If you win your personal injury case, you will receive damages. Damages is a broad term that encompasses different types of payments for different types of losses. Damages are generally divided into compensatory and punitive damages.
Compensatory damages compensate a victim for their actual or future losses. The purpose is to put a plaintiff in the same financial position as before the accident. Punitive damages punish a defendant for extreme negligence and deter future bad behavior.
Economic damages and non-economic damages are the two types of compensatory damages.
What Is the Difference Between Economic Damages and Non-Economic Damages?
Economic damages compensate a victim for actual financial losses. This may include past and predicted future losses. Economic damages are tangible and easy to calculate.
Non-economic damages are intangible losses. They are invisible and often called pain and suffering. You cannot observe non-economic damages, but the impact can be equally devastating to financial losses.
What Are Examples of Economic Damages?
Economic damages vary from case to case, depending on the plaintiff’s specific losses.
In most personal injury cases, economic damages include:
- Emergency medical bills
- Cost of surgery
- Copays
- Follow up visits
- Rehabilitation or physical therapy
- Pharmaceutical costs
- Cost of therapeutic medical devices
- Transportation to and from the doctor
- Lost wages (past and future)
- Lost employment benefits
- Property damage
- Increased domestic labor costs
Economic damages can include any financial loss caused by the accident or injury. While these are the most common examples, you may have a loss unique to your case.
For example, people who are disabled from an accident may need to remodel their home to make it ADA-compliant or hire a nanny to care for their children if they are no longer able.
How Do I Calculate Economic Damages?
Calculating your economic damages is straightforward. In fact, it is much easier than calculating non-economic damages.
You will start with collecting evidence of your economic losses, such as:
- Bills
- Credit card statements
- Pay stubs
- Invoices
- Medical and insurance records
You can use this evidence to add up the total of your losses.
In addition to actual losses, you can recover predicted future losses. This is most common when someone is unable to work or misses a lot of work to get medical treatment. It also happens if you have a complex injury that will require medical treatment or assistance for an extended time or even the rest of your life.
A Phoenix personal injury lawyer can look at your past losses and make a reasonable prediction about your future losses. For example, if you must go to the doctor once a month for the rest of your life, we can take the average cost of the doctor’s visit and use an actuarial table to calculate the financial impact.
If you have a straightforward injury, calculating your economic damages will be straightforward. However, if you have a complex and disabling injury, it will be more complex. A lawyer can help you calculate your damages so that you don’t make a claim for less than you deserve.
Is There a Cap On Economic Damages In Arizona?
Some states have a cap on the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover in a personal injury case. This is most common in non-economic damages awards, which can be quite large. Fortunately, there is no cap in Arizona on either economic or non-economic damages.
You are entitled to receive every dollar that you deserve after an accident. It doesn’t matter if you have $500 or $5 million in economic losses.
A Phoenix Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help You Recover Economic Damages
There are a couple of ways to claim economic damages after a personal injury case. A lot depends on the type of accident and whether there is insurance involved.
If you get into a car accident, for example, you will file an insurance claim. Depending on the limit, the insurer may pay out all of your economic damages. If there are remaining damages beyond the limit, or if insurance denies your claim, you can file a personal injury lawsuit.
If there is no insurance policy, you can request damages directly from the at-fault party through a demand letter. A demand letter is a formal document requesting damages and explaining the basis for the request. If the defendant denies liability and refuses to pay, you will file a personal injury lawsuit.
Throughout the legal process, the defendant may agree to settle and pay your damages. If you cannot reach an agreement, then the case will go all the way to trial. If you win the trial, then the court will award you economic damages as long as you can prove that you are entitled to the amount you request.
In some personal injury cases, claiming economic damages is easy. In others, it is complicated, especially if the case is heading toward trial. A Phoenix personal injury attorney can explain the process, calculate your damages, and fight for your right to recover compensation for your losses.
