Different kinds of accidents happen every single day. Some accident victims are lucky enough to end up with some minor scrapes and bruises, while others are not as lucky and end up with serious and life-changing injuries. Fortunately, injured victims could pursue financial compensation for their damages via a personal injury claim. But to successfully recover compensation through a claim, injured victims must show that the at-fault party acted recklessly or negligently, causing the accident and injuring the victims.
If you’ve suffered injuries in an accident caused by a negligent individual or entity, our top Chamblee personal injury lawyers are ready to help. We handle different kinds of personal injury cases here at Spaulding Injury Law, including:
- Car Accidents
- Motorcycle Accidents
- Pedestrian Accidents
- Truck Accidents
- Brain Injury
- Back and Neck Injury
- Slip and Falls
- Product Liability
- Dog Bites
- MARTA Accidents
- Drunk Driving Accidents
- Boating Accidents
- Lyft and Uber Accidents
- Wrongful Death
Damages Available to Injured Victims in Personal Injury Cases
In most personal injury cases, injured parties might be entitled to be compensated by two types of damages, which are economic damage and non-economic damages.
Economic Damages
These damages compensate victims for the out-of-pocket costs they incurred due to the accident and usually include:
- Medical Bills – These include any expenses associated with diagnosing, treating, and rehabilitating the injuries resulting from the accident. Also, these can include future medical costs if you suffered permanent impairments or disability.
- Lost Earnings – Did you miss many days at work because you needed to recover from your injuries? This must also include any sick or vacation leaves you missed. All the times you missed work because of your injuries could be easily verified through your employer, pay stubs, and tax records.
- Property Damage – This applies to expenses used for repairing or replacing damage to property, such as for a vehicle involved in an auto crash. It can likewise include compensation for any property inside the vehicle that was damaged or lost during the accident.
- Lost Earning Capacity – Certain catastrophic injuries like spinal cord injuries that lead to paralysis and traumatic brain injuries that leave injured victims comatose temporarily or for life could have lasting negative effects. Injured victims who were unable to go back to work or were forced to take a different job might receive financial compensation for the amount they should’ve earned if not for the injuries’ lasting impact.
Non-economic Damages
These are the kinds of damages that are hard to calculate because they are subjective. These normally include the following:
- Emotional distress
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of companionship or consortium
Punitive Damages
Injured victims might sometimes be awarded exemplary or punitive damages when they show convincing and clear proof of the at-fault party’s willful negligence, oppression, wantonness, misconduct, or malice. These damages are usually reserved for the most outrageous and severe cases of wrongdoing.
In addition, they are used to financially penalize the liable party from acting the same way in the future. For example, if the liable party was found guilty of drunk driving when they crashed into your car, they will need to pay punitive damages on top of the non-economic and economic damages they already owe.
What You Need to Establish in Your Personal Injury Case
To successfully win your personal injury claim, you’ll need to establish the following elements:
- The at-fault party had a legal obligation to safeguard the injured victim from harm. This obligation could be as simple as following the speed limit or eliminating obvious hazards from a property.
- The at-fault party breached or violated this obligation or duty, resulting in negligence.
- Due to the at-fault party’s violation of their duty to other people, they caused an accident that injured another individual.
- The victim suffered specific financial losses because of the injuries.
In order to demonstrate all these elements, you will need to present strong evidence. In personal injury claims, pieces of evidence commonly used for establishing negligence include police reports, eyewitness testimonies, videos and photos of the accident scene, medical records and bills, and documentation to support lost income.
It’s also crucial to note that in some cases, more than one individual or entity could be held liable for an accident. For example, the other driver might not be solely responsible for an auto accident. Sometimes auto accidents occur when a car component malfunctioned or did not have adequate safety features.
Likewise, auto accidents could be caused by poor design or maintenance of the roadway. In this case, the government entity responsible for maintaining or fixing the roadway might be partly or solely to blame for the accident.
The Importance of Filing a Personal Injury Case
Accidents could be very costly. The medical treatment costs could add up pretty quickly, and if you were forced to stop working, losing your income could make a difficult situation even more challenging. If you suffered a catastrophic injury, the costs could run up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This does not even include the costs of intangible damages like pain and suffering.
With help from our skilled Chamblee personal injury lawyers, however, you could seek fair compensation that will cover all the expenses and costs related to your injuries. Although money can’t undo the accident or ensure that your injuries will recover fully, it could help make your financial burden easier to manage. Pursuing a personal injury claim will also make sure that the negligent party that injured you will be held accountable for their actions.
Contact Our Top Chamblee Personal Injury Lawyers Now
At Spaulding Injury Law, we are all about holding individuals or entities legally liable for the damages they inflict on other people. When accidents leave innocent victims struggling to recover and pay their medical bills, our Chamblee personal injury lawyers can help them seek justice and proper compensation.
To find out more about how a personal injury claim works and what you could expect based on the specific circumstances surrounding your case, you can call 770-874-8891 or fill out our online contact form to arrange a free consultation with one of our Chamblee personal injury lawyers today.
