If you have incurred injuries in a car accident in Los Angeles, CA, it helps to know that you can recover compensation for your damages. Personal injury laws are apparent on what you must do to recover losses incurred in an accident. However, it can be a challenge to determine your damages and the worth. But working with an experienced personal injury attorney can ease your work and improve your chances of recovering total compensation for your damages. At The LA personal Injury Law Firm, we are ready to take you through the legal processes, protect your rights and help you determine your damages.  Here are some of the factors we put into consideration:

Insurance Wildcard

The amount of damages you can claim after a car accident in California is determined by the value of the insurance policy you or the responsible driver has and the maximum limit in both policies. In California, all motorists who register in the state must have auto insurance policies which consist of:

  • $15 000 for death or injury of any single person. If a person is injured in the crash, your coverage pays up to $15,000.
  • A total of $30 000 for the death or injury of more individuals in an accident. If two or more people are injured, the coverage will pay up to $30,000
  • $5 000 for damages incurred to the other motorist’s car

California is a ‘fault’ state as far as car accidents are concerned. When a car accident occurs, and a claim is filed in a civil court, insurance companies look into the facts to determine who was responsible for the accident. Fault can be assigned to one party or two parties. If one driver were entirely at fault in causing the accident, his/her insurance provider would be responsible for the resulting damages. If you were partially to blame for the accident, the other driver would be held partly accountable as well. Thus, you may not recover total damages.

Your ability to recover total damages is also affected if the responsible driver doesn’t have insurance or his/her insurance policy is not big enough to pay for all your injuries. It could help if you have underinsured/uninsured coverage on your auto insurance policy. If not, you may have to cater for some of your damages out-of-pocket.

Current and Future Medical Expenses

If you have incurred physical injuries in a car accident, you will require treatment. Experts advise accident victims to seek immediate medical help to determine the full extent of their physical injuries. Some accidents produce minor injuries, while others leave victims suffering for years. Your current and future medical expenses will count in determining your damages in the car accident.

If you only need to seek medical treatment or a few days to recover, the responsible party in the car accident will only be required to compensate you for the current medical expenses. However, if you incurred an injury that might take a much longer time to heal, the responsible party will be required to compensate you for future medical expenses. 

The extent of your injuries will also bring forth other damages, like lost earnings and loss of earning capacity. Lost earnings will be included in your claim if you have lost a few or more days out of work due to your injuries. The amount of money to be included under this damage will be based on how much you might have earned in those days were it not for the accident.

On the other hand, loss of earning capacity counts if you have lost your ability to work productively in your current job due to the accident. For example, if you incurred an injury that left you incapacitated, you may not work productively as you did before the accident. The law requires the responsible party to compensate you the amount of money you are unable to make due to your current physical condition.

Some factors could negatively affect the number of damages you might recover in a car accident, for example, failing to seek medical help immediately after the accident. It is advisable to have a medical exam immediately after an accident, even if you do not feel hurt. Some injuries do not showcase symptoms directly after you are hurt. Other injuries deteriorate quickly and could be more expensive to treat if treatment is delayed. Again, the insurance company may use your delay to receive medical treatment to deny your claim. The company can even argue that you did not incur any injuries, which is why you did not seek medical treatment in the first place.

Additionally, you want to be sure that the injuries you include in the claim were a direct result of the accident and not pre-existing. Most defense attorneys in personal injury cases present the narrative of pre-existing injuries to deny allegations by car accident victims. Do not just seek medical treatment after the accident. Ask your doctor to make a report on your injuries and how they directly result from the accident. This report will help strengthen your case.

Proof of Liability

Proof of liability is always the foundation of successful personal injury settlements. You might miss out on a chance to recover compensation for your damages if you cannot prove liability in a civil court. It helps to work alongside an experienced personal injury attorney.

With the help of an experienced attorney, you can gather enough evidence and develop a strong case against the allegedly responsible party in a civil court. The court relies on the evidence presented by both the plaintiff and the alleged at-fault party to determine the amount of compensation the plaintiff deserves. 

Remember that most personal injury cases implicate negligence. Your attorney will be tasked to explain to the court how the allegedly responsible party negligently caused an accident that caused your injuries. If he/she has a strong case, the court will award more damages. But if the case is weak, you may only recover a few or no damages at all. To prove liability, your attorney must satisfy the elements below beyond a reasonable doubt:

  • That the responsible party owed you a duty of care, which mandated him/her to operate their car in a legal and safe manner
  • That the responsible party breached that duty of care, it could be that the other motorist was distracted, speeding, or intoxicated at the time of the accident.
  • That this breach of duty of care was the leading cause of the accident in which you incurred damages

The other motorist will also be allowed to give his/her side of the story in court. He/she might even try to blame you. That is why you should have a strong case, complete with solid evidence, for the court to award all your damages.

Your Ability/Inability to Work After the Accident

As previously mentioned, the effects of a car accident vary from one crash to the other. Minor accidents result in not-so-serious injuries, and the injured can go back to their lives after a few days of recovering in a hospital or at home. However, devastating accidents might leave you out of work for a very long time. Some accidents even render the victims incapable of ever going back to work.

An injured person’s ability or inability to work is a significant determining factor of their damages in a car accident. If the accident rendered you incapable of ever engaging in gainful employment, you would never be able to cater to your needs and those of your dependents. Thus, the court holds the person at fault for the accident responsible for your financial needs. The amount of money you might recover in that case is determined by the amount of money you were previously making. 

