What Types of Damages Can I Get in a Texas Personal Injury Case?
Whether you were injured due to a car wreck, slip and fall accident, medical error, or another incident, your injuries have probably had a profound impact on your life. When someone suffers a broken bone, brain or spine injury, or another serious injury, we typically focus on the short-term pain the person suffers. Unfortunately, such injuries can also have long-term consequences that significantly hinder the person’s ability to resume his or her normal life. In some cases, financial compensation for the monetary and non-monetary consequences of an injury is available through a personal injury lawsuit.
Economic Damages After an Injury
The term “damages” refers to the losses caused by an accident or injury. Many of these losses are financial in nature. You may be able to recover compensation for your vehicle repair costs or vehicle replacement costs and other property damage. You may also be able to recover compensation for medical bills resulting from the injury, including costs related to:
- Emergency room care
- Hospital care
- Medications
- Assistive devices
- Surgery
- Follow-up care including physical therapy or occupational therapy
Most serious injuries prevent the injured person from immediately returning to work. If you missed work because of your injuries, you may be entitled to compensation for your lost wages. If the injuries caused permanent loss of functioning or disability, you could also recover financial compensation for your lost earning capacity.
Non-Economic Damages in a Texas Injury Claim
Of course, a serious accident does not only affect a person’s life financially. Financial compensation may also be available for non-economic damages. You could receive compensation for your physical pain, lost enjoyment of life, emotional and mental suffering, impairment, and disfiguration. It can be difficult to quantify non-economic damages due to the subjective and personal nature of these losses. Often, a multiplier method is used to calculate compensation for non-economic damages. The injured person’s economic damages like medical bills and lost income are totaled and then multiplied by a factor between 1.5 and 5 to determine the value of non-economic damages.
Punitive Damages
Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages do not compensate the person for the losses they suffered. Instead, punitive damages or exemplary damages punish the defendant and discourage similar behavior from other parties in the future. Punitive damages are only awarded in a rare number of cases when a defendant’s actions were particularly egregious.
Contact a New Braunfels Injury Lawyer
If you or a loved one were hurt by another party’s negligent actions, contact New Braunfels, Texas personal injury attorney James S. Bettersworth for help. Mr. Bettersworth and the rest of the team at The Bettersworth Law Firm can help you gather evidence and build a strong claim for damages. Call 830-443-9193 for a free consultation today.
Source:
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm
