Millions of people suffer accidental injuries each year and need treatment in the emergency room. Not only is an injury financially costly, but it can also have many additional adverse effects on your life, both personally and professionally. If someone else was responsible for causing your injuries, they should also be responsible for covering the costs of your injuries. This process is not always easy for injury victims, however, and the right legal representation can make all the difference.
Speak with a Doraville personal injury attorney from Spaulding Injury Law to take advantage of our experience with injury claims. We can determine whether you have a case, and if so, how to get the most possible compensation for your losses so you can get on with your life fully covered after your accident.
We take on many types of injury claims involving a range of accidents and injuries, including:
- Truck accidents
- Car accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Slip and falls
- MARTA accidents
- Uber & Lyft accidents
- Brain injuries
- Spinal injury
- Wrongful death
No matter what led to your injuries, reach out to learn about your options for possible compensation.
Kinds of Damages for Personal Injuries
When you have been injured in an accident with an at-fault party, the law entitles you to damages. Damages refer to the compensation a liable party pays to cover your injury-related losses. Damages in most accident claims include economic damages and non-economic damages, which can both be challenging to calculate.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are those that compensate you for your financial losses. The bulk of economic damages often involve medical expenses, including for:
- Emergency transportation and treatment
- Surgery
- Hospitalization
- Follow-up appointments
- Specialist appointments
- Physical and occupational therapy
- Medications
- Medical equipment
- Home health care
Some serious injuries will require medical care for years – or possibly for the rest of your life. The good news is that you can seek compensation for your future costs that you have not yet incurred. The challenging part is accurately estimating and proving those future losses. This is where an experienced personal injury lawyer comes in.
If your injury kept you from working – even for a short time – you might be entitled to damages for lost wages during your time recovering from the injury, as well as any impact your injury might have had upon your ability to return to work at an equal pay rate or to return to work at all. Calculating lost future income can be complicated, similar to future medical expenses, but our legal team can accurately account for all of your current and future economic losses.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are not tied to monetary losses, bills, or receipts. Instead, these include intangible losses such as emotional distress, mental anguish, and pain and suffering. In the tragic event that you have lost a loved one to an accident, you might seek recovery for loss of consortium, a legal term that means companionship. When you lose a loved one to an accident, you can bring a wrongful death lawsuit to collect on the lost value of not only their financial contribution to your family, but also their emotional contribution.
Accidents happen, and when they cause significant and lasting injuries, you can be entitled to damages for the intangible losses associated with the injury. For example, some neck and back injuries can cause ongoing pain due to nerve damage, pain that requires ongoing treatment, and causes consistent pain. Such pain and suffering is compensable, and an experienced attorney knows how to calculate it and incorporate it into your damages.
Injury Claims and Negotiations
Calculating your damages is only the first step, as you must then take steps to obtain your compensation. This is a complex and often challenging process that you want handled by a skilled Doraville personal injury lawyer.
First, collecting damages for your injuries and associated costs from your accident requires you to prove that another party is at fault for the accident. Generally, this requires proving that another person or company was negligent, which means:
- The party owed you a duty of care, such as driving in a reasonably safe manner and in accordance with traffic laws.
- The party breached that duty, such as driving while distracted or impaired driving.
- The breach caused your injuries, such as in a resulting car accident.
- You suffered damages as a result of your injuries, such as for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
Proving all of these elements requires evidence, and our attorneys know how to investigate accidents, gather necessary evidence, and present the most persuasive claim possible to the insurance companies.
Insurance companies will often try to challenge liability. An adjuster might investigate your claim and allege that you were partially to blame or even that the policyholder had no responsibility at all. Never expect insurance companies to simply accept liability claims, as they will deny injury claims whenever possible. Having the right lawyer handling the process from the start can avoid these types of challenges in many situations.
Once you prove liability, you then need to prove your damages. This can involve presenting medical bills, pay statements, expert opinions on future damages, witness testimony or pain journals for your intangible losses, and more.
Even if you provide evidence of your damages, the insurer will still likely come at you with a lowball settlement offer to start. These insurers rarely offer a fair amount upfront. Instead, your attorney will need to engage in negotiations to convince them to offer you a fair amount. If the adjuster refuses to offer an adequate settlement, your attorney can take the case to court by filing a personal injury lawsuit.
Connect with a Doraville Personal Injury Lawyer Today
The experienced Doraville personal injury attorneys from Spaulding Injury Law have worked on many cases like yours in the area and know how to seek the full value of your damages. Please schedule a consultation with us now to explore options in your specific situation. We are ready to help injured clients through every step of the process.
