Hi, good afternoon. This is Roger Ghai. I wanted to talk a little bit about what types of damages or what the measure of the damages are that you’d be entitled to recover in your case. One type of damages that you’ll be able to recover is just your pain and your suffering. That type of a damage is sometimes very difficult to quantify. Let’s say, for example, you’ve been involved in a motor vehicle accident and you’ve had just strictly soft tissue strains, sprain of the ligaments. Then, you’ve recovered very nicely after that. That’s going to be a lot less as far as your actual pain and suffering element of the case itself.
Let’s say on the other hand, you’ve had a broken bone or you’ve had a scar or tissue or something like that and disfigurement. That is going to be a different type of personal injury that you’re able to recover for as far as the actual pain and suffering. The other types of damages that you are entitled to be recovering for would be number one or number two, I guess, it would be your lost wages. What’s required to actually recover for your lost wages would be this. The doctor has to give you a written excuse saying that you’re unable to return to work for X, Y and Z period of time. Then, I have to obtain from your employer, from the payroll department, from somebody at your office a copy of the paycheck stub which shows that you actually miss wages for that time period.
The third type of damages other than lost wage would be of course your medical expenses. Medical expenses could be enormous. They might be just a few thousand dollars, but those are — If you’ve got an accident case or any type of accident case for that matter, those are the generally three types of damages that you’re able to recover. If you’ve been permanently hurt and it’s interfered with your future capacity to work and so forth. Then, you’re going to be entitled to recover for future lost wages or future capacity to work. There are a multitude of different factors and types of damages that you could recover in that certain circumstance, too.
Your pain and suffering, if you were permanently hurt, that could go on for years and years and years. It depends on your life expectancy. Somebody, for example, who has a permanent injury, but they’re 70 years old, only has a life expectancy maybe, let’s say, for example, of another five or 10 years. Their claim for their pain and suffering is going to be less than somebody who’s 25 years of age and has another 50 years of life expectancy and probably is going to have pain and suffering for the rest of his or her life. If you have questions about the amount of damages that you should recover from your injury case, feel free to contact my office at 770-792-1000.