After being injured in a car accident, you’ll want to know if you have good grounds for a personal injury claim. Since Missouri is not a no-fault state, you can file such a claim without needing to meet a serious injury threshold. Your degree of fault also does not matter, at least not technically, because Missouri uses the pure comparative negligence rule. Still, you’ll want to know just what you can recover in damages and how much.
Starting with economic losses
It all starts with those losses that can be quantified. A good example of this is medical expenses. You could seek compensation for everything from the ambulance ride to all the imaging tests, surgical procedures and follow-up visits that you might have to go through. You may also seek to be reimbursed for any ongoing care for serious injuries.
Then there’s the income you have lost or continue to lose because of your injuries. Perhaps you were able to return to work, but not at the same capacity as before. A claim could cover lost wages as well as an estimated amount of future lost income. In addition, a disability arising from the crash may force you to make modifications to your home — making it wheelchair-accessible, for instance. These could be included, too.
Emotional trauma and other non-economic losses
Accidents could cause physical pain and suffering; emotional trauma, even leading to PTSD; a reduced quality of life; and depression caused by permanent scars. It’s a subjective matter to place a monetary value on these losses, but they can be included in a claim all the same. Much depends on the severity of the injury that led to these non-economic losses, the nature and the chances of a full recovery.
An attorney focused on clients
You may have a valid personal injury case on your hands, but pursuing it alone might not be a good idea. An attorney could give you much-needed personal attention and bring in third-party investigators to help strengthen the case. While you focus on recovering, the attorney can negotiate for a settlement covering all applicable losses.
