Arbutus, MD Car Accident Lawyer
We use cars and other motor vehicles nearly every day to do whatever it is that needs to be done. Unfortunately, that also means that car accidents do happen from time to time. While some people come out the other end of an auto accident unscathed, most do not. Car accidents can result in serious injuries, some of which may never fully heal. Additionally, it can be very expensive to treat, with the cost of medical care easily reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. Such expensive medical treatment can be financially backbreaking for many people, even if they have a good health insurance policy.
If you find yourself injured after a car accident, you should consider pursuing a car accident lawsuit. That way you can get justice and financial compensation for your injuries. That is where our lawyers step in. We have experience representing plaintiffs injured in car accidents and know how to navigate the legal battlefield so that you can be treated fairly and have a strong argument in court, giving you the best chance at getting compensation after your car accident.
For a free, no-obligation case review, call the car accident attorneys from Rice, Murtha & Psoras at (410) 694-7291.
Damages in Arbutus, MD Car Accident Lawsuits
If you win your case, you are awarded damages by the court. Damages take into account the factors surrounding the car accident as well as your condition and the conduct of the defendant. The idea behind damages is to put the plaintiff in a similar place to where they were before they got injured in a car accident. Broadly speaking, damages can be split into compensatory damages and punitive damages. Compensatory damages, as the name would suggest, compensate the plaintiff for their injuries, while punitive damages are based on what the defendant did and how they acted.
Compensatory Damages
Compensatory damages are based on, well, compensating you for things that happened because of the car accident. The two main kinds of compensatory damages are economic damages and non-economic damages.
Economic damages refer to things that have a readily displayable value. This includes things like medical bills and the cost of treatment, repair costs for vehicle damage, and lost income from missed time at work. Essentially, if there is an invoice, bill, receipt, or other thing displaying the value of something you had to do because of the car accident, it falls under the umbrella of economic damages.
Non-economic damages, on the other hand, are less immediately obvious. This category includes physical pain, mental anguish and distress, and other intangibles that do not have documentation of their cost or value. After all, hospitals do not charge you based on how much a broken bone hurts, they charge you based on fixing the injury.
Because non-economic damages do not have a value assigned to them off the bat, our car accident lawyers will need to determine their value and convince the court that you are owed damages for them.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages are different than compensatory damages in that they are based on what the defendant did instead of the harm the victim suffered. These damages aim to punish defendants who acted in a matter that is “grossly negligent.” This is more serious than ordinary negligence. You need to prove that the defendant acted worse than merely carelessly.
For this reason, punitive damages are not awarded as often as compensatory damages. Accordingly, you should speak to our lawyers if you are seeking punitive damages in your car accident lawsuit.
How are My Damages Calculated in a Car Accident Lawsuit in Arbutus, MD?
When you work with our car accident lawyers and figure out damages in your case, there needs to be a method of calculating them. Although there is no required method for calculating damages in car accident lawsuits, there are some methods that are favored over others depending on the circumstances of the case. Two of those methods are the multiplier method and the “per diem” method.
The Multiplier Method
The multiplier method is fairly straightforward. This method takes your economic damages and multiplies them by a given factor to come up with your non-economic damages. For example, suppose you had $100,000 in medical expenses after a car accident. Using this method, you could multiply that by three times to ask for non-economic damages of $300,000, for a total of $400,000 in compensatory damages. What number you use to multiply your economic damages is something that you will need to work out with our car accident lawyers.
The multiplier method is usually used when a plaintiff will not fully recover from their injuries because it allows something final and definitive to be done in those cases.
The “Per Diem” Method
The “per diem,” or daily, method takes a different approach. Instead of calculating by multiplying your economic damages, this method has you and our lawyers work out an amount that is appropriate for the pain, suffering, and mental anguish you experienced each day you were/are dealing with your injuries from the car accident. You then calculate the total amount based on all the days you deal with or are expected to be dealing with your injuries.
The per diem method is preferred when injuries are expected to fully resolve themselves at some point in the future. It is rarely used for injuries that will not fully heal because then it would result in an infinite amount of non-economic damages, which is not something a court would award.
Have a Chat with Our Arbutus, MD Car Accident Lawyers Now
Do not hesitate to call our car accident lawyers from Rice, Murtha & Psoras at (410) 694-7291 to get a free case review.