Due to the many categories of damages that can be recovered after a car accident, it is important that an individual contact an Bardstown car accident attorney as soon as possible. A knowledgeable lawyer can gather all of the evidence in a case, and properly help an individual retrieve any and all damages they may be entitled to after their car accident.
An attorney may want to work with a vocational expert who can evaluate a person’s current condition, give the attorneys an idea of any impairment that the individual received, and then give those figures to an economist. That economist can then translate those figures into an actual amount that the individual will lose over their lifetime because of the car accident. For more information contact our Bardstown personal injury lawyer.
Potential Damages
Under Kentucky law, an individual is entitled to recover four large categories of damages after a car accident. First is past medical bills, which is all of the medical bills an individual has incurred from the date of the wreck up through the date of either a settlement or a jury trial, depending on how the case is resolved. An attorney can gather all of the bills that their client’s doctors have charged them. It is important to make sure that these are gathered correctly, as it is sometimes difficult to retrieve weeks or months worth of bills at once.
Secondly, an individual can be compensated for any future medical bills, that is medical bills from the day of the settlement of the jury trial going forward for the rest of the individual’s life, that are caused because of this wreck. A physician will come to court, and decide the expected amount as to what the individual will incur in the future. They can then tell the court exactly what they expect that amount to be, and the attorney can have an economist adjust it for inflation and other items on a going-forward basis.
An individual can recover for two things under their loss of income in Bardstown with respect to a car accident. First is the individual’s actual loss that they have incurred if they had to take off work, or the person missed work. This is often easy to determine. However, the most important thing to think about is the amount of lost income in the individual’s future.
For example, if an individual is somebody that works with their hands and they end up with a hand injury, even though they have not lost their current job, they may find that over their career they do not get promoted because of the injury to their hand. These are factors that need to be accounted for when determining future damages after a car accident.
Pain and Suffering
After an attorney has taken care of an individual’s medical bills, future medical bills, lost wages, and the impairment to their ability to earn an income, the final thing that an individual is entitled to recover is some amount of pain and suffering. This is a theoretical amount that is designed to put the individual in a position that they would have been in had they not been injured. This amount is intended to help an individual cope with the pain they are feeling.
In determining these amounts, an attorney can look at how this injury impacted their client’s life, and what they cannot do now that they were able to do previously. Some people will have trouble with everyday tasks such as doing housework, vacuuming the house, or bringing in the groceries. An attorney will look at how the inability to do these tasks impacts the individual, their families, and their ability to enjoy life.
Damage Caps
Kentucky does not have any caps on damages. An individual is entitled to recover whatever an attorney can prove was a natural loss to them. This means that an attorney can recover any past medical bills, future medical bills, lost wages, and impairment to earning income. Further, an attorney can recover for both past and future pain and suffering. If an individual has a permanent condition that is going to affect their life, they deserve full compensation.
Determining the At-Fault Party
In Kentucky, the person who is responsible for causing the wreck in a car accident is responsible for paying a number of things, including the property damage, which is any and all damage done to a vehicle. The way an attorney will view it in Bardstown is that an individual is entitled to be in the same position they were before the wreck occurred, so the person who breached the standard of care, did not drive like a reasonably prudent person, or violated a traffic law in some manner is the at-fault party that is going to be held responsible.
