Assessing the worth of a personal injury claim
Assessing the worth of a personal injury claim
The most common type of personal injury claim is when someone alleges that the negligence of another has resulted in injuries to them -these types of claims are most common in car accidents, holiday accidents, home accidents or even product injuries or even work or assault injuries. The claims usually result in monetary compensation if the negligence of the other party is proven sufficiently.
Compensation for a personal injury claim is generally one of three types - compensatory, punitive or nominal. Compensatory damages are usually monetary award for actual losses suffered or expected to be suffered by the claimant. Punitive damages are more to make an example of the wrongdoer and are usually awarded beyond the compensatory award to recognize those whose actions have been willfully damaging or have been malicious, such as in cases of assault. Nominal damages for a personal injury claim are nominal payments when a tort is recognized but is considered to not have been damaging to the claimant.
When a personal injury claim is car accident related and filed with the insurance company, the liable party's insurance company is liable for various types of expenses including the actual medical expenses, compensating for any permanent physical damage, property loss, loss of income and emotional damages. While it's simple enough to assess the medical or property or income loss, it's nowhere near easy trying to put a value on pain or lost opportunity. Insurance adjustors start with the medical expenses as the base and using a formula, assesses the total expected income loss and opens the negotiations for compensation there. For a personal injury claim where there are two parties involved such as in a car accident, where its not immediately clear who is liable, the adjustor will try and assign a rough percentage of your own liability in the accident and reduce the expected compensation by that much percentage.
It has become more and more common for lawyers to be involved in a personal injury claim, especially given the ambiguity of emotional distress or loss of future income involved in such claims. Most lawyers also seem to be offering their services for free in such cases encouraging most people to at least get a legal consultation to decide if they want to further pursue their personal injury claim. Of course, there's no such thing as a free service so one wonders how the lawyers make a profit out of this. Primarily there are two types of cases where the law firms offer free services up front - cases where they know their chances of winning are very high and they are confident of getting their fees at the conclusion of the case from the opposing side or cases where they have an agreement in place that the law firm won't make anything unless the claimant does.
As with all legal cases, paperwork will be very important in making in your case - paperwork relating to the case on which the claim is being filed, paperwork relating to the loss of wages, income, medical expenses etc. Custom Labels for Personalizing Brand Visibility Hire the best lawyer to fight your personal injury case Personal Term Papers Personal Papers Personal Speech Personal Academic Papers Personal Injury: Claim Timeframes Personal injury guarantees Determining the Worth of My Personal Injury Claim Cut down your business risks with shop insurance Review: Monge & Associates, Atlanta Personal Injury Attorneys How to file a personal injury claim Mediation for Personal injury