Personal Injury Damages

If you have recently been in an accident that was caused by somebody else, you may be injured, unable to enjoy important parts of your life or even under financial strain due to medical bills, lost wages and other expenses you aren’t sure how you will pay for.

Need to Know:

• Personal injury damages can include economic damages such as medical bills and lost wages, as well as non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and emotional distress.
• The value of a personal injury lawsuit can be affected by the severity of the injuries, the amount of medical bills, the amount of lost wages, and the impact of the injuries on the victim’s life.
• It is important to speak with an experienced personal injury attorney as soon as possible after an accident to discuss your legal rights and options

You may be wondering if going through the trouble of filing a lawsuit is really ‘worth it.’ This overview will cover what types of personal injury damages you can recover money for, and what factors may affect the potential value of your case.

In This Article:

• What is a Personal Injury Lawsuit?
• Medical Expenses
• Lost Wages and Loss of Future Earning Capabilities
• Property Damage
• Pain and Suffering
• Mental Anguish and Emotional Distress
• Loss of Consortium
• Contact a Personal Injury Attorney Today

What is a Personal Injury Lawsuit?

A Personal Injury Lawsuit, in theory, is supposed to ‘make the injured person whole’ by financially compensating them with the monetary value of the injuries they sustained in the accident. Determining the ‘value’ of damages a person suffered and is owed due to an accident is often imprecise, but our system of justice attempts to reach this elusive ideal by awarding fair and reasonable monetary damages to compensate a Plaintiff for what has changed in their life. These compensatory damages factor in both objective, economic damages, as well as more subjective, non-economic damages.

Economic damages include:

• Medical bills, including the cost of rehabilitation, the cost of visits to medical facilities, the costs of diagnostic testing, corrective procedures like surgery and/or therapies, devices required; this also can include the expected costs of future medical care that the injured person will require going forward, because of the injuries sustained in the accident
• Lost wages caused by being forced to miss work, which also can include work already missed and the expected future wages that will be lost going forward due to the injuries sustained in the accident
• Property damage

If you are in a lot of pain or severely disabled or disfigured because of your injury, know that you can recover non-economic damages such as:

• Pain and suffering, including pain and suffering already experienced, as well as future expected pain and suffering that the injured person will endure going forward, for the rest of his or her expected lifespan due to the injuries sustained in the accident
• Mental anguish or emotional distress
• Loss of consortium for new limitations placed on families, typically limited to spouses
• The loss of your ability to enjoy your life because of the injuries sustained in the accident

Medical Expenses

Medical bills can be extremely expensive and can be a starting point for discussing damages or potential case value. In a personal injury lawsuit, you can recover money not just for the initial visit to treat your injury, but also for any expenses associated with diagnosing the injury, rehabilitating you from that injury and continued treatment of that injury. Medical expenses which could be included in the value of a potential lawsuit include:

• Copays and other fees from doctor visits and hospital stays
• Diagnostic tests, including X-Rays, MRIs (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), CAT Scans
• Medication necessary to treat symptoms from the accident, whether physical or mental
• Surgery, including the initial operation and any revision surgeries necessary
• Rehab, including general physical therapy and specific occupational therapy
• Necessary medical devices such as crutches, a wheelchair or a prosthetic limb
• Future Medical expenses, even ones you may assume after your lawsuit is over 

Medical bills can be daunting, especially in the wake of a serious injury. However, a full recovery should always be your top priority, so you should never have to decline medical treatment because you don’t think you can afford it. Your health and wellbeing are always the most important thing, regardless of any lawsuit or legal claims you may be bringing.

If you are currently being treated for a serious injury caused by an accident, follow your doctor’s advice, ask questions about your injuries and your options for further treatment,  and contact an experienced personal injury attorney as soon as possible to assess your legal rights , so that you don’t have to worry about bills when you should be focused on your health.

Lost Wages and Loss of Future Earning Capabilities

Lost wages can be another important component of personal injury lawsuits. In the short-term, the Plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit may claim lost wages for the time they were forced to miss from work while treating for their injuries.

For example, if you make $800 per week, and were forced to miss two months of work to go to doctors’ appointments, receive treatments and remain in bed or at home to recover from a broken leg that you suffered in an accident, you may be able to recover that $6,400 in lost wages in a personal injury lawsuit.

Where lost wages really start to drive up the potential value of a case, however, is if your injury has left you with a disability that has negatively impacted your ability to continue working at all or to earn the same wage you were earning prior to your accident.

Some jobs are obviously more physical than other jobs. A construction worker, police officer, crossing guard, or teacher may not be able to work at their same job anymore if an injury has rendered him or her unable to climb ladders, patrol the streets, or stand up for extended periods of time. A truck driver who cannot remain in the same seated position may also not be able to work in the same job. Some of these workers may be able to find a job that is less physical, but that job could offer a lower pay rate. This is known as “lost earning capacity,” and it is a way to anticipate financial struggles you may have due to disabilities suffered in your accident.

