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A: Depending on the severity of the injury and how long it keeps you out of work, company settlements and court verdicts can range from tens of thousands of dollars to multi-million dollar amounts. The following dollar amounts resulted from actual back cases.
One worker hurt on the drilling floor rejected the company’s lowball $25,000 settlement offer. Even though the company doctor recommended back surgery, the employer turned vindictive and filed fraud charges, claiming the worker suffered the injury before he was hired. The jury said “no way” and awarded the worker $550,000.
In another case where a company defied its own doctor’s recommendation for back surgery and claimed the injury happened away from the workplace—even though it admitted that it was at fault for the accident—it paid out $650,000 in a settlement for a worker who injured his lower back and knee. The company may have become nervous after private investigators obtained video evidence of the victim working after undergoing knee surgery.
A seaman was awarded $1,400,000 by a judge after a lower back injury because he would be unable to continue his career which paid him about $40,000 a year.
A company who first claimed its worker was entirely at fault for his back injury ended up settling for over $500,000.
