A severe injury can change everything in your life, and it’s difficult to plan a path forward without knowing what your financial situation will be. Unfortunately, there’s no quick way to determine how much your Jacksonville personal injury case is worth. Without knowing the details of your injury, your life before the accident, and your prognosis, it’s impossible to begin to put together a compensation claim.
However, tools are available to help you assign values to your losses. Meeting with a Jacksonville personal injury lawyer who has experience in this area of law can help you structure a claim that addresses the compensation settlement or judgment you and your family deserve.
Recoverable Losses that May Be Part of Your Compensation Claim
The two types of compensable losses that you must review to understand the worth of your personal injury case are economic and noneconomic damages. Many factors determine the value of these losses, such as:
- The extent of your injuries
- Your medical prognosis
- Your current income
- Reduced earning capacity
- How your injuries affect your physical and financial health
Current and Future Medical Care
For a severe injury, medical care usually begins at the accident site. Paramedics arrive in an ambulance, stabilize you, and get you to a hospital. The emergency department team takes over your care and then sends you home or admits you to a hospital.
Medical expenses take up a substantial portion of the overall costs associated with an accident. Surgery, doctor’s visits, hospital stays, rehab, medication, physical therapy, and aftercare are just a few of the costs that pile up in the days after your incident. You must also estimate your future medical care as part of your claim.
Property Loss
Suppose you were in a motorcycle accident. You might have repair or replacement expenses for your bike and a crushed cell phone that was in your pocket.
Loss of Income
You may find yourself unable to work as you recover from your injury. Worse, you may be unable to work in the same capacity, meaning you’ll generate less income.
Some injuries prevent your return to work, resulting in a loss of future earnings and benefits. Some or all of your lost income may be compensable.
Out-Of-Pocket Expenses
Your injury may prevent you from performing the tasks you handled before your accident. You may have to pay someone to assist you with errands, childcare, home maintenance, cooking, transportation to and from medical appointments, and all the other chores we have.
Then, there are noneconomic damages, which are the subjective losses we suffer because of the accident. Because they don’t come with an invoice attached, you must assign a cost to these losses for your compensation claim.
Pain and Suffering
This category refers to the physical and mental suffering your injury inflicts on you, whether for a limited time or a lifetime.
Emotional Trauma
An accident and severe injury can cause depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental and emotional upheaval. These stressors can easily affect all aspects of your life.
Disfigurement and Disability
The loss of bodily function or mobility can have a profound impact on your life, producing mental and physical challenges that are difficult to overcome. Scarring and other visible injuries may bring ongoing emotional pain as one learns to live with a new reality.
Loss of Relationships
An injury may change you and your relationships with loved ones. You may be unable to participate in physical activities such as sports or exercise as you did before the accident. Your emotions may be dysregulated, making it difficult to adjust to the ups and downs in life.
Loss of Quality of Life
Your injuries could restrict your abilities, leaving you isolated, or temper your enjoyment of everyday living.
To determine what your noneconomic damages may be, an attorney might use the multiplier method, where you multiply the total of your economic damages by a specific number to find a dollar amount, or they might use a per-dem method, where your attorney will multiply an assigned dollar amount by the days of your recovery.
Finally, if your case goes to trial, the jury will decide the total value of your Jacksonville personal injury case.
How Shared Negligence May Affect the Worth of Your Jacksonville Personal Injury Case
As you proceed with your compensation claim, you might have the defendant point the finger at you and claim you are partially at fault for the accident. If the evidence supports that claim, you could still recover some compensation for your losses, as long as a jury doesn’t find you more than 50% responsible.
Florida’s modified comparative negligence statute says if you are less than 51% at fault for an accident, you may recover compensation for losses. However, you must subtract the percentage of blame assigned to you from your recoverable compensation. For example, if you are 20% responsible for the accident, and a jury awards you $250,000, you would recover 80% of your compensation ($200,000) instead of the full amount.
The Deadline to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Florida
If negotiations with the liable party’s insurers fail to bring an acceptable settlement offer, you could seek compensation via a judgment or verdict from the courts. Florida’s statute of limitations gives you two years from the accident date to begin legal action. If you miss the deadline, the court could bar you from filing a personal injury lawsuit. Thus, you’d miss out on your last opportunity to recover compensation.
Call Our Jacksonville Personal Injury Attorneys for Help with Your Case
Our legal team at the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine is dedicated to helping you take back control of your life. Call us today for a free, no-obligation case consultation. It’s our job to get you the money you deserve. We do the fighting, so you don’t have to.
We Can Help.
