How are compensation numbers calculated in personal injury cases?
If you are injured in an accident you are entitled to compensation. The question then becomes how much are you entitled to. Trying to figure this out is not easy and will largely be negotiated by your lawyer and the insurance company. It is rarely a good idea to represent yourself in these negotiations. Nevertheless it is a good idea for you to know what the factors are that are used in order to come up with the final amount.
The first thing that you will need to look at in order to determine how much you will be compensated in a personal injury case is the actual expenses that are involved. That would be to cover your medical expenses and any expenses that you incur because of time that you missed at work. This is all fairly straightforward, you will need to provide documentation about your medical expenses and your lost wages and they will simply be added up to come up with this part of the compensation you are entitled to.
The next part of the calculation is determining any future expenses that you might incur. If you have suffered a long term injury or a disability it will be necessary to estimate how much your future medical expenses are going to be. You will also need to determine any decrease in future earnings that might occur as the result of your injuries. This can get complicated since you need to estimate things like how much health care will cost in the future and how much you would have earned if you hadn't been injured. In large part these will be little more than guesses but experienced lawyers are pretty good at figuring out what this should be.
The next part of determining compensation numbers in a personal injury case will be compensatory damages. This is the money that you receive for your pain and suffering. It is virtually impossible to put a fair value on how much your suffering is worth. In large part the amount that you get will come down to how much your lawyer can get the other side to pay. The worst your suffering sounds the more you are likely to get but the amounts will vary wildly for no good reason. The exact same accident claims will get different results with different lawyers, courts and people involved.
The final thing that will need to be considered in calculating personal injury compensation will be any punitive damages. This is money that you are entitled to if the accident was the result of the other party doing something that they weren't supposed to do, or failing to do something they were supposed to do. Basically it is extra money that is awarded as a punishment to the party that caused the accident. Again determining this amount is largely going to come down to how good your lawyer is and what he can get the other side to pay.