The aftermath of a motor vehicle accident often leaves victims facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges. You may consider seeking compensation for your damages by filing a car accident lawsuit. A claim or lawsuit can help alleviate the economic and non-economic burdens that the accident has left. To further understand your legal options and the damages that you can collect after an accident, speak with an experienced Memphis auto accident lawyer today.
What is Negligence?
An important factor in determining what damages you can collect after a car accident is negligence. Negligence is when a person fails to exercise reasonable caution and care, resulting in harm to another person or property. In an accident claim or lawsuit, negligence is paramount in establishing who will have to pay for expenses and losses incurred from the accident.
In a car accident negligence could take the form of speeding, texting while driving, reckless driving, intoxicated driving, etc. To recover damages in a lawsuit, the injured party and their lawyer must prove that the defendant’s negligent or reckless behavior directly caused or contributed to the accident and injuries.
What Damages Can I Recover?
Generally, an auto accident lawsuit will yield two types of compensation, economic and non-economic. Economic damages are tangible, monetary losses that a person deals with. They can be measured and calculated easily.
Non-economic damages are somewhat more difficult to value. They are subjective and are designed to compensate the victim for losses that are not visible to the eye.
The following are examples of both economic and non-economic damages that can be collected during a car accident lawsuit or claim.
Medical expenses
Ambulance rides, hospital visits, surgeries, procedures, doctor visits, medication, treatments, physical therapy, rehabilitation, home care, etc.
Property damage
Cracked windows, severed side mirrors, shattered dashboards, broken taillights or headlights, dents, totaled cars, etc. This can also entail damage to property that was inside the vehicle.
Pain and suffering
Physical pain, loss of enjoyment of life, anxiety, PTSD, depression, disability, sleep disorders, mood disorders, etc.
Loss of income
Use of vacation or sick days, loss of employment, unpaid time off, etc.
All of the above can have a serious impact on a person’s finances, especially when all of these losses occur at the same time.
How Are Damages Calculated?
It is important to accurately calculate the damages that you incurred during the aftermath of the accident so you can be appropriately compensated. Economic damages are more straightforward to add up because they are tangible expenses. To calculate a person’s economic losses simply collect all relevant bills from doctors, hospitals, auto repair shops, etc., and combine them with information about how much money you would have made had you not taken time off of work.
Non-economic losses are not quite as easy to calculate. A court may reference information from economic and mental health professionals to decide how much a person’s pain and suffering are valued. They may consider the severity of the victim’s injuries, the impact that they had on the individual’s daily life, and how long it took or will take for the victim to recover.
Contact a skilled attorney today to discuss your options for recovering damages during your lawsuit.
