One of the primary causes of personal injury cases in all of California is car accidents. When you sustain injuries from a car collision you believe was due to another person’s negligence, you can file a claim to recover damages. However, what exactly are damages, and what are some that apply in your situation? Damages are referred to as monetary compensation associated with an injury and claimed by the plaintiff through a lawsuit.

Determining damages in a car accident isn’t a piece of cake. You must consider many factors, including the cause of the accident, type of injuries sustained, and damage on your property. To obtain your rightful award for the court’s compensation, you need to know what to expect in terms of damages. An attorney will help you understand the strength of your lawsuit and the damages involved.

How are Damages in a Car Accident Arrived At?

When you are involved in a vehicle collision, chances are you will sustain injuries and property damages. The kind of injuries or property damage suffered determines the amount of money you will spend on treatment and repairs. These expenses are what are known as damages. The damages fall into two categories which are compensatory and punitive. The person seeking the damages is a plaintiff, while the one at fault for the accident is the defendant.

Compensatory damages seek to make you the victim of the car crash whole again. In contrast, punitive damages are intended to punish the driver at-fault and discourage others from engaging in the same misconduct.

Suppose you decide to sue the driver or property owner who was liable for the car accident. In that case, the first step you must take is to determine the damages that should be awarded by the insurance company in a settlement or the court in the event you opt for a lawsuit. You will need an experienced personal injury attorney at this stage because they have the knowledge to determine the available compensatory damages and decide on whether it’s worth pursuing the case.

Compensatory damages are subdivided into special and general damages, which are discussed below.

Special Damages

Any cost or expense with a fixed dollar value is special or economic damage. Determining these damages is not as tricky as arriving at general damages. Below are special damages in your car accident injury claim your attorney can help you arrive at:

1.  Determining Medical Expenses

As a plaintiff in a personal injury case, you have a right to claim reasonable medical expenses. The reason being after an accident that isn’t your fault, injuries are inevitable. Even when you feel okay after an accident, it’s vital to seek a medical examination because, in the event of a claim, the insurer or court will require proof of the expenses. This is the point where your injury attorney is critical in seeking compensation.

An attorney will help determine the total medical costs incurred in your case so that when filing a claim, the amount of compensation awarded for medical expenses can be enough to cover all the bills incurred in treating the injuries associated with the vehicle collision. However, for the medical costs damages to be awarded, you must prove the costs were reasonable and necessary.

When determining medical expenses, the insurance company or jury must review your attorney’s documents before the court proves you incurred medical expenses. Therefore, it’s critical to keep all medical records and receipts relating to car accident injuries. The evidence necessary in determining medical bills include:

  • Doctor bills
  • Ambulance costs
  • Hospital stay costs
  • Accessories like crutches, wheelchairs, and prostheses
  • Physical or cognitive therapy costs in the event of a brain injury
  • Medication or drug costs
  • Travel or lodging costs associated with medical treatment
  • In-home services

Note that medical bills even future medical expenses. However, your attorney will need a medical report from your doctor stating the additional treatment required and the amount it might cost. You will need this to convince the defendant that you will incur medical expenses in the future, treating or rehabilitating your injuries.

Failure to keep proper documentation of the treatment can cost you medical expense damages. Therefore, you need to keep your patient charts, a written statement by the emergency personnel who responded to the accident, lab test results, X-ray and CT scan reports, and a letter from your physician detailing your injuries and treatment.

2.  Establishing Loss of Earnings

After a car accident, you are likely to miss work or never work again, which is why you need to include lost wages in your damages. However, to determine if these damages are present in your claim, you must demonstrate that you lost a particular amount of income for the period you were receiving treatment for the injuries.

Remember, lost future earning and earning capacity are considered separately. Loss of earning capacity damages you claim after the car accident causes a disability that prevents you from working.

The evidence that will be necessary for proving lost income includes a doctor’s note stating the type of injuries sustained and recommending the amount of time you need from work to recover from the injuries.

