Getting fair treatment after being injured by someone else is not a guarantee. It's in everyone's best interest to pay as little as necessary for any given issue, and a legal battle is no different. That said, you have your own needs and rights, and you need to examine your situation carefully to figure out how much you're owed. Here are a few angles to consider as you look for your bare minimum compensation, your best scenario compensation, and a better way to figure out how much is too much.
Medical Bills Must Come First
Before thinking about buying a new house, paying off utility bills, or planning a new life, make sure that your medical bills are covered. Although you're absolutely entitled to more than just basic bill payments, it's best to make sure that your main costs are covered.
First, get a total bill from your hospital or clinic. Make sure to confirm that any specialists have already billed you, or at least try to get an estimate for future visits. Although you can't easily guess future surgeries, complications, or referrals until they happen.
When you have that number, do a bit more investigating. How likely is it that you may be disabled? Is it a possible long-term or life-long disability, or do medical professionals think that you may recover in a few weeks? This details will not only give you an extended view of medical costs but help you later on with lost wages.
Lost Wages And Lost Business Potential
Whether you're a waged, salaried, or freelance worker, being injured affects your pay. It doesn't matter if you were taken out of work for a day or a year, or if you think that you could work through the problem, you're working at some sort of loss. There are some effort and energy that you could have brought to the work before, and your injury hampers that potential in some way.
For wage and salary workers, part of the estimate is easy to calculate. Take the number of hours you would be working and bill your legal opponent. Even if you personally didn't lose money, your company and clients are losing valuable help.
Freelancers may have a harder time because work may not be guaranteed. You can demand compensation for contracts that aren't complete, but anything else is speculation.
Contact a personal injury lawyer to get help with payment speculation, and to figure out if your career traject, in general,ral deserves compensation because of the injury.
