If you have an accident or otherwise sustain an injury, most of your time is going to be focused on recovering and getting your life back to normal. If your injury was caused by someone else, however, and you’ve seriously suffered as a result, you might want to consider filing an injury claim. It could be a car accident, a fall on someone else’s property, or any other kind of injury you can trace back to their potential actions or negligence.
Not every injury will likely be eligible, but you might be able to get financial compensation for some injuries, which can help you to get back on your feet after dealing with the consequences you’ve faced for the accident. The first thing you can do in the case of an injury is to file with the insurance of the person who caused the accident. But if there is no insurance that applies, or if they refuse your claim, you’ll have to consider a lawsuit.
Evidence of Fault
If you’re going to win any compensation, you’re going to have prove unequivocally that the accident was caused by the actions of the other person or their failure to act reasonably to prevent the injury. A police report assigning fault to them will work for car accidents. Other situations may require more creative evidence-gathering. Remember to take pictures whenever you can. Try to provide witnesses who can testify to exactly what happened and the circumstances that allowed it.
Damages Suffered
Your right to compensation for any injury is going to depend on consequences you’ve suffered as a result. That means providing documentation for all of those costs you’ve faced as well. This can include all related medical costs and other repair costs you’ve had to pay for your car or anything else after the accident. Be sure to keep all your receipts!
But the costs you can get compensation for don’t stop there. If you have to miss work because of your injury, that is a consequence of the accident as well. Those are known as lost wages. You lost income during your recovery time, so you should be eligible to be compensated for all of those earnings you weren’t able to collect.
Loss of Future Earning Capacity
What is loss of future earning capacity? This is another category of damages that you can receive by filing a claim after an accident. Unlike your lost wages, these damages are based on income that you would have received in the future but are no longer able to collect. This is intended to provide compensation for those serious injuries that don’t recover that easily. Some people return to work but, as a result of the injury, are never able to do the same amount of work or earn the same amount of wages that they did in the past. Some injuries may even result in the victim having to leave their current job or in being unable to work in general. If you can prove that you’ve lost the capacity to keep earning the same level of income in the future, you could also be eligible to receive compensation for that.