If you take a look at some of the oldest law documents, you will see that there are some amounts of compensation for every possible situation. In some cases, this compensation would be in form of goods, and in other cases, it is in the form of money. It happens when someone suffers some injuries because of another person’s intention or negligence.
Therefore, we can that this is one of the oldest principles in law. For example, one of the oldest documents in history, the Code of Hammurabi, has some of these principles. Naturally, today’s world of law doesn’t recognize different social statuses as was the case in these older documents. The more serious the injury is the higher the compensation. Furthermore, the severe the consequences of these injuries are, the compensation will be higher.
As you can presume, the principle is pretty much the same in this day and age. The value of your case or lawsuit requires taking a look into a couple of different factors before it can be calculated properly. If you would like to learn more about some particularities, be sure to take a look at this website. Now, we would like to talk about how this is done. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the whole process.
How is Damage Evaluated?
The first thing that needs to be done is the evaluation of the damage you have suffered. For those who are not aware of who is responsible for this, we can say that your attorney will play a pivotal role in this determination. One of the first factors that will be used for this calculation is the medical costs in your case. Furthermore, your attorney will take a look into the possible loss of functionality you have suffered as a result of the accident you have been a part of.
Furthermore, it includes the time and the salaries you have lost after the accident. Plus, the emotional damage that your family suffered is also an important question. Last but not least, the time when you will be able to get back to work plays a pretty big factor. Because of many different factors, this is a process that will take quite a long time before this can be determined. But you need to know that these factors are not the only ones in your situation that will be judged on.
What are the Other Factors?
When coming up with the value of your case, your attorney will come up with a final draw based on comparative negligence and insurance limits. Now, we would like to elaborate on both of these.
- Comparative Negligence
In some cases, you will not be only the party that suffered the damage. Sometimes, you will have a part of the blame for something that occurred. If this is the case, the damage claim will need to be lowered by the percentage of the blame you have in a particular situation. Calculating this is pretty simple. If you have a 20% blame, the amount you will receive will be lowered by this percentage. In case you have been found guilty for more than 50% of the situation, you will not receive any money.
- Insurance Limits
In cases when you don’t have any kind of blame, your claim will be covered by your insurance coverage. What many people are not aware of is that some of these insurance companies have policy limits, which means that they will not pay above it. In most cases, we can see that this limit goes up to $100k. In that case, it doesn’t matter what amount was awarded to you by the court. Therefore, you will need to read the contract you sign with an insurance company.
Framing a Request
After all the factors have been taken into consideration, your attorney will come up with a final amount of money you are entitled to, based on your case. If you have found an experienced attorney, you will receive advice of asking for a higher amount than your case was evaluated too. The reason is that there is a chance you can get that amount, of course by the court’s decision. Naturally, you can expect that the insurance company or the defendant will try to knock the amount down.
But this is something that should discourage you. It’s no wonder that will lower their costs by pointing out some weaknesses in your case. Once again, the experience of your attorney will play a vital role in you getting as higher coverage as possible. However, there are situations where your case will be so strong that they will simply have no arguments that could damage your claim. But, the ability of your attorney can do that even if it is not the case.
How Long Can Negotiations Last?
In some cases, these negotiations can last a couple of days and for no more than just a couple of phone calls between two representatives. However, we can see that sometimes it can last much longer than that. It happens when the parties are not able to come up with a solution. Therefore, you should be prepared for the possibility that they could last for much longer than you would like them to. Arm yourself with patience and you will handle this process much better than without it. Maybe you will need to perform some additional medical examinations to enhance your case in the most effective way.
The Bottom Line
We can see that determining the value of your lawsuit can be a tricky process sometimes. Since it depends on many different factors, and some of them cannot be determined in some cases, maybe you are looking towards a long road before you finish the process.
Here, you can learn all about the most important elements and how your attorney will do it. Furthermore, you can see how can your attorney negotiate the whole case and provide you with the most important results. Sure, you will need to be aware of all these factors before you conduct this kind of process.
