A black female school teacher facing multiple surgeries after a car accident and a four-year-old Hispanic boy with brain damage from lead paint in a rented apartment.
Both lives forever changed by the carelessness of others.
And both lives valued less than a white male’s when it came time to calculate their projected future earnings in personal injury claims.
Because 95% of personal injury claims result in confidential settlements, it is difficult to measure how often insurance companies and juries award females and minorities less than white males, or how great the disparity is nationwide. However, some trial lawyers, academics and policy makers argue that the practice is prevalent and unjust.