Personal injuries can turn your life upside down. Imagine minding your own business while driving your car just to have a distracted driver run into you. Or, let’s say you were going out shopping but slipped and fell because a property owner didn’t take care of their premises.
Now, you aren’t only in pain, but you might not be able to work for a while, or your car is so damaged you can’t use it. So how do Florida residents deal with these situations? They file a personal injury claim.
Citizens can receive financial compensation for their injuries if they have a strong case on their hands. Having a personal injury lawyer to help you maximize your compensation because they can highlight your injuries and other losses and prove negligence. Here is what you should know about personal injury compensation.
Types of Damages Awarded in Personal Injury
In personal injury lawsuits, victims are awarded either economic damages or non-economic damages akin to their losses. Economic damages refer to tangible losses—expenses with provable value.
For example, you might receive compensation to repair the damages to your car. When it comes to injuries, all of your expenses are considered, including medical bills and out-of-pocket expenses. If your injuries prevent you from working, you can also be awarded past and future lost wages in your personal injury case.
When it comes to non-economic damages, they refer to intangible damages or something that you can’t put a price tag on, like emotional distress, anguish, PTSD, and others. If your injuries take a lot of time to heal, it’s clear that you will be in pain and suffer for some time before you recover. As such, you deserve compensation to help manage these damages.
How to Claim Damages in Personal Injury Cases
To receive the appropriate compensation for all your losses and troubles, you should document the accident that resulted in your injuries and prove negligence. Right after the accident, you should request medical assistance and document the accident scene until the medics arrive.
Take photos of your injuries, property damage, and the hazardous conditions that might have played a role in your accident. Next up, speak with eyewitnesses and write down their contact information.
No matter what you do, do not admit fault or brag about your accident on social media. Keep everything to yourself until your case is cleared up. Contact a personal injury lawyer to help with your case. Even if it’s clear that someone else is responsible for the accident, that doesn’t mean they will admit it or won’t try to shift blame.
Apart from this, you will also deal with insurance companies that might offer you an insufficient settlement amount to end your claim prematurely. You won’t be taken advantage of with a personal injury lawyer by your side. They can prove negligence and hold the responsible parties liable.
In some instances, a lawyer will also work with third-party experts, including medical professionals and accident reconstruction experts, to prove the true extent of your injuries and the other party’s fault. This way, you can ask for compensation suited to your losses and seek economic and non-economic damages.
Regarding non-economic damages, you might need to go to a couple of therapy sessions and have another professional examine your mental health situation following the accident. How the event affected you, what you have gone through, and what you will continue to go through until you heal will also act as a means to seek compensation. Still, there is one more variable factor when it comes to personal injury compensation, namely the comparative negligence system.
How Comparative Negligence Affects Compensation
The state of Florida follows the comparative negligence system, which means that if you are discovered to be partially at fault for the accident, your compensation amount will be reduced based on your fault percentage.
This system indirectly implies that, regardless of fault, most accident victims will try to cut down on their costs by proving fault, which is another big reason why you should work closely with a personal injury lawyer from Tucker Law.
The last thing you need in your personal injury case is to have the at-fault party shift a percentage of fault unto you and minimize your final compensation amount. However, once you work with a personal injury lawyer, you can assert your innocence better and deal with other legal strategies that the other party might use against you.