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This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice.
You don’t have to wait until you sustain a personal injury before you get yourself acquainted with how much you can demand from a personal injury claim.
Personal injury claims can be worth hundreds, thousands, or millions of dollars. But to know the worth of your own case, you have to know how the calculation is done.
Are you involved in an auto crash accident? Did someone break your nose in an assault? Or maybe you slipped and fell on private property?
Keep reading to find out how to calculate the amount of settlement you’re entitled to.
Pro Tip: The process of filing a claim and winning a settlement can drag on for months or years sometimes. In the meantime, you’ll need money to manage your medical bills and other daily expenses. Don’t go out and borrow. Instead, seek out pre-settlement funding. It’s a form of relief fund you get while waiting for an injury settlement. To learn more about pre-settlement funding, visit the Settle4Cash website today.
1. Find out if your injury is worthy of a claim
With the popularity of personal injury claims soaring day by day, many people have come to think they’re always going to be entitled to compensation anytime they get injured.
Alas, this is not true.
You’re only entitled to personal injury compensation if, indeed, your injury was caused by someone who has an obligation to you.
For example, the owner of private property has a duty to visitors to ensure their property is free of hazardous elements. A driver using a roadway as a duty to other drivers to drive with your caution.
So anytime you get injured, ask yourself: was this injury caused by someone who is obliged to me in any way?
If it is, then proceed to calculate how much damages you can charge them for.
2. Write down all your economic damages
To begin the process of settlement calculation, you’re going to write down all the economic losses you’ve suffered as a result of the injury.
Generally speaking, economic damages may include, but are not limited to:
- Medical expenses;
- Property damage;
- Lost earnings;
- Future lost income; and
- Estimated future medical expenses.
3. Write down all your economic damages
Non-economic damages, or general damages, refer to those damages that are subjective and non-monetary.
For example, these types of damages may include:
- Pain and suffering;
- Inconvenience;
- Emotional distress;
- Loss of companionship; and
- Loss of enjoyment of life.
To calculate the value of your non-economic damages in monetary terms, you will need to first understand the concept of “multipliers.”
Multipliers are numbers used in the legal world to estimate non-monetary substances like general damages. Remember that while you can easily say I’ve lost $20,000 for not going to work in the last six months, you can’t really place a monetary value on the amount of pain or emotional distress you’ve hard to endure for that six months.
But a multiplier can help you.
In the legal world, a multiplier is often formulated using your economic damages as a base. You then multiply your economic damages by a number between 1.5 and 5, depending on the seriousness of your general damages. The more severe and long-lasting your non-economic damages, the higher your multiplier will be.
Don’t know how to assume a multiplier for your general damages? Feel free to use any of the “general damages estimate calculators” available online.
4. Add your economic and non-economic damages together.
Now, let’s combine the cost of your economic damages with the cost of any general damage you might have suffered.
- For example, let’s say you suffer an auto crash accident, and your economic damages include $5,000 in medical bills, $15,000 in property damage, $20,000 in lost earnings, and $10,000 in future lost earnings; and your non-economic damages are moderate, meaning your multiplier is estimated at 2.5; then your estimated claim value would be $175,000 ($50,000 in economic damages + $125,000 in non-economic damages).
5. Find out if you have any fault in the incident
It’s possible you were partially at fault in the incident leading to your injury. If it were so, your final compensation award would reduce.
Usually, in some states in the U.S., like New York, Florida, California, your final compensation award is multiplied by the percentage of fault apportioned to you by a judge or jury. So let’s say you sustained the injury discussed above in a state like California, and the judge ruled that you’re 30% at fault, your final award will reduce by $52,500. Meaning you’ll walk home with $122,500.
In other states like Iowa or Kansas, if the judge finds you to be more than 50% at fault, you will not be awarded any compensation at all. Meaning your settlement falls from $175,000 to $0.
Ouch!!!
Think that’s bad? It’s even worse in states like Alabama or Virginia. There, if you’re found to be even 1% at fault, you’re not getting anything.
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This content is sponsored by Uday Tank.
Photo: Shutterstock