How Much is a Personal Injury Worth in Idaho?
As a Boise Personal Injury Attorney I get frequent questions
from people wanting to know how much there injury is worth. What kind of settlement can I get for my
personal injury? As with all legal
issues, there is no cut and dry answer.
There are several factors, however, to keep in mind when trying to
quantify how much your injury is worth.
Types of Damages in Personal Injury Cases
You might hear a personal injury lawyer speak about
compensatory damages. These are damages
award to compensate a person for their injury.
Compensatory damages include special damages, general damages and
potentially punitive damages.
Special Damages
Most attorneys will start with identifying something known
as special damages. These are fairly easy
to identify because they include actual expenses including things like medical
bills, prescription costs, lost wages, durable medical goods, such as crutches
and the like.
It is important if you have suffered a personal injury to
keep a good record of these expenses because the extent of your injury can be
manifest in your medical bills, though not always. At any rate, you will need to be able to
identify the cost of your injuries. If
you have been injured and you never go to the doctor, you lose evidence of your
injury and you have no evidence to prove your damages.
General Damages
Another type of damage personal injury attorneys look at is
general damages which are non-quantifiable damages such as pain and suffering,
loss of enjoyment of life and loss of consortium. While special damages are easy to quantify,
these general damages are less easy to identify. For example, how much is the pain and suffering associated
with a broken back? In order to value
the non-quantifiable damage, it is important to look at the extent of the
medical bills because they can indicate the severity of the injury, though not
always. It is also important to look at
the circumstances of injury. For
example, if you have two automobile accidents that are similar in nature, you may
end up with two widely varying damage awards based upon the circumstances of
the situation. If you have a rear end
accident that is caused by a 75 year old woman driving in the rain and she hits
you and is cited for following too closely and going too fast for the
conditions outside vs. you have a rear end accident caused by a 25 year old
intoxicated male who is cited for DUI, you may end up with a different award
amount because of the surrounding circumstances of the case.
In regard to types of general damages, I often am asked, “what is loss of consortium?” Consortium is your relationship with your
spouse, your children or society in general.
Consortium with your child means your relationship and how you
related. Your closeness as parent and
child. Loss of consortium with a spouse
includes your relationship but also your sexual relationship. If you injury caused you to lose that
closeness or sexual intimacy with your spouse, you have a loss of consortium.
If you no longer have a sexual relationship or you sought a divorce
after the accident because of the loss of consortium, this emotional for of injury is often a recoverable
damage.
Another factor that can affect the amount of damages awarded
is the condition of the plaintiff. For
example, an older person will generally take longer to heal than a young
person. Pain and suffering will associated
with a paralyzation will affect a younger person for a longer duration than an
older person and therefore the award for that loss will be more. A scar on the face of a young woman will be
valued at a greater degree than a leg scar on a same aged male because of what
our society values as beauty.
One other interesting fact about personal injury is that you can recover general damages for yourself but also for those close to you who witness or are affected by your injury. For example, if your child witnesses your accident, they may have emotional damages associated with witnessing that. If your spouse is shown your an x-ray of your neck after a catastrophic neck injury, this can cause emotional harm directly related to the injury. Even if you have had a divorce, if your ex-spouse witnesses your accident, that distress may be a compensated claim in regard to both parties.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are not routinely awarded. They are given when it can be shown that the
defendant acted extremely irresponsibly.
They might economically benefit from a defective product and continue to
do so after they are aware of the harm.
Punitive damages are awarded to discourage others from doing the same
type of thing and to penalize the party who caused the harm.
The above discussion just goes to show how and why there is
no cut and dry answer about how much your injury is worth. If you have been injured and need to speak to
a Boise Personal Injury Attorney, please give us a call, (208) 472-2383, and see what we can do for you. You will be glad you did.
