Wondering how the value of a personal injury claim is determined? If you’re filing a personal injury claim for the first time, valuation may seem like a magical process. However, case value isn’t just a number that the attorney pulls out of the air. It’s based on a number of factors, such as the cost of your damages, changes to your lifestyle, long-term consequences of your personal injury and other factors. Valuation may vary from state to state based on differing personal injury laws, but here’s the basics of how it all breaks down:
• Special Damages:
Special damages are the actual monetary costs of your personal injury case. To determine special damages, an attorney will request copies of your medical bills, any receipts or estimates for property damages, copies of pay stubs to determine lost wages and other supporting documents. Special damages attempts to compensate you for the monetary loss of a personal injury case. So if your special damages were $25,000, your case is worth at least that.
• General Damages:
General damages are more subjective, and may not be available in every state. General damages deal with the intangible elements of your personal injury case, such as pain and suffering, changes to quality of life and possibly long-term loss of enjoyment. If you used to enjoy rollerblading before a car accident, for example, but are no longer able to rollerblade after the accident, you might claim a value for this under general damages. An attorney might claim that this is worth $25,000, bringing the total for your damages to $50,000 with your specials.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to fairly assign values for such subjective things, so it’s often difficult to come to an agreement with opposing counsel about how much general damages are worth. Additionally, some states don’t award hedonic damages or other general damages that are intangible and difficult to value.
• Punitive Damages:
Some states support the practice of awarding punitive damages for particularly egregious injuries. Things like sexual assaults, violent physical assaults and other egregious injuries may warrant the punishment of additional monetary fees and awards. If you were physically assaulted, for example, your lawyer might ask for $25,000 in punitive damages, brining the case value up to $75,000. Not all states award punitive damages
For further questions contact an experienced Los Angeles personal injury attorney to assist you in your research.