What Losses Demand Compensation In Personal Injury Case?

Injury Lawyer Personal Injury Faq's

A personal injury lawyer categorizes any injury, any amount of property damage and any other type of loss under the term “loss.” All losses get classed as damages.

2 categories for damages

• Compensatory: That includes both general and special damages.
• Punitive: These are not related to the nature or extent of harm done to the plaintiff.

Special Damages

• Compensation for monetary losses
• There is no limit to the number of losses that the plaintiff can claim.
• There is no limit to the amount of money that can be claimed as lost.
• A listing of losses that could qualify as special damages would include loss of current earnings, loss of future earnings, medical costs and household expenses.

General Damages

• Non-monetary losses
• Harm that is generally suffered by someone with a personal injury claim
• Here are some examples of general damages:
• Pain and suffering
• Mental anguish
• Loss of consortium
• Loss of companionship

The proportion of special damages, as compared to those that were generally expected, would depend on the nature of the personal injury case. If the victim had suffered a catastrophic injury, the responsible party could need to cover the costs for an extensive treatment, which would get categorized as special damages. If the victim had suffered a fatal injury, and had died, then the grieving family would have a long list of general damages.

Not every case focuses on a plaintiff that has suffered all of the above-named damages. An injured child would not have faced loss of current earnings, but could face a loss of future earnings. Loss of consortium and loss of companionship get introduced in cases where there has been a wrongful death.

Punitive damages

A defendant needs to cover punitive damages if he or she has demonstrated reprehensible behavior. Typically, such behavior had placed the plaintiff at great risk for being harmed, physically, emotionally or financially. The court decides on the size of the defendant’s punitive damages. That size does not reflect the level of harm done to the plaintiff. Instead, it reflects the extent to which the court hopes to prevent recurrence of the reprehensible actions that had been taken earlier by the punished defendant.

Personal Injury Lawyer in Oakville knows that unlike the compensatory damages, the money that a plaintiff receives for punitive damages can be taxed. Hence, some plaintiffs work with their lawyers, in order to reduce the amount of money from the defendant that must get delivered in the form of punitive payments.

For instance, the plaintiff’s lawyer might suggest that the court could increase the amount of money requested for certain special damages, in exchange for a reduction in the size of the punitive damages. Thus, the defendant would still learn the court’s view of that defendant’s behavior.

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