What Might You Lose In A Personal Injury Lawsuit?

What Might You Lose In A Personal Injury Lawsuit?

If you’re an insurance carrier, business, or other defendants in a personal injury lawsuit, there’s a lot on the line. The injured plaintiff will be seeking monetary compensation from you in the form of damages. While every personal injury case is different, damages can be significant. It’s important to understand the nature of these damages if you have a pending injury claim. With a New York personal injury defense attorney by your side, you can fight back and protect your bottom line.

Possible Damages in a Personal Injury Case

Slips and falls, automobile accidents, and numerous other injury claims can involve significant money. Personal injury defense lawyers dispute both the nature of damages and the amount of money demanded in a personal injury lawsuit. Let’s start by examining what types of damages you could be on the hook for.

Generally, damages are designed to make the injury victim whole. Another way of putting this is returning the victim to the state he or she was in before the injury. This is never precise, but the courts try to come as close as they can to accomplishing these objectives.

Economic Damages

The first type of damages is economic. These are objective damages for which an exact monetary value can be reliably calculated. Among the most common economic damages in a personal injury lawsuit are:

Medical Bills

These tend to be among the most, if not the most, significant damages in New York personal injury cases. They may include surgeries, hospitalizations, prescription drugs, and follow-up appointments. In serious cases, medical bills include rehabilitation and physical therapy costs for the victim as well. You may also be on the hook for adaptive medical equipment and long-term medical care.

Lost Wages

While the victim is recovering from his or her injuries, he or she will miss work. This may be a matter of days, weeks, or months. If the victim was a highly paid worker, every day missed from work could mean serious sums of money. Lost wages may also cover return trips to the doctor or other time taken off.

Lost Future Earning Capacity

If the injuries are bad enough to cut short a promising career, that’s another form of damages. But lost earning capacity also comes into play if the worker can’t return to the same productivity level. Workers who rely on physical labor, and then suffer a disability, could see future earnings diminished. If your business is found liable, then you may have to pay for those losses.

Property Damages

This may be anything from a totaled vehicle to damage to real property, depending on the case. Property damages are fairly easy to calculate, but high-value property can cost dearly.

Noneconomic Damages

Non-economic damages are more subjective. New York personal injury defense attorneys are familiar with the difficulty of calculating these. They may include the following, most of which are self-explanatory:

  • Pain and suffering
  • Emotional distress
  • Mental anguish
  • Loss of consortium (deprivation of the loss of a family relationship)
  • Loss of quality of life

Disputing the Amount of Damages

On top of questioning whether a victim has suffered damages, the amount of money demanded must be looked at. This is where having an experienced New York personal injury defense attorney is essential. Your lawyer should take a comprehensive approach to the case and scrutinize everything requested by the plaintiff. Conducting thorough investigations, using discovery procedures, and bringing in expert witnesses are a few methods your lawyer may suggest.

Facing A Personal Injury Lawsuit? We Can Help

Rosenbaum & Taylor defends clients in personal injury cases. We understand the risk that a major personal injury lawsuit brings, and where possible, we can explore out-of-court solutions like mediation. Our goal is to protect your rights and interests throughout the litigation process. We’re ready to get started on your case today.

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