It’s not the easiest thing in the world to calculate the damages that should be awarded after a personal injury. The higher value the case is, the more likely there is to be contention about the total, so it’s very important that you have a personal injury lawyer in Laramie, Wyoming with experience in this area and with the local courts who can help you in calculating damages.
Your Laramie, Wyoming Personal Injury Lawyer
It’s important to go over this again: you’re much more likely to come out well with a lawyer than without one. You want to get justice for your losses, but it’s not easy to figure out exactly how much you should ask for or how much you should expect the other side to be willing to pay. It takes experience, a lot of knowledge of the law, and some determination to figure out exactly what’s fair and reasonable and then to push for it in negotiations and even in the courtroom, if necessary.
Your lawyer will have done this many times before, and not only will they have the negotiation skills and the courtroom skills that you might need, but they will also know how to calculate your damages and will be able to even think of areas where you need to be compensated that you might not have thought of at all. Your lawyer also knows exactly what the law says and what’s reasonable. Your lawyer will protect you from unfair low offers by the insurance company and can also help you to push for a higher number that you might worry is “too high”, if that’s appropriate.
Calculating Your Damages
1. Fault and Burden of Proof
The first thing that has to be considered is precisely who was at fault and the burden of proof that you’ll have to bring. Both of these things matter.
Fault
In Wyoming, we have a modified comparative fault rule. This means that anyone who is injured by someone else’s negligence can recover damages, but only proportionally their fault for the accident. So, for example, say you were in a car accident that was primarily caused by someone else, who ran a red light. If you were texting at the time and not paying close attention, even though you had the green light, the court may assign you 20% or 30% of the blame on the assumption that, if you had been paying attention, the accident would never have happened at all, even though the other party violated the law. In this case, you would lose 20% to 30% of your total damages.
That’s a lot to lose, so for that reason, determining fault and the exact degree of fault is very important in these cases. You can expect the other side to fight hard to show that they were not as much at fault as you claim, and/or that you bear more fault than you really do. In a high-value personal injury case, even a couple of percentage points in either direction can make a big difference.
Burden of Proof
Remember that the burden of proof in these cases lies with the plaintiff. It’s up to you to prove that the other party was at fault, that this fault caused the accident, that this accident caused your injuries, and that your injuries cost you certain quantifiable losses. Your lawyer will help you here at every step.
Economic Damages
The easiest calculation is usually your economic damages. This is the number that represents all your tangible financial losses, most of which are going to be proved with receipts and bills. This will include all your medical care, any follow-up care you’ve had to have, and the loss or repair of your personal property.
However, there are some tricky things even here. For one thing, if you’ve been badly injured, which is often the case in a high-value personal injury lawsuit, you may have ongoing medical needs into the foreseeable future, and these have to be calculated because, of course, you don’t actually have receipts for them yet. You also want to make sure that you don’t miss out on things that you might not have thought of, but a good lawyer won’t allow you to forget to make a claim for things like taxi rides to your medical appointments if you were injured too badly to drive or child care costs, if you are unable to care for your kids for a time.
Non-Economic Damages
These damages are more frequently known as “pain and suffering,” and they are less tangible than the first group and much harder to calculate. Pain and suffering, of course, refers to the actual physical pain and the emotional trauma that you suffered because of the accident. However, there are some other types of non-economic damages to consider.
For example, in some cases it may be appropriate to claim loss of consortium. This is when you have lost the companionship and intimacy of a loved one, most often a spouse, because of your injuries. These damages are usually calculated as a percentage in comparison to your economic damages. In some cases, it’s more appropriate to calculate them on a per diem basis, and it’s particularly difficult to calculate loss of consortium because it is such an intangible thing. Having an experienced lawyer is critical here.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are not designed to cover your losses in any way. Instead, they are designed solely to punish the other party, and thus they are only used in cases where someone’s behavior was especially egregious. For this reason, similar accidents or injuries can have very different results when it comes to calculating a final number.
Some Examples
Say two people suffer broken necks in two different car accidents, both caused by the other driver in the incident. In the first accident, the other driver was distracted by something that was not their fault, such as a child suddenly going out of control in the car. Punitive damages are not likely to be awarded in a case like this. But let’s say that in the second accident, the other driver was drunk, and this was not their first time driving impaired, either. In that case, the court might very well decide that their behavior was so egregious the punitive damages are warranted.
Similarly, two people might experience the same catastrophic burns from a malfunctioning product, but if the first product malfunctioned because of a manufacturing fault that the manufacturer didn’t know about yet, punitive damages are unlikely. But if the manufacturer knows about the problem and doesn’t fix it or issue a recall, and then another person suffers those same injuries, at that point the court might decide that punitive damages are the right way to go.
These are just some of the considerations that go into calculated damages in a personal injury case. If you or someone you love has been injured in an accident, don’t wait to get the help of a qualified lawyer. Studies show that those who work with an experienced personal injury attorney walk away with higher settlements almost every time. For help in Laramie, Wyoming and anywhere in the area, contact the Ochs Law Firm now.
