What Happens if I Cannot Work Due to My Car Accident Injuries?

If you have been seriously injured in a car or truck accident, there are many issues that have to be dealt with. Even though you are injured and likely in pain, there are many questions that have to be answered and you may not know the answers. Who will pay your medical bills? How will you get your car fixed? What should you tell the insurance company adjuster who is calling looking to take a recorded statement? How will you pay your bills and put food on my family’s table due to the fact that the car accident injury is preventing you from work? Wage loss as caused by a car crash is a serious topic and has to be dealt with as soon as possible after a wreck. At Robert Bates & Associates, we are here to answer all of those questions and win the compensation you deserve.

Wage Loss After A Car Accident

Some car and truck accidents are so severe that people are injured and cannot work for a long time, maybe even years. If the accident was caused by the negligence of another driver, then the injured party can submit a claim for lost wages, along with other types of non-economic damages. A claim for lost wages consists of past due wages because the injured person couldn’t work after the accident. However, a wage loss claim also consists of any future wage loss that the person might experience going into the future due to an ongoing disability related to the car accident injury. Calculating a future wage loss claim becomes a little more complicated.

Future Wage Loss Claim

An injured person is entitled to receive full and fair compensation for their injuries. If the injury will prevent the person from working into the future, then they would have a claim for future wage loss. If the injury and disability is severe enough, then theoretically the person can have a wage loss claim up until the time that they would have likely retired. This is where the injured person makes a claim for lost earning capacity. In order to do this, the injured plaintiff has to have the following:

● Medical evidence: The injured plaintiff has to submit evidence from a medical professional that gives the expert medical opinion that the person is injured and that the injury creates a physical disability, preventing that person from performing their “time of injury” job as well as other types of jobs into the future. The doctor will place permanent restrictions on the person.

● Vocational evidence: Most claims for future wages require testimony and evidence from a vocational expert that will give an expert opinion on whether the injured plaintiff can perform certain types of jobs given the physical requirements of those jobs. This expert opinion will work in conjunction with the medical expert’s opinion.

● Economic expert opinion: The last expert opinion necessary for a future wage loss claim and loss of future earning capacity is that of an Economist. An economist will do the math as it relates to the future wage loss. Basically, the economist will take the money that the person would have likely received over time and boil that down into a lump sum amount in today’s dollars. It is this lump sum amount that will make up the future wage loss claim submitted in any trial.

Obviously, this type of expert testimony can be very complicated. The best course of action if you have been seriously injured in a car or truck accident is to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer. If you have been injured in an car crash in Tennessee, here at Robert Bates & Associates, we have the knowledge, skills, and resources to take on big insurance companies and win the full compensation you deserve.

Robert BatesRobert is a Kingsport trial lawyer who handles car, truck and motorcycle wreck cases across the Tri-Cities. Every client gets his cell number.