subject: How Much Is A Personal Injury Worth? [print this page] Personal injuries come in a lot of different shapes and forms. So, if you have suffered from a personal injury, it might have been due to a car accident, a mistake on the part of a healthcare provider, while you were strolling along the side of the road, a dog bite, a product that was defective, tripping over a crack in the sidewalk, a boating accident, some sort of physical injury that was caused by defective medications, a burn, or many other reasons.
If you've sustained a personal injury then you have the legal right to pursue compensation. In order to accomplish this you or your attorney will have to file a personal injury lawsuit.
You will be the plaintiff (or the complainant) in the lawsuit. You will need to prove that the defendant is legally liable for any of the injuries that you have sustained.
If you hire an attorney then the two of you will work together gathering evidence such as police reports, medical records that pertain to your personal injury, statements from available witnesses, photographs of the scene of the injury, photographs of the injury, and experts' statements.
At any time during the process you may be offered a settlement. The amount of the settlement will be determined by how well your attorney can negotiate with the defendant's attorney and his or her insurance company. It could also be ordered by the judge or jury after your case has been heard in court.
The amount of the settlement should compensate you for your financial losses as well as any pain and suffering that you experienced that were caused by your injury.
In some states there are there are instances where your compensation will be related to the degree of the other party's culpability and liability, known as "punitive damages." These are awarded because the court wants to punish the other party for its conduct.
From a financial standpoint, the purpose of personal injury compensation is to make the injured party "whole again" or to bring him or her back to their status quo.
Your action could also affect the amount of compensation that you could receive. The way that you acted when the accident happened, as well as after the accident, will have a direct bearing on the amount of compensation in any personal injury lawsuit.
This could mean that your compensation might also depend on whether you did not take reasonable steps that could have minimized the impact of your injury. In addition, the amount that you will be compensated will depend on whether you were also at fault for the accident that caused your injury.
Personal injury compensation will often range from thousands of dollars to many millions of dollars. In order to maximize the potential amount that they will receive for a personal injury claim most people hire successful attorneys to represent them.
by: Wendy Moyer
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