If you’ve suffered a serious injury, you’re likely interested in seeking compensation from the party that is responsible for your harm. After all, if not for their negligence, your injury would not have happened.
How can you determine how much compensation you deserve? There are a few different factors that you’ll need to consider to start. Seeking legal guidance can help you to determine additional losses that you may be in a position to be compensated for.
Medical bills
First of all, you’ll naturally want to start with your medical expenses. Say that you suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that put you in the hospital for a week and kept you out of work for two months while you recovered. The week in the hospital can be incredibly expensive, and you may need to continue to use medications and attend follow-up and treatment appointments with your medical team while you recover. Fortunately, medical bills are well documented, so this paperwork can help you decide what type of compensation is warranted for this aspect of your experience.
Lost earnings
The next thing to consider is if you have lost any of your wages due to your harm. An obvious example of this would be if you were on the way to work when you were involved in a car accident. Even a minor car accident can cause you to miss that day’s worth of work and the wages and other compensation that could go along with it. In certain industries, you’ll want to consider things like bonuses or pay that you would’ve made on commissions, not just hourly wages.
Lost earning potential
Finally, you may need to think about your lost earning capacity. Has your potential to earn money been decreased by your injury? An example of this could be if you were on track for a promotion to become the CEO of a company, but your traumatic brain injury means that you will no longer be able to take that position. You may still be able to work, but you’ve clearly lost the ability to pursue a valuable promotion and the compensation that would’ve gone with it.
Once you’ve got a good sense of these three kinds of economic losses, you’ll want to explore the possibility of being awarded non-economic losses as well. Seeking legal guidance can help you with this process.