Besides being painful, scary and frustrating, getting seriously injured in a car accident can be very expensive. Time spent in the hospital and surgery can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. While you are recovering, working and earning an income could be too difficult. Meanwhile, you can’t help take care of your kids or enjoy your hobbies the way you used to. Instead, you must live with pain and disability for the foreseeable future and possibly the rest of your life.
Because negligence can cause a myriad of harms to innocent victims, the law in Alabama and Florida recognizes several types of compensation that victims can seek. These damages include the following.
Economic damages
The types of damages most people think of first can be categorized as economic. These are things like the cost of your medical care, physical rehabilitation and auto repair/replacement, as well as the income you have lost and expect to lose in the future because of your injuries. These are harms with a bill or price tag clearly attached.
Non-economic damages
Other effects of someone negligently hitting you with their car are more conceptual but no less real. The pain and suffering your injuries are causing you, the way they affect your independence and enjoyment of life, are all types of non-economic damages. So are the emotional distress you and your family have suffered, and your loved one’s loss of consortium due to your reduced ability to provide the typical relationship of a spouse or parent.
Punitive damages
In cases where the defendant purposely harmed you or acted with egregious negligence, you might be eligible for punitive damages on top of compensation for your actual damages. Punitive damages exist to punish extreme behavior, so it only applies rarely.
Each motor vehicle accident claim is different. The type and amount of harm you suffered is unique to you. Whatever you have experienced, you are entitled to maximum compensation to help put you in the same or similar position you would have been had the crash never occurred.