Also, your wage documents or paycheck stubs can be instrumental in determining lost wages. Prepare your pay stubs before the car-related injuries, and if they are not available, you can use tax returns forms to prove the amount you could have earned during the recovery. You will require tax return forms, invoices, and other materials to show the amount you have lost in terms of income during rehab for a self-employed individual.

Insurers and jurors will also need a letter from your employer to corroborate the details provided regarding your lost income. The letter’s information should be about the days you have missed work due to the injuries, your pay level, and the number of tasks you could have completed during recovery.

After establishing that lost income is damage present in your case, your attorney needs to take the next step to estimate the amount you need as compensation. The amount depends on your mode of payment. If you are paid hourly, the attorney will take your hourly pay rates and multiply them by the number of hours you have missed work due to the treatment.

Besides, you can pursue bonuses, commissions, overtime pay, lost promotions, or salary increments you could have obtained were it not for the car crash injuries.

3.  Arriving at Domestic Services Bills

Catastrophic injuries from a car accident can cause permanent or temporary disability that hinders you from performing household chores or routines. In cases like these, you need someone to handle these chores. Unfortunately, you might not have family members or friends to provide these domestic services. You will need to pay out-of-pocket for these costly services.

To determine if domestic services are damages, you can include in your claim; there must be household chores that you might have performed if it were not for the injuries. You can claim compensation for these services that you could have provided, but you could not perform and paid someone else for the work. An expert witness can be relied upon to give a cost estimate of these domestic services.

When determining these damages, you must demonstrate you used to deliver these services before the car accident-related injuries. Still, you can no longer provide the services and the time and cost involved in paying someone to perform the services.

If you have detailed records of this information, the attorney can build a strong claim seeking the damage.

Non-Economic or General Damages

General damages are the type of expenses you incur that don’t involve out-of-pocket payments or monetary expenditure. These damages have no dollar value attached to them, meaning there is no precise formula for arriving at the costs.

Determining Pain and Suffering

California allows individuals injured in car accidents to include pain and suffering as part of the injury lawsuit damages. However, the challenge is attaching a dollar value to mental and physical anguish. These damages are hard to determine and quantify since you cannot see pain. Doctors can only observe the indicators of pain but have no way of valuing it.

Even when it’s clear you are in pain due to the injuries, it’s still difficult to establish the severity of the pain and distress. The level of pain or discomfort among individuals also differs, making it challenging to arrive at the damage and prove their presence in your claim.

Car collision injuries can cause physical pain and mental distress. When the injuries sustained are severe or catastrophic, they are categorized as painful. The duration for recovery is also a prolonged one which results in mental distress and physical pain. However, for less obvious injuries, proving the presence of pain and suffering is challenging.

Remember, insurance adjusters, analyze the case because if you didn’t go for a medical examination after the accident, you didn’t suffer any pain. These companies assume that if you received complex and extended treatment, then the pain and suffering were significant. It’s the reason you are encouraged to visit the hospital after a car collision because failure to do so means you are the only person who knows, and the injury is actual.

However, if you visit the hospital, the doctor will listen to your symptoms and determine the kind of injuries sustained even if they aren’t visible. The doctor will include this information in your medical records and the physical examinations conducted to determine the injuries’ type and extent.

Your insurer will have access to this information to evaluate your case to determine if you are in pain. Further, if you were off work, unable to engage in your hobbies or other activities you used to perform before the injury, you can prove that the accident has caused you pain and mental anguish.

Being unable to engage in daily activities like going to work or school is proof of your injury’s validity to the policy carrier. Also, most people don’t get paid after missing work; if you are off work because of your car accident injuries, it supports your claim that the collision caused you pain and suffering.

Evidence for pain and anguish is necessary to support your claim. So, you should begin to document everything you experience after the accident. If the injuries are causing you pain, jot down how it makes you feel because the notes will help express your pain. If the harm sustained made you lose friends, fail to engage in hobbies, or forced you to rely on others for daily activities, documenting this information can help prove the mental anguish caused by the car accident.

When it comes to proving the value of your pain and mental distress, your insurer will analyze your documentation to confirm the claim. Some of the records you should consider keeping and that may be pivotal in corroborating your claim include:

  • Medical bills
  • Prescription records
  • Medical reports
  • Documentation by your employer regarding the time you have missed work
  • Pictures of the physical injuries sustained.
  • Receipts for OTC medications

Estimating the amount to award for the pain and mental anguish is not a piece of cake. Different courts have various techniques for making this estimation. Some courts will multiply the special damages a particular figure has awarded you to reflect the pain and anguish’s degree. Others calculate the compensation using the per diem system, which grants you a specific amount of money per day until you reach the maximum settlement.

Loss of Enjoyment of Life

Suppose the car accident injuries prevent you from bonding with your family, traveling, engaging in recreational activities or hobbies, pursuing your career, or social encounters with your friends. In that case, you can claim damages for loss of life enjoyment.

Once you have proved these benefits are present in your case, the court will estimate the value for the damages. They do this by considering:

  • Your age
  • Appearance
  • The extent of the injuries
  • Your work history and educational background
  • Geographical location
  • The activities the injuries hinder you from performing.

This damage is entirely personal, which is why the court mainly relies on your statement and that of your family members or spouse to prove the injuries from the crash have denied your life enjoyment. You can explain to the court the activities you used to enjoy before the collision and how the accident’s injuries have prevented you from life enjoyment.

Loss of Affection or Companionship

If you are married, an injury from the car crash can deprive you and your spouse of marriage benefits, showing affection or companionship or parenting. Loss of consortium is different from others because the victim’s spouse is the one that determines the damage. Further, the damages can’t be claimed if the victim hasn’t been compensated for the injuries.

If you lose your life or sustain life-changing injuries that deprive you of your parenting abilities, your spouse can claim loss of companionship. However, to determine whether the damage is present in your case, the court or insurer must consider whether the victim had a loving and stable relationship with the plaintiff, the life expectancy of the spouse, if the victim of the accident is alive, and the living arrangement with the victim. The maximum compensation you can get for the damages is $30,000 and the minimum $15,000.

Future Medical Costs

It’s quite challenging to determine future medical bills, although they are close to medical expenses. Your injury attorney must be patient enough to wait until you have completed all the treatment and discharged to determine if the damage is present in your case. The attorney must also work closely with your physician and other medical experts to establish the value of future medical treatment.

These experts will determine the sort of surgeries, pain management, and rehabilitation treatment necessary to recover. The medical professionals then estimate how this future treatment might require your attorney to come up with a reasonable settlement.

Punitive Damages

If the car accident occurred, the driver was operating the vehicle while drunk or drugged; the intentional intoxication shows that the defendant’s actions were egregious and had sufficient malice hence the need for compensation. Punitive damages are not intended to make you whole like compensatory damages. Instead, they are designed to punish the at-fault driver and deter others from engaging in similar behavior in the future.

Other conducts that might indicate punitive damages are present in your case include:

  • Taking part in a chicken game where motorists compete to find out who swerves first but instead end up causing a car collision.
  • Engaging in rage road that results in multiple injuries and victims

California doesn’t have a limit on punitive damages. The only requirement is that the amount of compensation must be proportionate to compensatory damages. Therefore, if the car accident resulted in severe injuries and property loss, the court will award hefty punitive damages.

When awarding the damages, the court considers the financial muscle of the defendant. The wealthier the defendant, the higher the amount to be awarded for punitive damages.

Discover the Best Car Accident Injury Attorney Near Me

As demonstrated above, determining damages in a car accident involves many complexities, mainly general damages. For this reason, you should speak to an experienced personal injury attorney to help you with the process. At The Personal Injury Attorney Law Firm, we are here to help you arrive at all the damages present in your case for maximum compensation. Call us today at 619-625-8707 for a free consultation with one of our representatives.