What Compensation Can Be Recovered After a Personal Injury?
Every personal injury claim is different, as each depends on the circumstances of the accident and the severity of the injuries involved. For example, if you were injured in a car accident, you may be dealing with such injuries as broken bones, scarring from lacerations, and spinal cord damage. You may be facing lifelong difficulties due to the injuries you’ve suffered.
At the Law Office of Dwayne L. Brown, a Phenix City personal injury attorney looks at the full picture of what you’ve lost. Our goal is to get you and your family the compensation you need for both your current and future life.
Below, we’ll go through some specific types of compensation that you may be eligible to receive:
Medical Expenses
Both past and future medical costs for your injuries may be recovered. These include medical bills for emergency room visits, follow-up appointments with your primary care physician or specialists, surgeries, physical therapy, medications, and even gas and mileage for attending appointments.
Lost Wages and Loss of Earning Potential
Recovering from injuries may mean that you need to take a considerable amount of time off from work, or that you are never able to return to work. You may be eligible for compensation for lost income from work, diminished earning potential, and the loss of benefits, such as PTO, salary increases, and bonuses.
Pain and Suffering
In addition to economic losses, you may also be eligible for compensation for non-economic losses. For example, the physical pain and emotional distress that you have endured following your injuries.
How Is Compensation Recovered for Personal Injury Cases?
Typically, compensation is recovered in one of two ways: either through a personal injury claim or a personal injury lawsuit. In both cases, it is essential for you to prove that someone else’s negligence caused your injuries.
Examples of Liability
Liability will be different for every case. Here are some examples of what it may look like, though:
- Car Accidents: An auto accident caused by a driver who is drunk or under the influence of drugs, a driver failing to follow traffic laws, or a distracted driver
- Premises Liability: Store ownership failing to uphold a duty of care towards their customers, such as knowingly leaving hazards on a store floor
- Dog Bites: An unleashed dog attacking you while you’re on a run
- Bicycle Accidents: A driver who fails to obey traffic laws, such as failure to yield
A personal injury lawyer in Phenix City will build a case supporting your personal injury claim in a variety of ways. These include gathering and analyzing evidence, such as the following:
Interviewing Witnesses
Eyewitness accounts can be helpful in personal injury cases, as they may be unbiased accounts of what happened. Depending on your accident, eyewitnesses can include people like bystanders, other drivers and passengers, employees or co-workers, customers, and more.
Obtaining Video Footage
In personal injury cases where multiple parties may have different versions of events, video footage can be particularly beneficial. It offers an unbiased and accurate view before and after the accident has occurred. Examples of the types of footage we may recover include traffic cameras, business security/surveillance cameras, dashcams, and cellphone videos.
Consulting With Subject Matter Experts
In some cases, expert witnesses can provide testimonies that help to explain certain complicated aspects of a case. Examples of this include:
- A highway safety expert in a car accident case
- A safety standards expert in a workers’ compensation case
- An accident reconstruction post in a motorcycle accident case
Your doctors can also explain your prognosis, which helps us determine the compensation we should pursue for your healthy recovery.
