Handling the Unreasonable Claimant: How To Replace Fantasy With Reality

From an early age, we learn through literature and movies that fantasy is attainable. A young woman living in obscurity and neglect can slip on glass shoes and ride a pumpkin to the castle to marry a prince. Is it any wonder that a claimant might expect a soft-tissue injury to generate a windfall?

The challenge of settling a claim with a claimant who has unrealistic expectations is simultaneously the bane and victory of our work.

Claimants fall prey to advertisements that promise a victim’s claims can be settled in six figures. They undergo exhaustive medical care, diagnostic examinations, and sometimes even surgery in the hope that they will net enough money to retire, without a real understanding of how claims can be mitigated by discovery of pre-existing conditions and prior treatment.

Claimants often do not realize that claims databases are becoming more available and that, in many forums, making a personal injury complaint can open their medical histories, which would otherwise enjoy the protective shield of HIPAA, to investigation.