How Injured Victims Receive Compensation as a Passenger in a Car Accident
Injured passengers can seek compensation for two broad categories of damages: special damages and general damages. Special damages are the most straightforward, though even they have their complexities.
Special damages include a victim’s past and future medical expenses, damage to the victim’s property, court costs, lost wages, and lost potential future income.
Calculating lost wages is relatively simple. Lost wages simply cover the money you could have made if you had not spent some time in the hospital and at home recovering from your injuries. Lost potential future income is much more technical. This scenario covers any loss in earning capacity due to your injuries. For example, if a construction worker who makes $50,000 a year is paralyzed a, he or she likely can no longer perform his or her job. In this situation, let us say that the victim would have continued working for another 25 years if the accident had not taken place. Therefore, the victim is entitled to almost $1.3 million just to cover his or her lost income. It comes as no surprise that proving-up these damages is not easy. In particular, you must convince a jury or insurance company that you will likely never be able to return to your current work due to your injuries. An experienced lawyer can help you convince insurance companies of the validity of your claim.
General damages are even more complicated. General damages cover less tangible categories such as pain and suffering, mental or emotional turmoil, disfigurement, and even a damaged reputation. The extent of these damages is entirely subjective. So it takes a knowledgeable and aggressive attorney to successfully convince a jury (or an insurance company) that these types of damages deserve fair compensation. Determining how much to request is a very technical process, involving legal precedents based on current case law and the attorney’s experience with these types of cases. If you ask for too much, the credibility of your claim could be damaged, and the jury might believe the defendant charges of your lawsuit are frivolous, or that you are asking for much more than you deserve. If you do not ask for enough, you will not receive the fair amount of compensation you rightfully deserve.
To better understand the subjectivity of general damages, imagine that two victims are in a blowout accident where the vehicle rolled over and exploded. Both were badly burned. One plaintiff was unconscious during the explosion. Though he suffered horrible burns, in his unconscious state, he was not able to experience the pain as it happened. The other plaintiff was just as severely burned; and fully alert-enough, to experience the full and terrible agony of being burned. So even though both of these victims ended up with similar injuries and medical expenses, each experienced a different level of pain and suffering. So it is quite likely that the monetary damages each victim is entitled to for pain and suffering would be varied.
As a second example, let us say that a driver is hurt in a car accident due to another person’s negligence and receives a large facial scar that will never heal. Anyone receiving such a disfigurement would deserve some sort of compensation for it. If the victim were a fashion model, he or she would likely receive much more compensation through a general damages claim than a plumber with the same injury. A facial scar impacts a model’s life much more than it would a plumber’s (in almost all cases).
As you can see, the extent of general damages is entirely subject to negotiation: and insurance companies do not play nice when it comes to general damages. They will do everything they can to discredit your claims, and this process is much easier when the damages involved do not have an immediate monetary cost associated with them.
Our Law Firm has been handling all kinds of car accidents for over 30 years. We have successfully resolved hundreds of high-profile cases against every major insurance company in the nation. We know how to argue for the validity of even the most subjective types of damages. We are dedicated to making sure you receive compensation for the full extent of your injuries. Our no-nonsense reputation usually precedes us. Insurance companies are aware of our successful track record, and they often cooperate with our demands to avoid fighting an expensive legal battle with our attorneys in the courtroom. If you or a loved one has been hurt in a car accident, regardless of the specifics of your accident, contact an experienced auto accident lawyer today.
Put our years of experience to work for you. Know your rights, how to proceed with your claim, and how much compensation you can secure from your auto injury case. Call our Law Firm now at 1(800) 862-1260 (toll-free) for a free consultation and find out how we can help you recover the full fair value of the damages you have suffered through the negligence of another driver.
This Blog was posted By The Carabin & Shaw Law Firm. principle Office in San Antonio, Texas
