CONSTRUCTION INJURY CASES, part 3

If you have a third-party construction injury case you could be entitled to the following:

1) Pain and Suffering: Ordinarily, the most “valuable” element of your bodily injury claim is the right to compensation for all “pain and suffering” you have sustained and will endure as a proximate result of your injury. These are your “general damages” and may run far in excess of your “special damages” (e.g., earnings loss and medical expenses).

2) Loss of Earnings: You are entitled to recover the reasonable value of working time loss as a result of the injury. Thus, wages, commissions, bonuses and all other earnings and fringe benefits that you have lost or probably will lose in the future (“future earnings” damages) are compensable damage elements.

3) Medical Expenses: You are entitled to recover the reasonable portion of your medical expenses that have been incurred and that are reasonably certain to be incurred in the future as a result of the injury. These expenses include past (already-incurred) medical expenses, as well as future medical expenses, which may be the result of the original injury or may result from an increased susceptibility to future injury because of the construction accident in question.

4) Impaired Earning Capacity: Impaired earning capacity damages are closely related to loss of future earnings damages. It is often simply an alternative way of compensating you for future earnings loss (discussed above). Technically, “impaired earning capacity” refers to the extent to which the injury has interfered with your ability to advance to a better paying position or an alternative career. The damages, in effect, compensate you for injury to your earning power.

5) Loss of a Normal Life: This was formally known as disability and is defined as “the temporary or permanent diminished ability to enjoy life. This includes a person’s inability to pursue the pleasurable aspects of life”.

6) Increased Risk of Future Injury: You may recover money damages for the increased risk of future injury if there is sufficient proof of the same. When the risk of future injury is less than 100% but more than 50% likely, then there is no percentage reduction of that award. If the injury determines that the risk of future injury is less than 50%, then the recovery is reduced by the percentage.

Continue Reading...