Many people who are involved in high-speed traffic accidents are unpleasantly surprised by just how comprehensively their injuries interfere with their personal and professional lives. In addition to unexpected expenses, victims of serious wrecks often also have to contend with an equally unexpected loss of income thanks to their injuries preventing them from working, as well as a host of physical and psychological limitations that can keep them from enjoying hobbies and completing household tasks on top of all that.
If you can prove that someone else was the primary person to blame for your auto accident with help from an experienced attorney, you can make that person pay financially for the losses you have suffered due to their misconduct. First things first, though, you will need to know what kinds of recoverable damages after a Tempe car accident you can factor into a claim.
Recovering for Economic Forms of Harm
Recoverable damages—sometimes alternatively called “compensatory damages”—in Tempe car accident claims can be split into two categories based on how their financial value is determined during litigation. Economic damages are the more straightforward of the two types, since they can be assigned an objective financial value through quantitative evidence like invoices, receipts, pay stubs, and even quotes and price estimates provided in advance of any actual service.
Medical bills are the archetypal example of this type of loss, since injuries that are not severe enough to require some form of professional medical care cannot serve as valid grounds for personal injury lawsuits, even if they stem entirely from a third party’s misconduct. In addition, it can be critical after an auto accident to account for short-term and long-term losses of work income and earning capacity, as well as car repair costs, other expenses related to personal property damage, and expected future expenses related to disability and/or pain management. This includes costs associated with adding wheelchair ramps to a paralyzed crash victim’s home.
How Are Non-Economic Damages Valued?
Non-economic damages from car crashes in Tempe are trickier to assign fair values to, since by definition they have completely subjective values that cannot be determined through things like bills and receipts. Instead, they must be valued based on what an individual injured person is experiencing emotionally and psychologically due to their injuries, as well as on what amount of money courts have awarded other plaintiffs for similar injuries and losses in the past.
Physical pain and suffering is the most commonly sought non-economic loss factored into car accident claims and personal injury cases in general. However, legal counsel can also help seek restitution for years or even decades worth of emotional anguish, mental trauma, and lost overall enjoyment of life if necessary to make up for a permanent disabling and/or disfiguring injury.
A Tempe Attorney Can Help Maximize Recoverable Damages After a Car Accident
The value of a car accident lawsuit in Arizona depends entirely on the specific losses that the plaintiff filing that lawsuit has sustained through their specific accident. As a result, recoverable damages after your Tempe car accident may differ greatly from those that would need to be factored into someone else’s claim, even if both of you were seemingly injured in the same way and in the same type of wreck.
No matter how badly you have been hurt or what losses you need to account for through a lawsuit or settlement demand, the dedicated auto accident lawyers at Phillips Law Group can work diligently to get you paid everything you need. Call today to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation with one of our team members.
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