Accidents across New York leave hundreds of people with disabilities or long-term injuries every year. If you or a loved one faced injuries that needed medical attention, even for minor or moderate injuries, you could be entitled to compensation through a personal injury lawsuit.
When you hire a personal injury lawyer to help with your case, your attorney can help you understand what your case is worth, collect evidence, and file your case in court to work to get you the compensation you need. This can help cover expensive medical bills and reimburse lost wages so you and your family can keep going after a serious injury.
For a free evaluation of your potential injury case, call our Central Islip personal injury lawyers today at (718) 841-0083. The Carrion Law Firm’s attorneys are prepared to take your case.
Knowing What Your Central Islip Injury Case is Worth
If you were injured in an accident, one of the hardest parts about getting compensation is understanding what your case is actually worth. There are many different areas of damages you might be unfamiliar with, and you should always speak with one of our Central Islip personal injury lawyers before accepting any money for your accident.
Damages Available in an Injury Case
For you to get the damages you deserve, you have to first understand what damages you can claim compensation for. Our Central Islip personal injury attorneys often pursue damages for injury victims in three major areas:
- Medical bills, including bills for emergency treatment, follow-up care, and rehabilitation
- Lost wages, including compensation for lost future wages and lost earning capacity related to your injuries
- Pain and suffering caused by the accident.
In many cases, there are other damages that you might not know you can claim. For example, if you need to arrange medical transportation to get you to and from the hospital for follow-up appointments, and you have to arrange childcare during those treatments, you should be entitled to compensation for both the medical transportation and the childcare. Married spouses might also be able to claim compensation for their partner’s injuries and the effects it has on the household services they used to perform, plus the romantic or physical aspects of their relationship (known as “loss of consortium”).
Talk to an attorney about what damages are available in your case.
Calculating Damages
Once you know what damages you can claim, you have to calculate what these damages are worth in your case. Many “economic” damages are simple enough to calculate by adding up the cost of any bills or statements that you had to pay because of your injuries. Some economic damages are harder to calculate because they involve projecting and predicting future wages and comparing them to the wages you would have received without the injury. Your Central Islip personal injury lawyers can hire financial experts to help with these kinds of analyses.
Other damages are considered “non-economic” because there are no bills or price tags dictating their value. This includes damages like pain and suffering, which are harder to calculate. Instead of attempting to put a price on each aspect of your discomfort, suffering, mental anguish, etc., the courts will typically use one of two strategies to calculate pain and suffering:
- Assign a “multiplier” based on the severity of your injuries and multiply this by the other economic damages in your case to calculate non-economic damages
- Assign a “per diem” value to your pain and suffering and multiply this by the number of days you experienced (or will experience) pain and suffering
Both systems have their flaws, and your attorneys can help argue for the best outcome by choosing which system to use and modifying the values used in these calculations.
How to File a Personal Injury Case in Central Islip, NY
In most accident cases, there is some type of insurance that you might be able to file a claim with to get compensation. However, insurance companies are often reluctant to pay the full damages they owe you, and many policies cut out certain areas of damages or cap reimbursement at only a percentage of your damages. Talk to your Central Islip personal injury lawyers about whether an insurance claim is right for you and about how you may be entitled to file your case in court instead.
In an insurance claim, you either file a claim with your own insurance company (known as a “first-party” claim) or with the at-fault party’s insurance company (known as a “third-party” claim). First-party insurance claims are most common in cases involving “no-fault” insurance, such as car accidents in New York.
In first-party claims, your own insurance reimburses you for some amount of damages without any need to prove fault, but these damages are usually capped at a certain percentage, exclude pain and suffering payments, and require you to pay a deductible. Third-party claims are used in most other accidents, including accidents that involve a claim against a homeowners insurance policy, a business liability insurance policy, or a medical malpractice insurance policy. Third-party claims essentially replace a court case and allow you to claim most damages – but that does not mean the insurance company will pay you in full.
Our Central Islip personal injury attorneys can negotiate with insurance companies to try to get your damages covered in full. If that is unsuccessful, we may have no choice but to pursue a lawsuit in court to get your damages paid. After filing the case, we can resume negotiations and, if that additional pressure of a lawsuit does not persuade the defense to settle for a fair amount, we can fight your case at trial.
Call Our Central Islip Personal Injury Attorneys Today
For a free review of your case, contact the Central Islip, NY personal injury attorneys at The Carrion Law Firm today. Our phone number is (718) 841-0083.