle repairs), and they are also vital in determining who is at fault for our client’s back injury.
Damages That Determine the Value of a Back Injury
The total value of a back injury is the total of the damages it causes. Therefore, our South Florida back injury attorneys document each of our clients’ back injury-related damages, which typically fall into two categories:
Economic Damages
Economic damages are primarily, if not exclusively, financial in nature. Some common economic damages suffered by those with back injuries are:
- Medical bills
- Bills for mental health services
- Lost income related to the back injury
- Loss of earning capacity
- Property damage costs (like vehicle repairs or replacing damaged jewelry)
- Temporary transportation costs
The more severe a back injury, the more expensive one’s economic damages tend to be. That said, you do not necessarily have to suffer a “severe” back injury to face significant financial harm.
Non-Economic Damages
When we think of economic damages, financial loss is not the first thing that comes to mind. Unlike a medical bill or a month’s worth of lost pay, non-economic damages tend not to have an obvious financial component—though it will be your attorney’s job to assign them a fair monetary value.
Some types of non-economic damages that can stem from a back injury are:
- Pain and suffering, which can include both physical pain and discomfort, emotional anguish, psychological distress, and other hardships
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of consortium, which accounts for the strain on your closest personal relationships, primarily with your spouse
- Disfigurement
Cases of severe back injuries—those involving paralysis, nerve damage, or permanent impairment, for example—can result in life-changing settlements or verdicts that reflect the life-changing nature of such ailments.
The High Cost of Treating a Back Injury
Back injuries tend to be expensive—often shockingly so. Even if you were only accounting for the medical cost of your injury (this will not be the case), you might need a massive sum of money to cover your out-of-pocket expenses. This fact underscores why you should engage Englander Peebles to fight for all the compensation you are entitled to.
Some types of care associated with back injuries are:
- Emergency treatment
- Extensive medical imaging
- Indefinite physical therapy, chiropractic care, and other rehabilitation services
- Surgical procedures (a particularly costly and potentially risky form of treatment)
- Medication
- Assistive devices
Particularly when your back limits your ability to perform your job, you may lose all sense of financial stability. Englander Peebles works closely with medical professionals and economists to calculate the full cost of clients’ back injuries, both present and future.
You Know the Damages. Now Consider the Variables That Can Affect the Total Value of a Back Injury Case.
While we have presented several of the damages that factor into a back injury settlement, there are even more variables that can affect your case value. Those variables include:
- The severity of the back injury
- The type of back injury
- The duration of symptoms (including whether any of them are permanently disabling)
- The extent of the back injury’s impact on employment
- The specific types of treatment required (and the duration of those treatments)
- The degree to which one or more other parties are at fault for the injury
You can see how calculating the value of a back injury is no simple undertaking. Leave it to us, as we are always confident that our settlement demands will cover all of our client’s damages.
How Englander Peebles’ Back Injury Lawyers Build Successful Back Injury Cases in South Florida
Florida has its fair share of retirees, and more years on your lifetime resume do increase your risk of suffering a back injury. We proudly serve our state’s seasoned residents when their backs start to ache and break due to the negligence of others.
However, we can personally attest that a back injury can strike anyone at any time—particularly when people are careless or intentionally reckless.
Englander Peebles demands justice for victims of all ages who have suffered back injuries in a wide range of circumstances, from traffic accidents on I-95 to slip and falls in beachside parking lots and remote Walmarts.
Once we have responsibility for a client’s back injury case, we:
- Investigate the accident: This typically involves gathering police reports, witness statements, video evidence, and, when necessary, reconstructing the accident to benefit the case.
- Document the injury: In back injury cases, we often collaborate with orthopedic and neurological professionals to thoroughly document the details of the injury and the treatment plan.
- Document and quantify the damages: We calculate every financial, medical, physical, personal, emotional, and psychological loss the client has suffered.
- Deal with insurance adjusters: Rest while we deal with insurance companies (whose tactics are known to be self-serving and, at times, unethical).
We will demand the settlement you deserve. Should we need to proceed to trial, we won’t hesitate. Once insurers see Englander Peebles on your side, they recognize that lowball tactics won’t work. Still, disagreements about your compensation can make a trial inevitable.
Do You Always Have to File a Lawsuit to Get Fair Compensation for a Back Injury?
Not always, but we are always prepared for one.
Many back injury claims begin with negotiations over insurance. Sometimes, you can reach a fair settlement without pursuing litigation. Other times, insurers minimize your pain and damages through several well-worn tactics.
When that happens, filing a lawsuit can become the right pathway for the injured party. The lawyers at Englander Peebles are skilled in both negotiation and litigation, seamlessly pivoting from settlement talks to trial prep.
Frequently Asked Questions - Back Injuries
Questions are the common denominator between everyone with a back injury, and some that we hear often are:
1. What if my back injury developed gradually instead of from one accident?
You may still have a valid claim if negligence caused or worsened your condition. A lawyer from Englander Peebles will review your medical history to show how your injury worsened due to the at-fault party’s negligence.
2. How long will my back injury case take to resolve?
We cannot say for sure. Some cases resolve within months, while complex surgical cases may take more than a year to complete. What we can tell you, though, is that the Englander Peebles team will do everything we can to get you paid as soon as possible.
3. What if the insurance company offers me a settlement right away?
Insurers typically make early offers that are too low, which is why they make them so quickly. Insurers often count on victims accepting less compensation before they fully understand the extent of their injury. Always let a lawyer from our team review any offer before signing.
Call a South Florida Back Injury Attorney Today
You’ve been through enough. Now it’s time to make sure you’re not left carrying the financial and emotional burden of someone else’s mistake.
At Englander Peebles, we fight for South Florida’s injured, who just want their lives back. Our attorneys understand the pressure you’re under, and they’re ready to lift it off your shoulders.
Florida’s statute of limitations for personal injury cases is two years. Missing this filing deadline (happens often) can result in the end of your claim. Contact Englander Peebles today at (954) 500-4878 for a complimentary consultation.