When you are injured in an accident due to someone else’s careless actions, the road to recovery can be long and difficult. You will incur expensive medical bills for treatment, and you may be out of work due to your injuries. Plus, you could endure excruciating pain and suffering, diminished quality of life, emotional distress, and limited physical activity. You do have remedies under Florida law, but you may wonder what your case is worth and how you recover for your losses. The process involves filing a claim for damages, which represent the financial, physical and emotional toll your injuries take upon your life. An experienced Ocala personal injury attorney can tell you more about specific damages in your case, but they generally break down into a few categories.
Medical Costs
You will receive bills from any healthcare providers that treat you after an accident, including emergency room staff, physicians, surgeons, and specialists. There will likely be other medical professionals that provide care in the weeks and months following the incident that caused your injuries. You can also recover compensation for physical therapy, chiropractic care, pain prescriptions, and other costs. Your personal injury attorney will include these amounts in your claim.
Loss of Income
Depending on the nature of your injuries and the demands of your job, you may not be able to work for some time after an accident. Severe incidents can even result in temporary or permanent disability, or make it impossible for you to ever return to your regular occupation. You may be entitled to recover compensation for the back pay you lose and future pay, under certain circumstances.
Calculating your lost wages typically requires you to present past salary or income tax information, and apply those amounts to the time you were out of work. The concept of damages for future income is much more complex, as it requires predicting what income you would have earned had the accident never happened.
Pain and Suffering
The traumatic pain you suffer after a car accident will linger for days, weeks, months, or longer. You may be able to recover losses for discomfort, chronic soreness, and other physical effects. The amount you may receive from pain and suffering is more difficult to quantify than the concrete numbers on your medical bills, but the notes of medical providers, details of your pain prescriptions, and other evidence is useful.
Use of Experts
Some types of damages involve complex issues of proof because they are subjective in nature. An experienced lawyer has many strategies for proving these complicated topics, especially through experts. Therefore:
- To prove loss of future income, an attorney may retain financial experts to forecast what your earnings would be if you remained healthy for years to come.
- Medical experts may consult with you and your lawyer, or can testify in court. These professionals can help prove damages for pain and suffering.
Contact a Florida Personal Injury Attorney About Damages
If you have questions about damages and want to know what your claim is worth, please contact Piccin & Glynn, Attorneys at Law in Ocala, FL. Every case is different, but we can give you a more accurate estimation of damages after reviewing your case. Please call us at 352-558-8480 to schedule an appointment.
Resource:
flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2012/90.702