If you or a loved one have been in an accident and sustained catastrophic injuries, you’ll begin to learn about a variety of different terms from your accident attorney. In general, you will learn that there are two main types of damages: compensatory and punitive. The most common is compensatory damages, which are designed to compensate the injured person for the losses attributed to the personal injury.
Compensatory Damages are Most Common
Compensatory damages include everything related to the cost of medical care, together with the estimated cost of medical care in the future. A trained accident attorney has access to expert witnesses who can explain what medical care will likely be needed over time and put a total cost on that. There are other experts who can testify about the average life span for someone who has incurred similar catastrophic injuries.
Experts Help an Attorney Figure Catastrophic Damages
In addition to medical costs there is lost income, calculated with the help of experts who use mathematical formulas, along with your current salary and age, to determine how much you were likely to earn over your lifetime if you had not been seriously injured. Other compensatory damage items include pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment. Jurors will be asked to come up with a fair award to cover your current pain as well as the pain and suffering likely to be a part of your life with catastrophic injuries. If the accident stops you from pursuing your favorite hobbies and activities, a jury will also be asked to include loss of enjoyment in the award.
Multiple Defendants Common in Catastrophic Cases
You should also expect some intensive investigation by your accident attorney to find any other parties who contributed to your accident and the catastrophic injures you sustained. That’s because these types of cases can lead to very expensive verdicts, but the defendant is unlikely to have enough insurance coverage to pay off the entire award. For example, a plaintiff injured in a car accident might also sue the designer of a highway for a dangerous curve or intersection. With more defendants in a case, the potential pool of insurance money grows much larger.
Catastrophic Cases Can Include Punitive Damages
Finally, many catastrophic injury cases include the potential of punitive damages. These damages usually are associated with extreme negligence on the behalf of a defendant. The idea behind punitive damages is to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct, and at the same time, to send a strong message so that others will not repeat the conduct that caused the catastrophic damages.