You Reject a Great Offer, Now What Happens?

Transcript: Hi, I’m Indiana personal injury attorney David Holub.

Suppose you consult with your attorney before trial and decide to reject a great offer in settlement and go to trial.

What happens if afterthe trial you lose and the verdict is for the defendant?

Great question and you better make sure you know the answer before you go to trial. Whenever an attorney is presented with a settlement offer, either before trial or during trial, they’re obligated to bring that offer to the client’s attention and go through it with the client. Expect your attorney to advise you on the reasonableness of the offer.

Expect your attorney to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your case. Expect the attorney to tell you that the key risk of rejecting an offer is that you can go to trial and lose. You can get zero or you can get less than what that offer is that’s been put on the table. Even for the strongest cases, there’s no guarantee that you will win at trial. What is your option if you lose at trial? Well, there is an option of an appeal, but you can only appeal errors or mistakes that have been made by the trial court.

That would mean if the trial court failed to admit evidence that you offered and that should have been admitted or that the trial court admitted evidence that you objected to which should have been refused. Another basis for appeal might be that you subsequently found out that someone paid off a juror to decide a case in favor of the defense. So, if you lose at trial you might possibly appeal the verdict, but it’s going to be costly, it’s going to be time consuming, and there’s no sure chance that you will win on appeal.

And if you do win on appeal, what it usually means is that there will be a new trial. You’ll have to start back at square one, have another jury selected, and go through another trial.

So if you reject a great offer and decide to go to trial, be sure that you discuss with your attorney your options should you lose or should you get a verdict that’s less than what has been offered.

That’s it for this video.

We have lots of other videos on our website that we invite you to check out and listen to.