How is Personal Injury Calculated?

Personal injury damages are determined using both special and general damages, with an online calculator providing an initial starting point but an experienced lawyer bringing more insight than is provided through generic formulas.

Special damages can be easily estimated, such as medical costs, lost income and property damage; non-economic damages like pain and suffering are more difficult to estimate.

Medical expenses

When injured in an accident, medical bills can quickly become an overwhelming financial strain. Therefore, having an experienced New York personal injury lawyer on your side who knows how to accurately assess expenses so as to recover maximum compensation is key for recovering maximum compensation for your injuries.

If you have suffered an ankle sprain due to a fall at your local supermarket, immediate and ongoing treatments will likely be required. In more serious cases such as spinal cord or brain injuries that permanently disable individuals, the costs for long-term care can become excessive; our attorneys can employ medical billing experts who can project out projected costs over time before finally reducing those projections into present dollar values.

Medical expenses are the go-to basis for calculating pain and suffering, serving both as an indicator of the severity of injuries as well as being used by insurance companies as an indication. They will typically start by totalling your medical bills before multiplying them by some factor (usually 1.5-3 or even as high as five for less serious cases).

Making a claim for future medical expenses can be especially challenging as you must place a value on treatments yet to occur. Insurance companies take advantage of victims’ lack of knowledge by offering them low settlement offers that don’t cover all their future medical needs, which is why it is vitally important that you hire a competent personal injury attorney who can calculate true damages and fight on your behalf for full payment of damages.

Insurance companies attempt to reduce an injured victim’s award by disputing their injuries are as serious as they claim, so to mitigate this problem your New York personal injury attorney will work with medical and economic experts to demonstrate the extent and impact of your injuries on daily life – and obtain you compensation that allows you to live comfortably after an accident has taken place.

Lost wages

Lost wages are an integral component of personal injury compensation, and it is critical that they receive maximum value. Lost wages represent what would have been earned had your injuries not prevented you from working; however, calculating this figure can be more complex than anticipated and requires legal expertise for accurate assessment of all damages suffered in an accident. To achieve maximum value on this front it would be wise to work with an experienced personal injury attorney in determining your damages.

Step one in calculating lost wages is collecting supporting documents such as doctor’s notes recommending time off from work and pay stubs from your employer. Once this documentation has been obtained, your lawyer can use these to calculate how long you have been out due to injury; then multiply this figure with your hourly wage to ascertain total lost earnings due to this incident. In some instances, additional costs such as vacation and sick time could also be recovered and added back in; InjuryClaimCoach reports this can significantly boost lost wage calculations.

An additional key consideration in assessing future earnings is to estimate your projected future earnings. This process is complex and often requires professional opinions from multiple disciplines – medical evaluations and vocational assessments can all play a part here; especially with long-term or permanent injuries. A financial expert will look at your career history, work ethic, education level and current skill set in order to estimate what could have been earned in future earnings.

Considerations should also be given to how lost wage claims impact your fringe benefits, including bonuses, commissions and potential retirement contributions. Although not normally included in calculations for lost wage claims, they should still be factored into their claim when building it.

Keep in mind that any amount you receive for lost wages will be taxed, unlike non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, which do not fall under federal tax jurisdiction. Therefore, it’s wise to consult an experienced attorney who can help calculate lost wage compensation amounts to ensure you get maximum settlement amounts possible.

Pain and suffering

Pain and suffering do not easily have an easily quantifiable monetary value; they’re more intangible emotional trauma and loss of quality of life due to an accident injury, including physical pain from injuries sustained, disfigurements, loss of enjoyment in life and disruption in daily activities.

Evidentiating pain and suffering is an integral element of any personal injury claim, yet due to its subjective nature there are certain things your attorney can use as guidelines in calculating an appropriate compensation amount for you.

Expert testimony can provide an objective estimation of your emotional distress, while your lawyer can also examine any journals or records you keep to create a comprehensive picture of the extent and impact of injuries on your life.

Your age and life expectancy can play an integral part in determining the amount of damages for pain and suffering you’ll receive, since a lump sum award usually includes an estimate of future income that would have been earned had your injury not occurred. To arrive at this figure, experts use something called the per diem method which assigns a value per day of injury multiplied by a pre-set multiplier number.

Insurance companies may use calculations to reduce your settlement, so it’s essential that you work with an experienced personal injury lawyer who can identify and present evidence that could substantially increase its value.

Attorneys and insurance companies often employ multipliers between 1-5 to estimate the value of noneconomic damages, however this method cannot always provide a precise calculation. Therefore it’s wiser to avoid online calculators that claim they can predict how much compensation will come your way for pain and suffering; these tools may prove inaccurate at estimating damages accurately and should always be checked with an experienced attorney first before using any online tools to calculate them yourself.

Damages for property damage

Accidents often damage property and you can seek compensation for the cost to restore it back to its original state or recover any diminished values of irreparably damaged items.

Your damages claim should account for current and future medical expenses, lost wages and property damage; non-economic aspects like pain and suffering; emotional distress. Furthermore, punitive damages may be awarded in cases of exceptionally reckless or malicious conduct by the defendant.

Personal injury cases typically involve tort actions filed by injured parties against those or companies responsible for an accident. Some tort actions based on negligence law hold someone accountable when their acts or inaction cause harm; other suits rely on strict liability, where the consequences of their actions regardless of who was at fault are held against them.

Personal injury lawsuits typically arise out of negligence; therefore, the plaintiff must establish this fact with sufficient proof. Furthermore, they must show how this negligence caused their injuries and losses.

Calculating a monetary award may not be straightforward, but an attorney can assist in getting an estimate of what you deserve in compensation. They will help to total both economic and non-economic damages to determine how much is due.

Calculating non-economic damages is more complex, often referred to as “pain and suffering” or “general damages.” Due to their intangibility, assigning an exact monetary value for these intangible losses can be challenging; to provide some indication of its severity multipliers can range between 1.5-5.

Your lawyer can assist in calculating a monetary award and including all relevant costs in your claim. Documents such as medical bills, proof of loss of income and estimates for future expenses will need to be provided as evidence for this process. An excellent personal injury lawyer may even help prepare a demand letter that can be sent along with an explanation as to why compensation should be granted in your claim.