Unfortunately, these types of long-term impacts from an accident are common. If a construction worker suffers multiple herniated discs in a scaffolding accident, for example, and is then no longer able to work in construction because they are limited in their ability to handle heavy objects, that worker’s ability to earn a livelihood has been directly and negatively impacted. This problem can be compounded if the worker lacks formal education, does not speak English, or is otherwise unable to work in another field or another position.

Filing for lost wages in a personal injury lawsuit can provide long-term security to a person who wants to work but has had their ability to do so impeded by somebody else’s negligence.

Property Damage

Claims for property damage are most common in car crashes and other motor vehicle accidents. If you have been injured in a traffic accident, you should notify your insurer as soon as possible, so that the claims process can begin. When you delay reporting an accident that wasn’t your fault, you may risk missing a deadline and may create opportunities for unnecessary delays in processing your claim, tying up money that you might need.

There are two things to keep in mind when dealing with property damage after a traffic accident. One, never discuss fault with other parties involved, whether it is the police, the other driver, or an insurance adjuster. Whether intentional or not, any admission of guilt on your part could disqualify you from successfully filing a suit, particularly if such a comment ends up in a police report.

The other thing to keep in mind in the wake of a motor vehicle accident is to never accept an offer to settle your claim from the insurance company before you have spoken with an experienced attorney. While this may seem counterintuitive, an insurance company is not looking to make you a fair offer that covers all the bills you’ll face. Instead, it’s much more likely that they will try to low-ball you, hopeful that you will accept the first offer they make without realizing that there could be significantly more available.

Pain and Suffering

Generally, for an injury that is severe enough to cause significant medical bills and force missed time from work, there is considerable pain that comes along with the injury itself and the recovery efforts that follow. In a personal injury lawsuit, a Plaintiff can recover for the physical pain and suffering the injury has caused him or her. But how can a court fairly assign a dollar amount to something as abstract as pain?

One factor that can be looked at in considering the amount of pain someone has suffered is the amount of pain medication that person has been prescribed and has actually taken. Pain is subjective, but if the injured person’s doctor agrees that their injury was painful enough to warrant medication, that could help to validate their claim. Another factor to consider is how much treatment and rehabilitation the person’s injury requires before the doctor declares that they have received the maximum benefit from medical treatment.

This is one reason why you don’t want to neglect professional medical advice because you are facing the pressure of rising medical bills. Fully communicating with your doctor and following up on all medical appointments are so very important for your health and wellbeing; they also happen to be indicators to insurance companies and can go a long way towards supporting claims for pain and suffering damages.

Mental Anguish and Emotional Distress

Closely related to pain and suffering, damages related to emotional distress are meant to compensate you for the psychological impact your accident and injury have had on your day-to-day life. Emotional distress includes afflictions such as depression, insomnia, anxiety, or fear of leaving the house. If you have recently been in a traumatic accident, some combination of these may be familiar to you.

If you are experiencing one of or a variety of these symptoms, the best thing you can do is seek medical treatment; another helpful task is to make notes about how you are feeling and how this is affecting your life. If newly developed insomnia affects your ability to work on time, note this. If depression or embarrassment over your injuries has caused you to withdraw from social events that you would otherwise be attending, you should share this with your medical provider.

A doctor can’t cure you if you don’t communicate your symptoms, and this is doubly true when dealing with mental illnesses invisible to the human eye. And once you make that critical step of sharing your emotional and psychological suffering with a trained medical professional, you give yourself the best chance to get better; it also happens to be true that when you take your health seriously and make taking care of yourself the most important factor that insurance companies involved in a personal injury lawsuit take note of.

Loss of Consortium

The Cornell Law School Wex Legal Dictionary defines loss of consortium as “deprivation of the benefits of a family relationship” caused by an injury. In layman’s terms, a loss of consortium claim can provide compensation when a family member is unable to give the same level of love, companionship, sexual relations or emotional support that they were before the accident occurred.

Loss of consortium claims are generally reserved for extremely serious cases involving death, paralysis, amputation, or other permanent conditions that fundamentally alter existing family relationships. Loss of consortium claims are often a separate claim made by the spouse or children of the Plaintiff. In New York State, these claims are limited to the spouse when a person is injured and limited to certain specific family members, which include the spouse and children.

These claims are calculated using similar factors as the ones which influence physical and mental suffering: intense humiliation, depression brought on by loneliness, loss of socio-economic status caused by lost income – dark, heartbreaking topics that nobody should ever have to deal with on their own. But personal injury lawsuits are intended to try and make somebody whole again, as much as that is possible, in the face of severe physical, mental and emotional injuries. Nobody ever wants to have to file a personal injury lawsuit – but if you have been put into that position, the compensation that you could receive could be life-changing at a time when you really need it.

Contact a Personal Injury Attorney Today

Personal injury lawsuits can be intimidating, particularly to people who have just been seriously injured because of somebody else’s negligence. If you have more questions about potentially filing a personal injury lawsuit, visit our personal injury lawsuit FAQ to find answers to some of the most common questions we hear from our clients.

If you are unsure whether you should file a lawsuit or not, please call 212-736-5300 to receive a free legal consultation. There is no fee or obligation, because we do not charge unless and until your lawsuit is won.

Block O’Toole & Murphy proudly serves clients all across New York City, New York State, and New Jersey.