An accident can change your life in an instant. And while no injury is pleasant, the worst kind of injuries are those that have repercussions for months or even years. These are known as long-term injuries and can include anything from a brain injury that affects your ability to move or think to a broken bone that doesn’t heal properly. If your accident was caused by someone else’s negligence, you may be able to claim compensation from them to cover the costs and challenges of these long-term injuries. An accident lawyer in Atlanta can give you more details about your situation and how the law will apply.
Types of Compensation You Can Claim
There’s more than one type of compensation you can recover in a case like this, because an injury of this nature will have a ripple effect that touches many areas of your life. In general, you can claim for two large categories: general damages (also known as non-economic damages) and special damages (also known as economic damages).
General Damages
General, or non-economic, damages cover things like the pain and suffering that you have endured. This includes the physical pain that you are feeling, but also the emotional struggles that you deal with. For example, if you develop PTSD or find that you easily fall into a deep depression and cannot enjoy the things you used to because of your injury, so long as these issues can be linked to the injury itself, you can claim compensation for them.
How much you can claim depends on how serious the injury is and how long it lasts. In most cases, you will calculate your general damages in reference to your special damages using either the multiplier method or the per diem method. With the multiplier method, you calculate the full total of your special damages and then multiply this by a number between one and five. The more serious your injuries and the longer they last, the higher that number is. In the case of the per diem method, you come up with a dollar amount for each day that you suffered and multiply this by the total number of days that you have suffered from your injuries.
Special Damages
Special, or economic, damages are intended to reimburse you for the actual, tangible costs that you’ve incurred. These are all those things that you can put a specific number to, like your medical bills or the wages you lost from being away from work. Medical bills include not only all the bills you’ve already incurred but should also include your long-term costs. In most cases, you have to wait until you reach the point of “maximum medical improvement” before you can bring a claim for damages. Ideally, this would, of course, mean that you have fully recovered from the injury. But if you either will never fully recover, or if it will take many months or years for that recovery to happen, your lawyer will need to help you estimate these damages.
Your lost wages likewise should include the actual wages you have not been able to earn since the accident, but if an accident changes your life so you’re no longer able to work at all or can only work a lower paying job, you should be compensated for this. In some scenarios, the compensation should cover your wages while you re-train to a new job that would enable you to reach a similar level of income to that which you enjoyed prior to the accident.
Other Types of Special Damages
In a long-term injury situation, your special damages can include more than just medical bills. There can be many other costs associated with dealing with your injury over the long haul. For example, you may have to make modifications to your home so you can continue to live there, like installing a ramp because you can no longer climb stairs. In these situations, you should be reimbursed for those expenses.
Your lawyer will also help you to look at things like medical equipment that you might need, ongoing medications and surgery, and care costs. Care costs include not just what you spend for medical care, but also any care that you might need to get daily tasks done, such as cooking or bathing. In some cases, you may have to hire someone to help you with these things. In other cases, it may be money that is paid to your loved ones to reimburse them because they must care for you and can no longer work or can only work reduced hours.
How Compensation Is Calculated
As mentioned above, your non-economic or general damages are calculated against your special damages using the multiplier or per diem method. Properly calculating your special or economic damages is thus key to getting full compensation.
You will need definitive proof of all your damages. You must be able to show receipts, pay stubs, doctors’ notes, therapist recommendations, and possibly get testimony from friends, family, or coworkers about what you’ve suffered. Your lawyer may also need to get medical experts or other experts in to explain what your long-term outlook is likely to be and justify the costs that you are requesting.
One thing to bear in mind is that you must be able to prove that each of the injuries you’re suffering was actually caused by the accident. If you had, for example, a back problem before the accident, the responsible party is only liable to compensate you for how much worse your condition became. They are not liable for anything that can be considered a natural progression of the condition. It can be very tricky to work out compensation in these situations, which is why it’s very important to keep records and to work with an experienced personal injury lawyer who can make sure nothing is missed.
Fault in Compensation
Georgia has contributory negligence rules that mean anyone who is less than 50% responsible for an accident can usually claim compensation. The catch is that their compensation will be reduced by the same amount as their fault. So, for example, if a driver runs into you because they are distracted on their phone, they would be held primarily responsible. But if you were not wearing your seatbelt, you might be held partly to blame. In this case, your actions did not contribute to the accident itself, but the other side is likely to argue that your injuries are worse than they would’ve been had you been wearing your seatbelt as the law requires. In a case like this, you might be assigned 20% of the blame for your injuries, and your final payout would be reduced by 20%.
Work With an Experienced Accident Lawyer in Atlanta
To make sure you get everything that you need and deserve for your situation, it’s important to work with an experienced accident lawyer. At T. Madden & Associates, P.C., we have years of experience in helping the people of Atlanta recover the compensation they deserve after being injured.
Contact us today: we serve Atlanta and most major cities and counties of Georgia.
