If you decide you want to bring a personal injury lawsuit against an entity or an individual, that probably means that you feel they harmed you in someone way. Maybe you’re alleging that their action or inaction made you sick. Either way, if you feel that you can prove they did something wrong, then suing them might represent the best path forward for you and your family.
Collecting economic damages via a lawsuit represents a central part of what you’re likely trying to accomplish. In this article, we will talk about what this term means. We will also cover some of the main economic damages that you might try to collect through your lawsuit.
What Does “Economic Damages” Mean?
The term economic damages in the personal injury niche means monetary losses that you sustained because of an action or inaction by an individual or entity. If you can form a positive, provable link between what this person or company did and financial damages you sustained, then you should make them pay for it, along with a lawyer’s help.
You can also try to collect non-economic damages as part of your lawsuit. Those might fall into categories like money for your pain and suffering or for loss of consortium.
However, non-economic loss amounts might seem a little more arbitrary. That’s because it’s often hard to put a dollar amount on things like pain and suffering. A jury will likely agree that the person or company that you’re suing should owe you something for non-economic losses, but they might find it difficult to determine the exact amount that make sense.
They will probably need to look at precedent that similar cases established to come up with a reasonable dollar amount. To some extent, though, coming up with a number to compensate you for your economic losses will not present the same level of difficulty.
If you can show documentation that lays out the exact amount that you had to pay due to actions by the defendant, then a jury can demand the defendant pay you back that amount, assuming the jury agrees that the events played out the way that you claim.
Loss of Wages
Now, let us talk about some of the most common types of economic losses that you might try to recoup through your personal injury lawsuit. You might sue a person or company because you’re alleging that their actions injured you or made you sick, and you couldn’t work for a while.
If you couldn’t work because of injury or illness, then you probably couldn’t collect worker’s comp during that time. You can typically only collect worker’s compensation through your employer’s insurance policy if you injured yourself while on the job.
That often means it’s extremely important that you recoup the money from your lost wages for the days, weeks, or even months during which you couldn’t work. You might have bills piling up that you couldn’t pay during that time, since you didn’t have your normal income stream.
As we mentioned a moment ago, if you sue a person or company, and you’re trying to get economic losses back from them, showing the jury the amount of money that you usually get from work will let them know exactly how much you lost in wages. You can show them pay stubs that indicate how much you would have gotten during your recovery period.
If you don’t receive the exact same amount in pay each week or month, then you might show them your last year’s income tax return instead. You can use that to calculate the approximate amount of money you would get in the time when you couldn’t work by using simple division.
Medical Bills
Medical bills represent another huge category of economic losses that you might try to recoup as damages in a lawsuit. If you allege that the person or company that you’re suing made you sick or injured you, then maybe you had to pay some doctor bills in the aftermath. Perhaps you had to have surgery because of what you allege that the person or entity you’re suing did.
Even if you have health insurance, and that paid for some of the cost of your surgery, as well as physical therapy or medication afterward, you probably still have copays. You might have a copay of thousands of dollars for a major surgery. Then, there’s the cost of copays for medication, medical devices to help in your recovery, the cost of follow-up appointments with your doctor, and more.
These bills can cripple you financially if you don’t get the responsible party to pay you back for them. Since American has privatized healthcare, the cost of medical treatment can force some individuals to the verge of bankruptcy if they incur a major injury or deal with a lingering illness and they don’t have much of a nest egg at the time.
That’s why some people feel forced to file a lawsuit against the party they deem responsible in these situations. Maybe they’re not normally litigious. However, the financial situation in which they find themselves makes this their best option to regain some financial normalcy in their lives.
The Cost of Car Repairs
If you’re suing an individual who ran into your car, then maybe you’re doing so because they drove drunk. Perhaps they exceeded the speed limit and hit you. Maybe they let their smartphone distract them and collided with your vehicle on the highway.
In any of those situations, if they won’t admit their wrongdoing, then suing them becomes a viable option. If the other driver won’t admit that they caused the accident, and you’re in an at-fault state, then you will get stuck having to pay for the repairs to your vehicle if you’re not able to force a settlement offer or to get a jury’s verdict in your favor.
These all fall into common economic damage categories.
