Personal injury claims can assist victims of injuries – whether mild, moderate, or serious – in getting the compensation they need. Any injury that involves serious enough injuries to require medical treatment automatically leaves you with medical expenses and pain and suffering at the very least. More serious injury cases can involve lost earnings for the time you took away from work to heal or for ongoing lost earnings that will keep you from working, potentially forever.
For help getting the benefits you need, work with our attorneys. We can represent you, research the facts of your case, speak to experts and witnesses about what happened, and present a strong case. Whether we ultimately end the case through a negotiated settlement with the insurance companies or a lawsuit in front of a jury, we will constantly have your best interests in mind.
For your free case evaluation, call The Martello Law Firm’s Westchester, NY personal injury lawyers at (914) 685-6950 today.
Damages Available to Injury Victims in Lewisboro, NY
The extent of your damages and the specific harms you faced in your case will be different from case to case. Damages must always be based on the specific case, so we cannot predict generally what a case will be worth without first examining the facts and the harms you faced in your case. However, there are three major areas of damages, plus some other minor areas, that we can help victims claim in most personal injury claims:
Medical Bills
If you had to get treated by EMTs, go to the hospital, undergo surgery, stay at the hospital, seek home nursing care, or even move into a care facility for your injury, you definitely have medical expenses we can help you claim. Even things like medication, painkillers, physical therapy, X-rays, ambulance rides, and more can all be included in these costs.
When you are injured by someone else, the court can order them to pay you damages that reimburse you for all expenses related to the accident. The chief among them is often medical care, as even a few days in a hospital could be more than you can afford without having someone else’s liability insurance pay for it. Many injury victims with serious injuries would go bankrupt were it not for the person who hurt them covering their medical care costs.
Keep in mind that damages for medical bills also include the cost of mental health therapy and psychiatric care. Sometimes injury cases involve only mild or moderate injuries, but the trauma associated with the accident could be devastating enough to require ongoing therapy or medication. As long as the mental effects are tied to the accident as well, you can get compensated for mental health care just like you can for physical health care.
Lost Wages
If you have to take any time away from work because of the accident, you can likely seek reimbursement for lost wages. This covers things like time away from work during your recovery as well as ongoing reductions in earning capacity and wages going forward.
There is no requirement that your injury be work-related in any way to get you lost wages for your injury case. The simple fact that someone injured you and took you away from your work is enough to make them pay you back for the resulting lost wages.
Past and present lost wages are simple enough to calculate, given that we just need to know your wages and how much time you missed at work. If you have returned to your same or similar job at your previous wage level and you have no further lost wages going forward that we can attribute to the injury, then those past losses are the full extent of your lost wage damages.
If your injury will affect your ability to work into the future, things can be harder to calculate. First, we need to know how much time you will miss compared to when you would have stopped working naturally. Financial experts can make these estimates, including accounting for future raises and promotions you would reasonably miss out on. From there, we can subtract any future wages you do still expect to earn, such as wages from part-time work despite your disability. From there, we can calculate what wages you will miss into the future, at least to a reasonable degree of certainty.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering calculations are in some ways tougher and in some ways easier to calculate.
Accounting for your pain and suffering is harder because there are no bills or statements indicating how much pain and suffering you had; it is all subjective. Moreover, pain and suffering comes in many forms, such as emotional distress, physical pain and discomfort, lost enjoyment, lost abilities, and more. Accounting for all of this is important.
We can use evidence from your own testimony, journals you might be advised to keep during your recovery, and testimony from those around you – friends, family, loved ones, doctors, and therapists. This can all help us gauge the severity of your pain and suffering. Plus, we can take into account the injuries you faced, with more severe injuries being worth more in pain and suffering damages.
From there, we can turn that severity into usable numbers in two ways. First, we can convert it into a multiplier based on the overall severity, then multiply the rest of your economic damages by that number to get your total damages. Alternatively, we can use it to come up with a daily payment amount and multiply it by the number of days you will experience pain and suffering.
Other Economic Damages
Other payments and costs aside from medical bills and lost wages might also be important in your case, such as the cost of hiring a nanny for your children while you are hospitalized.
Punitive Damages
In rare cases where the defendant’s fault was extreme, we can request additional damages to punish them for their reckless actions.
Call Our Personal Injury Attorneys in Lewisboro, NY Today
For a complimentary case evaluation, contact the personal injury attorneys at The Martello Law Firm by calling (914) 685-6950.
