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A Practical Guide to Calculate Accident Compensation

Many factors affect the value of a personal injury claim, including the extent of a person’s injuries, the costs associated with treating those injuries, and the amount of insurance coverage available. Personal injury attorneys can review the details of their claim and provide an estimate of the value of their case.

What Types of Accidents Let You Claim Compensation?

If you were injured in a slip and fall, at work, in a car accident or during some other incident, you may have suffered financially, physically and mentally.

Under the law of damage, the term “personal injury” usually refers to a civil claim that results from the unlawful conduct of a negligent party that causes harm to another person, including physical or emotional harm. Common accident claims that a personal injury lawyer can handle include:

As an injured party, you must prove that the opposite party was negligent in proving that you failed to comply with a duty of care. It must also provide evidence that the negligence of the defendant caused his injuries and that he suffered losses due to these injuries.

Because of the complex nature of personal injury claims and the requirements to succeed in your lawsuit, you must always hire a personal injury lawyer to help you file and litigate your claim.

Who Can Claim an Accident Compensation?

If you suffered an injury due to another person’s negligent or careless behaviour, you can file a viable claim against the negligent party with the help of a qualified lawyer.

If his injuries occurred due to someone else’s negligence, they could be responsible for the losses he suffered in the accident. A personal injury lawyer will work to help him recover financial compensation for his pain and suffering.

Which Factors Affect Compensation Calculations?

A common question when hiring a personal injury lawyer is how much is my case worth? To estimate the compensation, we look at the following factors:

  • Insurance companies generally value injury agreements using formulas that take into account injuries, the amount of medical treatment needed and how much was granted in similar previous cases.
  • Each case of personal injury is different, but certain factors and laws are likely to affect the value of any injury settlement claims.
  • The value of a personal injury claim depends on the amount of damage. Generally, the legally responsible party to the accident shall pay damages to the injured claimant to compensate for the losses suffered.

From a financial point of view, the damage is worth a dollar value based on how much the accident affected the plaintiff. The final amount of damages in a lawsuit may involve an amount agreed in a settlement or be determined by a jury in the trial.

Economic and Non-Economic Damage

Economic damage, or special damages, include current and future financial losses. These costs usually involve specific amounts expressed in numbers. For this reason, determining a value for this type of loss can be easier to calculate.

Economic damage may include:

  • Medical bills to treat the injury
  • Damage or loss of property
  • Wages lost for free time
  • Other out-of-pocket expenses

Non-economic damage, or general damage, can be more difficult to calculate because it represents the physical and mental cost resulting from the accident or injury. This may include physical discomfort or the pain and suffering of the plaintiff.

Non-economic damage takes into account:

  • Emotional distress/mental anxiety
  • Loss of enjoyment
  • Loss of consortium

How Do You Affect the Value of A Claim?

Depending on the state, the level of guilt shared by an injured party for causing an accident can reduce the amount awarded by a jury if the case goes to trial. As a result, a plaintiff who shares the blame for an accident may find that the value of his claim is reduced at least partially.

If your own neglect or negligence contributed to the accident, your state’s law may require a reduction in compensation for damages you receive. Usually, the reduced amount is based on the state where the accident occurred.

State Laws for Personal Injury Claims

In some states, damage is reduced by an equal amount to its percentage of guilt. In other states, however, any blame on the plaintiff could cause compensation to be reduced altogether.

When it comes to the role of an injured person in causing an accident, states generally follow one of the three basic types of negligence rules:

  • Pure comparative negligence
  • Amended comparative negligence
  • Contributive negligence

Pure Comparative Negligence

For states that use pure comparative negligence, damages in a personal injury lawsuit are reduced directly based on the plaintiff’s percentage of guilt for the accident. For example, if you are determined that you are 30% to blame, the amount of your damage would be directly reduced by 30%.

Modified Comparative Negligity

The modified benchmark of comparative negligence follows the same logic as pure comparative negligence, however, this does not mean that any claim is not worth simply because the plaintiff is at least part of the blame. Contact a personal injury lawyer from David Sanchez to discuss his rights and the possible compensation for his case, but only to a certain extent. States that use this method to determine the damage from the fault include Colorado and Minnesota.

Under this rule, the amount of damage is still reduced by the percentage of guilt. However, if your fault percentage is determined to be equal to or greater than 50% (different states have variable limits), you will no longer be able to collect damages.

As a result, plaintiffs in states that use modified comparative negligence and share 50 percent or more of the blame can see the value of their lawsuit reduced.

However, this does not mean that any claim is worth simply because the plaintiff has at least part of the blame. Contact a personal injury lawyer from David Sanchez to discuss his rights and the possible compensation for his case.

Contributive Negligence

Among these three standards, concurrent negligence is considered to be the strictest in reducing damage due to shared fault.

Contributive negligence prevents an injured claimant from collecting any damage if it is determined that he is to blame for the accident, regardless of the percentage.

This means that if the plaintiff shares even 1 percent of the blame, the value of the lawsuit could be drastically reduced in states that use this rule. The best way to find out if your claim will be affected is to seek legal advice from a personal injury lawyer from David Sanchez.

Key Considerations to Claim A Compensation for Accident

Most civil cases in the United States involve personal injury. So you might wonder how to improve your chances of winning your case. Here are a few suggestions for considering:

  • Be transparent with your lawyer.
  • He only discusses the details of the case with his lawyer.
  • Don’t talk to the insurance providers.
  • Try to have a medical professional on your side.
  • Document each piece of evidence in your case.
  • Work as a team with your lawyer.
  • Trust the process.
  • Choose the right lawyer for you.

In David Sanchez’s Legal Offices, our personal injury lawyers can help with your claim. Call us for a free consultation today.

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