If you were to sue the person responsible for your personal injury, you could have your case decided in a courtroom. If the judge or jury were to decide in your favor, you could expect to receive a court-ordered award. Which of your losses that would award compensate?
What would be the nature of the compensatory damages?
• The total of all of the medical bills
• The value for the lost wages
• Cost of pain and suffering
Could a victim with a personal injury claim receive any award in addition to those compensating for damages?
In some cases, the victim might receive punitive damages. The court issues that sort of award when a defendant has been guilty of egregious behavior. The compensatory awards fall into 2 different categories
• Economic: Those with an obvious monetary value
• Non-economic: Those that do not have an obvious monetary value, such as pain and suffering
The court awards damages to those plaintiffs that have managed to prove negligence on the part of the defendant.
• Proof of defendant’s duty to demonstrate care towards plaintiff
• Proof of the fact that the defendant breached that recognized duty
• Proof of the fact that the defendant’s actions were to proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury.
How could a plaintiff show that a defendant’s actions were the proximate cause of a given injury?
That would require presenting evidence that without introduction of the defendant’s actions, the reported injuries could not have occurred. The need for such evidence underscores the value of the medical report. The doctor could state, in that report, that a given injury had been caused by factors related to the defendant’s careless and neglectful actions.
A plaintiff’s ability to link an alleged proximate cause to a reported injury gets diminished, if there is a large span of time between the injury-causing incident and the time when the doctor examines the injured patient/victim. That fact helps to highlight the need for every victim to get seen by a member of the medical profession just as soon as possible, following the accident’s occurrence.
How might a lawyer make use of the possible existence of certain compensatory damages?
Sometimes, Personal Injury Lawyer in St Thomas speak with the judge about adding new compensatory damages, such as future medical expenses, in exchange for a reduction in, or a removal of specific punitive damages. Lawyers realize that their clients must pay a tax on any punitive damages.
If there were evidence that a client might need more medical treatments in the future, then an attorney would have reason to ask about adding that to the other damages. As a result, the awarded plaintiff/client could receive the same amount of money, but not have the obligation of paying taxes.