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How Much Will You Receive For Your Injury?

If you’ve been in a car, slip and fall or other kind of accident, you must decide whether to make a claim. Several factors must be analyzed when making this decision, including whether the law allows a recovery from the person who caused the accident, and whether that person has enough money, property or insurance to make the claim worth pursuing.

Another key factor in deciding whether to make a claim is estimating the amount of damages you may receive for your injuries and losses. Though no one ever knows in advance exactly how much he or she will receive, certain guidelines apply in most cases. Here are some guidelines to estimate how much you may be able to recover for an accident claim.

Categories of Damages

Courts recognize various kinds of damages in deciding how much money to award, including:

Medical expenses. You can receive the amount of money already spent for treatment as well as the amount estimated for your future medical costs. Medical expenses covers a broad range of costs, including costs for doctors and other health care providers, hospital bills, costs for medicines (both prescription and over the counter) and even travel costs to and from health care providers.

• Pain and suffering. Despite medical treatment, there may be ongoing pain that can’t be cured. The court can try to place a value on this and award you money for it.

• Disfigurement and loss of function. Many accidents result in a person suffering disfigurement or the partial or total loss of use of a body part. Scarring, disfigurement and the loss of a body part will be compensated.

• Income and earnings. This covers income you lost plus money for any reduced earning capacity in the future.

• Loss of enjoyment. Many injuries force people to change their lifestyles. For example, the accident may result in them missing family and social events, trips and other enjoyable activities. Money can be awarded for this.

• Loss of consortium. Injuries to a married person can affect the companionship he or she provides. The spouse can recover damages for this.

• Property damage. Damages can be awarded to fix or replace property damaged in the accident, or to reflect its reduced value.

One way to estimate a recovery is to add up the dollar amounts described above. This provides a first rough estimate of an amount you might recover. Further analysis may show the estimate should be raised or lowered depending on other factors, including the strength of the evidence and whether you were partly at fault for the accident.

How Non-Economic Losses Are Valued

It’s easier to calculate some types of damages, like lost wages and medical expenses. But how are other damages — like pain, suffering and scarring — valued? When placing a value on these, your lawyer looks to jury awards and previous cases to help determine how much you may receive.

Why Recoveries Differ

Some accident victims look at the damages received by another person who had similar injuries and expect to receive the same amount of money.

This is rarely the case. One reason why is that many factors go into valuing an injury, so a change in just one factor can affect the amount received. Another reason is that in some communities, juries make smaller awards.

Remember Insurance

When estimating a recovery, don’t forget about the availability of insurance. The other side may have liability insurance. You may have health or other insurance that will pay you some of the money the other side cannot. This can also be considered when evaluating how much you may be able to recover for an accident.

The categories and steps discussed above are guidelines for estimating how much accident victims can recover for their injuries and losses. The damages to be awarded depend on all the ways the injury affects the person involved. Our law firm can help you perform this important estimate in the event you are in an accident.

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When you have been injured because of the carelessness or negligence of another person, you want an experienced and aggressive lawyer to ensure that your rights are protected.
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When you seek medical attention, you anticipate that at a minimum your condition won’t worsen because of the carelessness or negligence of physicians, nurses or other medical personnel.
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In most instances, in the aftermath of a work-related injury you have the right to seek monetary benefits under state workers’ compensation laws, so that you can recover lost wages and medical expenses.

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We understand that family law matters can be highly emotional, and that different solutions work for different clients.

Many people have the idea that when we file a lawsuit, we are suing the person. We are not. We are suing the insurance company that the person has been paying to protect them against a loss like this. The insurance company that this person has been paying for quite some time.

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