However, if you only need a few months of recovering to go back to gainful employment, the court will hold the at-fault party responsible for your financial needs for the period you’ll be out of work. During that period, you’ll have medical and personal needs to cater to, which the at-fault party will compensate.

Note that how much you recover in damages for your inability to work as before can be determined by how aggressive your attorney is. Therefore, you need to be careful when hiring a personal injury attorney. A highly skilled attorney with several years of experience handling similar cases stands a better chance of fighting for your rights.

The extent of Property Damage Incurred

The extent of damage can also help in determining damages in a car accident. When an accident occurs, it is not just people who incur injuries but also property around them. For example, your car may have been badly hit in a car accident, requiring repair or replacement. You may have lost personal property that was inside the vehicle at the time of the accident. 

In that case, you need an expert to evaluate the level of damage and an approximate value of each. You’ll need this information to include in your claim. If your car was not severely hit and will only require a minor repair, you’ll only have the repair cost in your claim. But if your vehicle was written off, and you lost a lot more than the vehicle in the crash, you’ll include more damages in your claim.

It is advisable to engage an expert’s help to ensure that you are only providing accurate information in court. If the insurance feels that you are trying to recover more than you should, they’ll counter your claim in court with even more substantial evidence, causing the court to deny your claims.

The advantage of working alongside an experienced attorney is that he/she had handled similar cases in the past. Therefore, the attorney is familiar with court processes. Additionally, your attorney may have worked with a few accident experts in the past, whom he/she attorney can call in to provide expert evidence in court.

Other Expenses You Might Have Paid For

All car accident personal injury claims are not the same. Your claim does not have to look like another person’s claim, even if there are similarities in your case. Consider your case’s uniqueness and work towards recovering all that you have lost in the accident. It is worth noting that recovering from a car accident comes with many expenses, some of which can easily be forgotten unless adequately documented. 

For example, the cost of transportation to and from the hospital can easily be forgotten if you concentrate only on recovering the main damages. Transportation costs are usually paid out-of-pocket by the victim. These are costs you will not have incurred were it not for the accident. If you have been seriously injured, you may not be able to drive yourself to the hospital or doctor’s appointments. Even so, you’ll still incur fuel expenses that you should not have incurred if there was no accident.

If your car was severely damaged in the accident, you might also be compelled to rent a car for use before yours is replaced or repaired. The at-fault party in the accident should be held responsible for these expenses too. If you were incapacitated in the accident, you might have modified your home to make it more hospitable. The costs of these modifications must be included in your claim. Other extra expenses might consist of the cost of prosthetic limbs if you needed any and the cost of a caregiver.  

Do not just include these damages in your claim. You must support them with solid evidence to convince the court to accept your claim and award the damages. Therefore, preserve copies of your bills and receipts, as well as any document that can support your claim.

The Impact the Accident Has On Your Life

A car accident is a life-altering experience. Moving forward, so many aspects of your life will change based on the type and severity of the accident in which you were involved. You will have to factor in non-monetary damages. They include all those losses you might have incurred in the accident but do not have a dollar value attached. 

One aspect of life that changes after an accident is the emotional wellbeing of a person. Mentioning it in your claim is not enough; the court would like to hear how your emotional wellbeing was impacted by the accident. The court will award losses based on how well your attorney elaborates on your situation. 

Discuss it with your attorney beforehand. It could be that the accident affected your ability to sit and enjoy fun moments with your family or your capability to enjoy hobbies and other activities you enjoyed before the accident. Have you lost your capacity to enjoy life pleasures?  How has the accident impacted your relationship with your children or spouse?

A car accident’s impact on one’s life can bring forth several damages in a claim, including loss of consortium, pain and suffering, disfigurement, humiliation, and embarrassment, and so on. The court will determine the type and value of your non-monetary losses based on the kind of life you lived before the accident.

The At-Fault Party’s Level of Negligence

California civil courts consider several factors in determining the type and value of damages to award in a car accident personal injury case.  The level of negligence by the at-fault party is the main determining factor. If the driver was moderately negligent, you might recover damages worth of all your losses. But if the at-fault driver was grossly negligent, the court might award even more injuries.

California civil courts award punitive damages on top of economic and non-economic damages for cases involving gross negligence. The benefit of this is that you’ll recover a lot more than you anticipated from your injury claim. For example, if there’s sufficient proof that the at-fault party was intoxicated at the time of the accident, the court considers it to be gross negligence and could award punitive damages to the plaintiff. 

Punitive damages are also a way for the court to severely punish gross negligence and caution other driver’s from similar conduct. The value of punitive damages could be a lot more than the value of your economic damages, depending on the accident’s circumstances. 

Experienced personal injury attorneys understand the circumstances under which a court can award punitive damages. Therefore, your attorney can work hard towards recovering as many losses as he can for your case.

Find an LA Personal Injury Law Firm Near Me

If you have been injured in a car accident in Los Angeles, CA, it is crucial to start working immediately towards recovering your damages. Your goal should be to include as many damages to your claim as possible for a full recovery. However, this is easy if you are working alongside an experienced personal injury attorney. At The LA Personal Injury Law Firm, we have a team of highly skilled and experienced personal injury attorneys that can guide you in determining damages in your car accident. Call us at 310-935-0089 and let us help you recover the compensation you truly deserve.