Recoverable Damages After A Dallas Truck Accident

When an accident occurs, the injured party can seek compensation from the party that caused their collision. Compensation can include economic damages and non-economic damages, from medical bills all the way through lost wages, pain and suffering. After a truck accident occurs, you should seek help from an experienced attorney. An attorney could help you seek all damages available in truck wrecks, both economic and non-economic, in order to maximize the settlement. Speak to a lawyer about the recoverable damages after a Dallas truck accident.

What Are Economic Damages?

Economic damages refer to the compensation the injured party might receive as a result of monetary losses they suffer because of a crash. Economic damages include past and future medical expenses, past and future lost wages, household services, vocational rehab, property damages, out-of-pocket expenses, and lost earning capacity. Medical expenses are bills that arise out of the injuries that are caused by the crash, and these are quantifiable as their actual bills.

Future medical expenses can come into play when a plaintiff can sufficiently prove he or she will need further medical care due to a crash. Usually, this is proved up through expert testimony given by plaintiff’s position or life care planner. The lost earning capacity can be recovered in catastrophic injury cases when a plaintiff proves his or her ability to earn money has been impaired or diminished by the injuries. It is necessary to present expert testimony on this as well.

The expert will consider the plaintiff’s age, health, life expectancy, talents, past earning capacity, and determining where there is lost earning capacity. For example, if someone is disfigured and suffered brain damage in a truck wreck, they may no longer be able to perform their job or unable to the requisite training to get a different type of job, so lost earning capacity could be evaluated.

Household services include any cost to hire somebody to do things around the house that the plaintiff wouldn’t have incurred if they would not have gotten hurt.

What Are Non-Economic Damages?

Non-economic damages are a little more difficult to calculate because they are not easily quantifiable. These can include mental anguish, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of activities, worsening of prior injuries or pain and suffering. Additionally, a spouse may be able to recover non-economic damages as well, given the term of loss of consortium.

What Are Punitive Damages?

Punitive damages are used to penalize defendants. In civil cases, punitive damages are awarded to compensate the injured plaintiff but to punish defendants whose conduct would be considered grossly negligent or intentional. That is on top of the compensatory damages. Punitive damages would be in addition to on top of compensatory damages.

Calculating Damages

Damages can sometimes be difficult to calculate. The best way to know the value of the non-economic damages in a case is to know what other cases have settled for in jury verdicts on other cases of similar damages and similar fact patterns. Just knowing the industry and what other cases that played out that are similar is the best way to know what is a good value for non-economic damages on the case.

Sometimes attorneys will take the economic damages and multiply that by a number between one and maybe five, and depending on the severity of the crash, that will be the amount that their attorney will likely try to seek in a settlement.

To maximize the damages, they got to have all the evidence collected. Frequently on these catastrophic truck wrecks, an attorney will hire crash scene reconstructionist and experts on trucking to prove the negligence on the defendants. Without bringing in an experienced truck wreck lawyer, the average person is just not going to know how to bring in these experts, and the law firm is going to front the expenses to pay for these experts.

Speak to a Truck Accident Attorney Today

Truck accidents are extremely dangerous and can cause serious damages. You should act quickly and get an attorney to work on your behalf right away. An experienced legal team is going to work on gathering evidence and trying to get them to make an incriminating statement in order to deny their claim or pay pennies on the dollar for their claim. Experienced truck wreck lawyers could protect your rights and provide guidance and negotiate the highest possible settlement. Call today to learn about the various types of recoverable damages after a Dallas truck accident.