What Damages Are Involved in Your Personal Injury Case?
After you have suffered an injury in car accident, at your workplace, or in any situation, you need to assess the situation and find the mechanism of injury or what caused your injury. Personal injury cases arise in a number of situations. Although many people in the U.S. might think these cases are frivolous and impose unnecessary burdens on people who are honest and hard working, you’d be surprised at the statistics behind how many Americans file personal injury lawsuits.
Personal injury lawsuits only account for 4.4% of all lawsuits filed in the civil courts (16 million in 2012). In fact there has been a steadily decreasing rate of personal injury lawsuits over the last decade. Therefore, if you find yourself injured and have discovered that the mechanism of injury was in fact a third party, you need to make the call to the Loewy Law Firm and get the compensation you need for recovery.
So what damages will you receive in a personal injury lawsuit?
Compensatory Damages
Compensatory damages include economic damages (those that can be quantified) and non-economic damages (those that cannot be quantified). They are meant to compensate you for the losses you have suffered either materialistically or mentally and emotionally.
- ECONOMIC DAMAGES
- property damages—In a personal injury lawsuit, these are economic damages to cover the amount of damage to your property like a vehicle or valuable item in a vehicle. These are usually proved by quotes from mechanics or how much was spent on fixing a vehicle.
- medical expenses—These are economic damages that cover what you need medically for a full recovery. This amount is often disputed by insurance companies because it can be argued that some expenses did not result from the accident. This also cover future medical expenses which is also easily disputed because it is an estimate.
- lost wages—When your injury has caused you to miss work, you need money to live on right? Damages for lost wages cover the amount of money you would have made from your job had you not been injured.
- NON-ECONOMIC DAMAGES
- pain and suffering—These damages are not quantifiable. Damages for pain and suffering are hard to prove because only you feel the pain and suffering. However there are ways to measure this like the use of painkillers or the time for recovery. These damages are meant to compensate you for the pain and suffering you endure
- mental anguish/emotional distress—These are similar to pain and suffering in the nature of quantifying them for the court; however, they are not the same as pain and suffering. It is more about the mental health. For instance, if you were to get hit by a car as your mother was watching you pull out of the driveway, in some states your mom (depending on certain criteria) might deserve compensation for emotional distress.
- loss of consortium—Some injuries leave a person unable to provide the love and care that they provided before their injury. When relationships suffer because of a permanent or disabling injury, loss of consortium damages will attempt to compensate for this loss.
- lost opportunity—These are damages for the loss of an opportunity. LIke if a high school football player had received a full ride scholarship to a university but was suddenly hit by a drunk drive a week before starting the team. He would deserve compensation.
Punitive (Non-Compensatory) Damages
These damages only come in one form: punishment. Punitive damages exist so that when a third party like a corporation or drunk driver act grossly negligent, they can be punished in the civil courts. So after all the compensatory damages have been accounted for, we can then look at the circumstances surround the case, decide if the party was grossly negligent, and then work to prove the need for punitive damages to prevent the future occurrence of the injury.
Every Case Is Different
There is no telling without further investigation what type of damages your case involves. We take each case and focus on every minute detail. We use our comprehensive and critical knowledge of the law to ensure we’ve made every connection in your case to get your just compensation. We also want to make sure you are informed of every option you have so we make sure to keep you informed of your case’s status and any opportunities we have to improve it.
Call us today for a free consultation and we’ll get to work quicker than you can say, “I need compensation.”