Mild TBI / Concussion Settlements in Arizona (2026)

For a moderate mild TBI or concussion case in Arizona with clear liability and documented treatment, reported settlements typically range from $48,000 to $112,000, with a midpoint around $80,000. This is not legal advice, and your case will differ from any benchmark. But if you're trying to calibrate before you talk to anyone, that's the honest range for a typical claim — not the outliers that end up on law firm websites.

What Moves the Number

Five factors do most of the work in moving a mild TBI settlement up or down within that range.

How well the injury is documented. Concussions are notoriously hard to prove. No fracture on imaging, no obvious bleed. If your treating physician documented cognitive symptoms, balance issues, or post-concussion syndrome at the time of injury — and kept documenting them — that's worth real money. A diagnosis that only shows up six months later, after a treatment gap, is worth significantly less. Adjusters know the gap argument and they use it.

Whether a neuropsychologist got involved. Neuropsychological testing that quantifies cognitive deficits moves mild TBI cases toward the high end of the range. Without it, the defense will argue the symptoms are subjective and unverifiable. With it, you have objective data. That distinction alone can be the difference between a $55,000 offer and a $95,000 offer on otherwise similar facts.

Liability clarity. A rear-end collision with a police report, a witness, and a clean driving record on your side is a different case than a disputed intersection crash where both drivers say the light was green. Arizona follows pure comparative negligence under Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 12-2505, so even partial fault doesn't bar recovery — but every percentage of fault assigned to you reduces your damages proportionally. A 25% fault finding on a $100,000 case costs you $25,000. That's not abstract.

Lost income and future earning capacity. If you missed two weeks of work as a salaried professional, that's documentable and it adds to your specials. If you're self-employed and your records are inconsistent, that number is harder to prove and adjusters will discount it. Future earning capacity claims require expert support — without a vocational expert or economist, they're easy to attack.

Where the case is filed. Maricopa and Pima County juries tend toward moderate damages compared to, say, Los Angeles or Chicago. Rural Arizona counties can run more conservative still. A case that might settle for $110,000 in a plaintiff-friendly venue might settle for $75,000 in a rural Arizona county because both sides know what a local jury is likely to do. Venue is a real variable, not a footnote.

The Math: How Demand Numbers Get Built

Lawyers and adjusters don't just pick numbers. They start with your special damages — medical bills, lost wages, out-of-pocket costs — and apply a multiplier to account for pain, suffering, and non-economic harm. For mild TBI cases, that multiplier typically runs 6x to 9x of specials, which is higher than a soft-tissue whiplash case because the injury category carries more weight.

Here's what the math looks like with real numbers. Say your medical bills total $14,000 and you lost $4,000 in wages. Your specials are $18,000. At a 6x multiplier, the opening demand is $108,000. At 9x, it's $162,000. Settlements in Arizona typically land somewhere around 60–70% of the demand number after negotiation, which puts actual settlement in the $65,000 to $113,000 range on those facts — consistent with the benchmark.

If your bills crossed $25,000 and you had imaging, specialist visits, and formal neuropsych testing, the multiplier stays high and the specials base is larger. That's how cases push toward and past $112,000. If your bills were $8,000 and you treated only for six weeks, the math compresses quickly toward the lower end.

Why the Range Is Wide

A $48,000 to $112,000 range is a 2x spread, and that's not an accident. Mild TBI is genuinely one of the harder injury categories to value consistently because the injury itself is invisible on standard imaging, symptoms vary enormously between people, and the defense has real tools to challenge causation.

Treatment gaps hurt badly in this category. If you saw a doctor at the ER, then waited three months before following up, the defense will argue the gap proves you recovered. Whether that argument succeeds depends on what your records actually say and how your attorney counters it — but the gap creates real exposure. Consistent, documented treatment from injury through resolution is the single most controllable variable in a mild TBI case.

Surgical cases aren't typical for mild TBI by definition, but if a concussion is accompanied by other injuries that required surgery, the combined case value moves substantially higher. The TBI component alone, without surgery, sits in the range above. Add a cervical surgery to the same accident and you're looking at a different case entirely.

Arizona has no statutory cap on compensatory damages under the state constitution, so there's no ceiling imposed by law. The practical ceiling is what a jury in your venue would actually award — and that's a judgment call that experienced local attorneys make better than any calculator.

Outliers: The $10K Cases and the $1M Cases

Cases settle below $48,000 when liability is genuinely disputed, when there's a significant treatment gap with no good explanation, when the plaintiff has prior head injuries or pre-existing neurological conditions that muddy causation, or when the medical bills are low and no specialist ever documented ongoing symptoms. A $10,000 to $25,000 outcome on a mild TBI claim is real and more common than the marketing pages suggest.

Cases reach $500,000 or more when the concussion is accompanied by documented post-concussion syndrome lasting years, when the plaintiff has a high-income occupation and can prove substantial lost earning capacity, when the defendant's conduct was egregious enough to support a punitive damages argument, or when the case goes to a jury that simply believes the plaintiff. Those outcomes exist. They're not the median.

Attorneys materially change outcomes in mild TBI cases more than in many other injury categories, specifically because the documentation and expert strategy matter so much. That's not a pitch — it's an observation from watching how these cases develop. A case with strong neuropsych testing and a well-prepared demand package settles differently than the same facts handled without that groundwork.