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Different Types of Damages in a Personal Injury Claim

From bicycle accidents to product liability cases, every personal injury claim eventually centers on the damages the injured party deserves to be given from the liable party. “Damages” is a legal way of saying costs or expenditures. If the injured party has to pay for hospitalization, for example, the bills generated by that stay in the hospital is a form of damages.

What sorts of damages exist and how many can be claimed in a single personal injury case? For the most part, so long as the plaintiff genuinely did experience a form of damages, it can be cited within the claim. You should always take some time to work out the details with your attorney to decide what damages can and should be included.

• Damages that may be relevant to your claim include:

• Emergency responder services: A large portion of your total medical bills might be the cost of ambulatory services and the like. Make certain you are given compensation that covers these high fees, which can easily range well into the thousands of dollars.
• Hospitalization: An extended stay in the hospital can entirely drain your health insurance coverage within just a few days. Without proper compensation, all of the remaining bills will fall onto your lap.
• Rehabilitation: Recovering from an injury does not always mean a total recuperation by the time you leave the hospital. Many injury clients need to go to rehabilitative therapy for weeks, months, or years, which can end up being the majority of costs. Your Kansas City personal injury lawyer will need to know how to accurately calculate the potential cost of your rehabilitation and add this to your claim.
• Property damage: Repairing or replacing destroyed property could be quite expensive, especially in car accident cases. The liable party should be held accountable.
• Lost wages: If you get workers’ compensation to help pay for bills while you recover from your injuries, it will only be a fraction of your normal wages. You can actually cite the remaining lost wages in your claim.
• Emotional suffering: It is common for someone who is in a harrowing accident to suffer immediate and lingering grief that can become socially crippling. Your attorney may pursue nominal damages, or those related to your pain and suffering.
• Loss of consortium: In a wrongful death claim, surviving party members can attempt to collect fair compensation for loss of consortium, or the hardship caused by losing a loved one. This type of damage will factor in emotional trauma as well as real damages, such as the cost of hiring a caretaker to complete day-to-day duties once handled by the decedent.
• Punitive damages: If the liable party was recklessly breaking the law and that action caused your injury, it could be possible to add punitive damages to your claim. This is uncommon in many personal injury cases. Discuss your options with your attorney.

Factoring Liability for Claims in Missouri & Kansas

While damages can be viewed as the total cost an accident caused the plaintiff to suffer financially, liability will factor just how much of that total the plaintiff deserves. In a personal injury claim, liability is divided into percentages, and the defendant must pay the percentage deemed appropriate by the court if the dispute is not resolved in a settlement. The more the plaintiff is liable for his or her own injuries, the less he or she stands to collect.

For example: A man is running through a supermarket at full speed, looking for an item in a hurry. Every attendant that sees him shouts for him to slow down and be careful. He rounds a corner, steps onto a puddle of spilled orange juice, falls, and suffers a broken knee. In court, he is found to be 20% liable for his own injuries. If his reward would have been $100,000 for his medical costs, lost wages, and pain, he would now only collect $80,000, or 80%.

There are many factors to consider when calculating liability, such as:

• Duty of care: Liability in an accident, especially a premises liability claim, can hinge upon the defendant’s apparent duty of care, or that party’s responsibility to protect visitors, guests, and other parties around them. Every property owner or controller has an inalienable duty of care to some degree, and every individual has a duty of care to act safely in regular circumstances.
• Plaintiff rights: A party that is injured while knowingly trespassing or participating in some form of crime may increase their own liability or decrease the viability of their claim should an accident occur. For example, a burglar that slips on a stray children’s toy may be found to not have the right to sue for damages since they should not have been in that location in the first place.
• Comparative negligence: People who willing participate in activities that should be seen as dangerous to a reasonable person could increase their own liability and reduce their compensation received. The individual in the aforementioned supermarket slip example should have known that running through a crowded store was dangerous, and thus increased his own liability.
• Preexisting conditions: An insurance company evaluating the medical costs of a plaintiff will pay close attention to any medical records that indicate a preexisting condition. It might be possible for the defendant’s legal representatives to argue for a lower compensation amount if a preexisting condition is found and could be related to the injuries sustained within the accident in question. Your injury lawyer will need to be well-versed in liability laws to challenge such strategies used by the opposition.

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Our mission at DiPasquale Moore is to provide you the legal support you need during this difficult time. We're dedicated to making the legal process as smooth as possible by working on your case for you. From listening to your needs to aggressively representing you in court, you can count on our devoted personal injury attorneys. Let us help you today.

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