Because compensatory damages are intended to compensate for injuries and losses sustained as the result of another's willful or negligent actions, it is necessary to prove the amounts of each category ( i.e., medical costs, lost wages, and pain and suffering) as precisely as possible. A jury cannot be left to speculate (guess) on the amount of damages to award, nor can it base the amount of its award on bias or sympathy for you. If the judge believes that the jury award is too high given the facts -- or too low -- he has the power to raise or lower the jury's award. Medical damages -- past, present and future -- can be established by presenting evidence of what the treatment cost. You are not limited to mere out-of-pocket expenses that you may have paid in the nature of insurance co-pays for doctors' visits, hospital treatment or medicines, but what the actual costs of those items are. therefore, you will need to keep the invoices for all of your medical bills and treatments. By presenting those costs in the form of evidence to the jury, showing that they were related to the your accident, and that they represent a fair and reasonable expenditure for the injury, the jury has sufficient information to make an award based on that evidence. The same is true for lost income . Your employer can supply evidence as to your rate of pay, how much overtime (if any) you normally worked, and how much time you have missed from work due to the injury sustained in the accident. It is a simple matter of calculating the number of hours missed multiplied the rate of pay. If you are not an hourly wage earner, federal or state income tax returns can be used, too. But in some cases, the injury may be so severe that you cannot perform the job you had before the accident and are now making less money in another job. In that case, it may be necessary to have an expert in rehabilitative services on hand to help the jury decide what is just in your case. A good rehabilitative services counselor can accurately predict your lost future income (including benefits you may lose) through out the course of your expected working-life. Pain and suffering is also compensible by the jury. However, since there are no numbers to crunch as there are in the other two categories, your desciption of how you felt after the accident and what you suffered through will be the primary evidence the jury will hear. Again, you want to provide the jury the most accurate information possible. Photos of your injuries are helpful, as are videos of how you are struggling if your injury is such that it has severely impacted on your mobility and normal life activities. Such visual aids can help the jury in understanding what you have (or are) going through, and assist them in assessing an amount of moeny that will compensate you fairly. Because sometimes several months will pass tween the time of the accident and the trial, I urge my clients to keep a daily diary of how they feel, what notable changes did they notice in their condition or ability to perform their normal routines, etc. While you may not be able to read from your diary on the witness stand, you certainly have ready a reference to refresh your memory if the defense attorney asks, How can you recall how you felt on a particular day 8 months ago? Your reply, I wrote it down that day before I went to bed so I would not forget later.

Frequently Asked Questions

 


Q: How do you prove damages in a personal injury case?

A:

Because compensatory damages are intended to compensate for injuries and losses sustained as the result of another's willful or negligent actions, it is necessary to prove the amounts of each category (i.e., medical costs, lost wages, and pain and suffering) as precisely as possible. A jury cannot be left to speculate (guess) on the amount of damages to award, nor can it base the amount of its award on bias or sympathy for you. If the judge believes that the jury award is too high given the facts -- or too low -- he has the power to raise or lower the jury's award.

Medical damages -- past, present and future -- can be established by presenting evidence of what the treatment cost. You are not limited to mere out-of-pocket expenses that you may have paid in the nature of insurance co-pays for doctors' visits, hospital treatment or medicines, but what the actual costs of those items are. therefore, you will need to keep the invoices for all of your medical bills and treatments. By presenting those costs in the form of evidence to the jury, showing that they were related to the your accident, and that they represent a fair and reasonable expenditure for the injury, the jury has sufficient information to make an award based on that evidence.

The same is true for lost income. Your employer can supply evidence as to your rate of pay, how much overtime (if any) you normally worked, and how much time you have missed from work due to the injury sustained in the accident. It is a simple matter of calculating the number of hours missed multiplied the rate of pay. If you are not an hourly wage earner, federal or state income tax returns can be used, too. But in some cases, the injury may be so severe that you cannot perform the job you had before the accident and are now making less money in another job. In that case, it may be necessary to have an expert in rehabilitative services on hand to help the jury decide what is just in your case. A good rehabilitative services counselor can accurately predict your lost future income (including benefits you may lose) through out the course of your expected working-life.

Pain and suffering is also compensible by the jury. However, since there are no numbers to crunch as there are in the other two categories, your desciption of how you felt after the accident and what you suffered through will be the primary evidence the jury will hear. Again, you want to provide the jury the most accurate information possible. Photos of your injuries are helpful, as are videos of how you are struggling if your injury is such that it has severely impacted on your mobility and normal life activities. Such visual aids can help the jury in understanding what you have (or are) going through, and assist them in assessing an amount of moeny that will compensate you fairly.

Because sometimes several months will pass tween the time of the accident and the trial, I urge my clients to keep a daily diary of how they feel, what notable changes did they notice in their condition or ability to perform their normal routines, etc. While you may not be able to read from your diary on the witness stand, you certainly have ready a reference to refresh your memory if the defense attorney asks, "How can you recall how you felt on a particular day 8 months ago?" Your reply, "I wrote it down that day before I went to bed so I would not forget later."


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