In the United States, it is rarely acceptable for anyone to hurt another, even by accident. Accidents don’t just happen out of the blue; they are often preceded by carelessness or downright rejection of rules that are put in place to ensure safety.
Indiana and every other state have laws that compel those at fault, or at least those who are seen to have greater responsibility, to compensate those who suffer from injuries. Usually, such compensation covers medical costs and loss of potential income because of the temporary disability brought about by the injury.
The fight for compensation happens in court, and it’s important for you to hire reliable professionals such as these Indianapolis injury attorneys. What types of injuries are deemed legally eligible for any form of compensation? Read on to find out.
Car crash injuries
When we are on the road, it’s natural for us to look out for our safety. Governments make this easier for us by putting up signs and keeping the road as free from obstacles as possible. However, our being careful can easily be put to waste if we share the road with citizens who are reckless.
If you are a victim of a car crash caused by a reckless driver, one of the first things that you should do is gather evidence about the circumstances surrounding the crash. Many major U.S. roads are equipped with cameras, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. If you will need a bystander’s testimony to build your case, it’s best that you work with an experienced accident lawyer so you get proper guidance.
Medical malpractice
We generally entrust our health and healing to doctors. Unfortunately, not all doctors are as detailed and conscientious as we want them to be. There are those who make mistakes, such as failing to accurately diagnose an illness that led to its aggravation.
Such medical practitioners can say that it was not their intention to harm or hurt the patient. However, this defense cannot stand. As medical professionals, even innocent carelessness is not acceptable. Lives are at stake, so they need to be mentally alert at all times.
The medical practitioners who make mistakes, even accidental ones, will have to learn their lesson, and one good way to do this is to sue them and make them pay damages.
Workplace injuries
People who are injured on the job can be compensated for their inconvenience, but it’s largely dependent on the circumstances. Normally, employers who are aware of the risks of using machines, for example, will put safety precautions in place. These precautions should be effectively communicated to the employees. If it’s proven that even one of these precautions was not observed by the injured employee, then it will be hard for an injury claim to stand.
Only tasks that are in the job description are to be considered. If the employee was injured while performing tasks outside their domain, it will be difficult for us to compel the employer to take full responsibility.
Accidental injuries can be very disruptive to an employee’s life. Though no one really wants them to happen in the first place, someone has to take responsibility for their occurrence. This is where the skills for a good case build-up and legal arguments will come in handy. We reiterate that getting the right personal injury lawyer is the key to success here.
Types of Personal Injury Compensation
The goal of filing a personal injury claim is to be “made whole” for any damages you sustained as a result of someone else hurting you. You may potentially receive additional pay on top of this in specific circumstances.
Here are the many types of personal injury damages to which you may be entitled if you file a claim against the person or people who injured you.
Economic damages
When someone wrongs you, you suffer genuine financial losses. Economic damages are the type of restitution you receive to make up for this loss. Since it’s straightforward to tally up how much actual money you lost, the amount of economic damages you might collect is typically also quite easy to compute. Economic damages can include compensation for:
- Medical bills you incurred as a direct result of the injury that you experienced
- Future medical costs if the injuries are permanent or if you will still require care after your case is resolved
- Lost wages for missed work time and sick days or vacation days you had to take due to the injury
- Future lost earnings if you cannot work or if your ability to work was affected as a direct result of the injury you sustained
- Loss of or damage to your property as a result of the injury
- Other out-of-pocket financial loss you experienced due to costs associated with the defendant’s negligent or wrongful actions
- You can estimate these losses by looking at your medical bills and paychecks, as well as by working with experts who can help you to estimate future care needs and lost earnings.
Non-economic damages
Other losses that you endure that don’t directly affect your finances but instead have an influence on your quality of life are also eligible to reimbursement.
For instance, your injuries could make you physically and mentally uncomfortable and prevent you from engaging in things you formerly loved (like riding a bike because of a leg injury). For this kind of loss, you are entitled to compensation for your injuries.
This kind of damage may be more difficult to estimate. Insurance companies employ techniques like the per diem or multiplier method to determine how much a case should be settled for. The per diem system compensates you for previous and upcoming days of discomfort with a predetermined sum of money (often a day’s salary). Depending on the severity of your injuries, the multiplier approach multiplies your economic damages by a predetermined amount (often 1.5 to 5 times real damages).
