Types of Personal Injury Damages

There are many types of damages in a personal injury claim for which you may be compensated following a loss. While not all types of damages are those than can be directly measured by any particular dollar amount, your final settlement or judgment award will be based on a fair representation of the amount of actual financial loss, coupled with a negotiated amount for subjective losses such as pain, suffering, trauma, and so forth.

Past and Future Medical Bills:

When you’re injured because of someone else’s negligence, you are entitled to compensation for the actual dollar amount of all reasonable and necessary medical expenses related to that injury, now and in the future.

During the life of your personal injury case, it’s important to keep every appointment, to be compliant with the treating doctor’s orders, to gather and safeguard your medical bills and medical records, as well as an itemization of any outside medical or health services including transportation costs to and from medical appointments, ambulance fees, in-home nursing expenses, medications, medical devices, etc.

Lost Wages Due to Inability to Work:

If, because of the negligence of another person or company, you are unable to earn an amount equal to your pre-injury wages or salary, then you are entitled to compensation for your loss of earning potential, now and in the future. This is especially important if your occupation requires physical labor or specialized skills that you are no longer able to perform. Your attorney will seek to recover the most amount of money possible to help recoup your losses in this regard.

Special Damages:

In general, damages in a personal injury claim are awarded for the purpose of placing the victim in the position that they would have been in if the injury had not taken place.

Special damages cover losses that can easily be calculated or quantified into dollar amounts. In a personal injury setting, the following types of losses are usually classified under special damages rules:

• Lost wages or earnings (both past losses and future losses, if they can be calculated)
• Loss of irreplaceable items
• Costs associated with the replacement or repair of damaged property
• Costs that the victim spent in mitigating (lessening) their own liability
• Costs associated with medical expenses (such as hospital or medication bills)
• Additional domestic or caretaking costs

Pain and Suffering:

In a personal injury claim, you are entitled to be compensated for physical pain and suffering: past, present and future.

Often, it is impossible to determine the exact value of these types of damages; however, a strong legal representative can negotiate a settlement or assign a value for these damages based upon strength of a case that your lawyer feels that he or she can present to a fair jury of your peers. Some pain and suffering claims can be large while others small. A good personal injury attorney can greatly impact the amount of recovery that you get for your pain and suffering. Simon & O’Rourke has extensive experience presenting Pain and Suffering claims.

Loss of Quality Of Life Due To Injury:

Following an injury, it is common for the victim’s quality of life to suffer as well. Serious injuries can seriously affect a person’s standard of health, comfort, happiness and ability to experience joy, hope and wonder. Unfortunately, for many injured people, the pain, stress and worry is too great, and easily overcomes the ability to enjoy life as before the injury. Although it is difficult to determine exactly what any person’s quality of life is worth, the compensation for the loss of life quality can be significant, and only a competent, experienced attorney can help you recover what is fair and just.

Loss of Limbs:

The loss of physical ability following a personal injury can be traumatic and devastating. Particularly unsettling is the loss of a body part, or complete loss of use of a body part. Such losses can affect every aspect of a persons life including an increase in medical expenses, medical devices, earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of quality of life and association with loved ones and more. For these types of devastating events, juries can award truly significant sums at trial, and such injuries often leads to very high settlement figures. An experienced personal injury trial lawyer will understand what it takes to maximize your recovery in such situations.