A car accident can disrupt your entire life for months. Not only do you have the damage to your car to contend with, but you may also have physical injuries that leave you battered and bruised for quite a while. Medical bills can quickly pile up, and you can burn right through your sick leave at work.
It's only natural to wonder what kind of compensation you can claim in a lawsuit after the accident. Here are some things to consider.
There are economic losses to consider.
Each state's laws regarding financial recovery after a car accident are a little different, but you can generally expect your personal injury attorney to ask for the following kinds of damages:
All of these things are considered economic losses. There's a tangible dollar sign that can be assigned to them, based on the records you have. To determine the amount of medical expenses you can claim, for example, you simply have to look at everything you have been billed for that was related to the accident.
There are also non-economic losses to think about.
Non-economic losses are things that don't have an easily-assigned dollar figure. Most of the time when non-economic losses are discussed surrounding a personal injury claim, people are talking about a victim's pain and suffering.
Nobody should have to endure months of physical pain or the resulting emotional agony following an accident caused by another person's negligence. Generally speaking, the worse your accident and injuries, the larger your compensation for pain and suffering will be.
Punitive damages are also sometimes possible.
Sometimes the court will also award punitive damages, which is another type of non-economic payment. Punitive damages are only given in cases where the negligent party acted in such a way that it is offensive to ordinary people. Punitive damages aren't designed to compensate the victim -- although they have that effect -- but to punish the negligent party. They serve as a deterrent to others.
If you've been injured in a car accident, an attorney from a firm that provides personal injury attorney services can help you determine the value of your claim.
Share28 November 2018
After I was in a car accident, I wasn't sure what I was going to do in the future. I had some really significant back and neck pain, so I started talking with a lawyer about how to recover some of my losses. I began working with an attorney to take care of things, but I was nervous about how the process would unfold. I began working with the attorney to evaluate every component of the incident, and help me to decode the problems I was faced with. We worked on learning more about the lawsuit, and it helped me to make sense of the situation. Learn more about accidents on this blog.