After you experience a car accident, you need to seek compensation for numerous economic losses you endure. For instance, you may require compensation to cover the cost of medical expenses, lost income, property damage, and ongoing care.
While economic damages are important, and you may recover compensation for your losses, non-economic damages can also play a factor. Pain and suffering can be a big portion of your compensation, so you should know how the law calculates how much you can recover.
The Factors to Consider
When determining compensation, a jury is instructed to look at a number of elements. They must decide the full amount you may recover for the following:
- Your injury severity, including the nature, extent, and duration
- Your pain and suffering, along with mental trauma you may experience after your accident
- Your loss of enjoyment in life, meaning you endure a reduced quality of life
- Your loss of love or care if the accident resulted in your loved one’s death
Unfortunately, many people feel confused with the process because there’s no formula or mathematical equation to ensure a specific amount of compensation.
As the Recommended Arizona Jury Instructions explains:
“If you find [any] [name of defendant] liable to [name of plaintiff], you must then decide the full amount of money that will reasonably and fairly compensate [name of plaintiff] for each of the following elements of damages proved by the evidence to have resulted from the fault of [any] [name of defendant] [party] [person]:
- The nature, extent, and duration of the injury.
- The pain, discomfort, suffering, disability, disfigurement, and anxiety already experienced, and reasonably probable to be experienced in the future as a result of the injury.
- Reasonable expenses of necessary medical care, treatment, and services rendered, and reasonably probable to be incurred in the future.
- Lost earnings to date, and any decrease in earning power or capacity in the future.
- Loss of love, care, affection, companionship, and other pleasures of the [marital] [parent-child] relationship.
- Loss of enjoyment of life, that is, the participation in life’s activities to the quality and extent normally enjoyed before the injury.”
How your lawyer positions your case is oftentimes the biggest determining element in how much you can recover for compensation.
At Skousen, Gulbrandsen & Patience, PLC, our Mesa car accident attorneys genuinely care about your rights and needs. We value our neighbors in the Mesa area, and we are not afraid to go up against large insurance companies when you need it most. Let our team fight for you and give you a voice against negligence.
Contact our firm today at (480) 999-9181.