To maximize the amount of compensation available, a personal injury attorney aids you in quantifying the scope of these losses.
Punitive damages
Punitive damages may be included in your injury compensation if the defendant’s actions went beyond simple negligence and were maliciously destructive or recklessly ignore your safety.
Punitive damages are not intended to compensate you for genuine losses or to make you whole. Punitive damages, on the other hand, penalize the defendant for doing you injury. Depending on how serious the defendant’s conduct were, the court determines the amount of punitive damages that should be awarded, if any.
Death by Mistake Damages
When someone is murdered as a result of someone else’s carelessness or deliberate misconduct, wrongful death damages may be possible. The decedent’s estate or close relatives, such as spouses, may be eligible to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Damages in wrongful death cases can include payment for:
- Medical bills incurred before death
- Pain and suffering experienced before death from the injury
- Funeral and burial expenses
- Loss of the financial contribution the deceased would have made for the rest of their life if it hadn’t been cut short
- Emotional distress and mental anguish surviving family members experienced due to the death
- Loss of companionship or loss of consortium which provides compensation to surviving loved ones for the loss of the relationship shared with the deceased
How to Obtain Personal Injury Compensation
Contact a qualified personal injury attorney as soon as possible if you have been injured due to someone else’s carelessness or malfeasance. You can start assembling evidence with the assistance of your lawyer to establish culpability and the scope of the damage. Maximizing your compensation requires demonstrating the defendant was at fault and resulted in significant damage to you.
There are two methods you might use to get the money you deserve. Either settle out of court or continue with a claim for damages. An agreed-upon monetary amount is settled for, and all further claims are waived in, through negotiation with the defendant or insurance. In a lawsuit, you must appear in court, support your claims, and allow the judge to determine damages.
To make sure you get the best possible deal, it’s crucial to aggressively negotiate the settlement rather than merely accepting whatever the insurance gives.
The next stage, if a settlement cannot be reached, is to file legal documents. You must take action before the statute of limitations (the deadline your state establishes for damage claims) expires, which might be challenging. If you haven’t already, make sure to get legal counsel now.
The Relationship Between Injuries and Damages
To describe the type and extent of the plaintiff’s injuries, the plaintiff’s lawyer typically introduces both the plaintiff’s testimony as well as the testimony of the plaintiff’s treating physician or other expert. The entire amount of the damages available to treat the injuries is frequently not represented by the past and future medical expenses linked to them.
For instance, a patient who sustains paralysis in a truck accident may file a lawsuit against the truck driver as well as the trucking firm. The victim’s testimony at trial may focus largely on their pain, suffering, and diminished quality of life.
He or she may, however, also summon a treating medical professional to testify as to the origin of the paralysis, any observable findings, and the degree to which individuals with this sort of paralysis commonly have life-limiting effects. To demonstrate that he or she would no longer be able to work and will require household services that would not otherwise be required, he may need to provide the expert evidence of a vocational rehabilitation specialist. The expert will provide data estimating these potential losses.
The defense counsel will attempt to downplay the injuries sustained to contradict the breadth of the damages the plaintiff is claiming. To respond to the plaintiff’s claim for damages, the defendant will often need to hire one or more experts, including a vocational rehabilitation expert. If the plaintiff cannot work in the same capacity as the other expert but is competent to work in other jobs that pay similarly and have vacancies, this expert may testify that the plaintiff can work and that the other expert is mistaken. Frequently, the defense will question the plaintiff’s veracity on both the circumstances leading up to the injury and the extent to which the plaintiff is limited by them.
Investigators are hired by insurance firms that cover defendants in different kinds of claims to investigate into injury claims that seem shady and to keep tabs on the plaintiff. In general, material from these investigations can be used to discredit plaintiffs if the inquiry occurs in public locations or online in settings where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Posting images or status updates on Facebook or other social media is a typical mistake of judgment made by litigants. Any publicly available material will be used by an astute defendant’s investigator to demonstrate that a plaintiff is misrepresenting their injuries. For instance, a motorcycle accident victim who publishes status updates about extreme sports and trekking while claiming back injuries from a vehicle accident puts himself at risk of having the severity of his injuries disputed in a deposition or in front of a jury.