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Damages and Compensation in Personal Injury Cases

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In many previous posts, I have talked a bit about compensation. Compensation is what you are generally trying to get by filing a personal injury claim. While you may have a general idea of what compensation is, you might not be entirely familiar with this term. If you are thinking of starting the personal injury lawsuit process, you should make sure that you know exactly what you want to get out of this process. To help you figure this out, I will discuss damages and compensation in greater detail here. If you have any questions about compensation, they will likely be answered on this page.

What is Compensation?

If your child was injured and someone else is at-fault, it can be difficult to make up for these injuries. How can you make up for the physical and emotional pain and suffering of your family? The truth of the matter is that you can never completely make up for these issues. But, the court has devised a system in which injured parties can get monetary compensation for these injuries.

There are two major types of compensation that the at-fault party can try to make up for: economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages refer to anything related to your child’s injury that has a monetary amount attached to it. For example, if you spent $100 to take your child to the doctor and have their injuries checked out, economic compensation can come to you in the form of $100. What you spent because of the at-fault party’s negligence can be made up for.

Economic Damages

Economic damages are fairly easy to calculate, especially if you keep good financial records of the money that you spent related to your child’s injuries. Your family can receive compensation for economic damages such as the cost of:

  • Doctor’s appointments
  • Medication
  • Other treatment such as physical therapy
  • Surgery

You can also get compensation for economic damages that harmed your property. For example if your child was injured in a car accident and your motor vehicle also sustained damages, the other party could be asked to pay for repairs to your car.

Non-Economic Damages

On the other hand, you have compensation for non-economic damages. Non-economic damages are a bit more difficult to define and determine how they can be paid. Non-economic damages basically covers the pain and suffering that your child and your family went through as a result of an accident. Depending on how much emotional pain your family went through, you could receive compensation for non-economic damages as well as economic damages.

As you can see, it is very difficult what qualifies as pain and suffering and what dollar amount to attach to these issues. You can work with your lawyer to determine an accurate amount of money to ask for.

Getting money for damages on behalf of your child can be a tricky endeavor. It can be difficult to figure out how much you are owed and how you can obtain it. If you would like assistance with this process, please contact my office. I am happy to guide you through this process and do what I can to help your family at this time.