What Types of Recoverable Damages Can I Receive From a Car Accident?
The types of recoverable damages you can receive after a car accident are broadly classified as economic and non-economic damages.
Economic damages include property damage, medical expenses, lost wages, and loss of earning capacity. Non-economic damages refer to personal damages like physical pain, mental trauma, and any loss of the ability to enjoy life as you did before.
A car accident lawyer may have the knowledge and experience you need to identify the damages you may recover from a car accident.
Economic Damages
These tangible losses include bills you have to pay because of your accident, and payments you won’t receive because you’re unable to work.
In some cases, fully evaluating damages may require a person to reach what doctors call ‘maximum medical improvement.” At this point, you may not yet be well, but doctors can get a clear picture of your future medical needs.
There are several categories of economic damages, including:
- Property damage: Damage to your car and anything that was in it at the time.
- Medical costs, including future medical costs: Items may include ambulance fees, emergency treatment, hospitalization, surgeries, doctors’ fees, medications, therapies, and medical devices like wheelchairs.
- Lost wages and earnings, including future losses: Apart from lost wages or salaries, or loss of business earnings while you are unable to work, you may claim for paid time off used, and loss of benefits your employer may have paid for.
- Reduced earning capacity: If your injuries mean you suffer permanent impairment or disability, you may not be able to work and earn as you did before the accident occurred.
Calculating all these damages may be more difficult than it seems on the surface. For example, determining what loss of earning capacity means to you may require expert opinions on how your career would have progressed had you not been injured in an accident.
Non-Economic Damages
Being injured in an accident harms you in ways that don’t reflect on your bank balance. Many of these damages fall under the category of “pain and suffering,” which encompasses both physical and emotional pain. Types of recoverable damages you can receive from a car accident case in this category include:
- Physical pain and discomfort: Apart from the physical pain you experience in the days, weeks, and months after an accident, you may be left with ongoing pain and discomfort that lasts for years or becomes a permanent feature of your life.
- Mental and emotional suffering or distress: Being injured in an accident is traumatic, but your distress may not end there. You may suffer from depression, anxiety, and other emotional suffering due to the accident and your injuries.
- Loss of enjoyment (loss of amenities): When injuries have long-term consequences, you may find you can no longer enjoy the activities that gave you pleasure in the past.
- Loss of consortium: Not being able to continue a normal marital relationship due to injuries is a great loss, even though it may feel like a very private one. In some cases, spouses may seek damages for loss of consortium when injuries affect the marital relationship.
- Loss of life expectancy: Certain injuries can shorten life expectancy. For example, a severe spinal cord injury can lead to multiple complications that limit life expectancy. In some cases, this may be considered when evaluating damages.
- Disfigurement: A disfiguring injury can affect how you feel about yourself and how others perceive you. Though this is among the consequences of an accident that aren’t measured in money, it may affect your life and your future prospects.
Non-economic damages don’t appear on invoices and don’t always reflect in bank balances, but the consequences are real. A personal injury lawyer can calculate your losses, taking the many forms of pain and suffering you may experience into account.
An Injury Lawyer Can Identify the Types of Recoverable Damages You Can Receive From a Car Accident
When you’ve been injured in a car accident, you may not realize just how negative the influence on your finances and general well-being might be, especially if you suffer long-term consequences.
An experienced personal injury lawyer may help you to include claims for damages that wouldn’t be recognized unless you identified them and added them to your claim. Professional assistance can make a difference.