Howard County Hit & Run Accident: Recovering Damages

Becoming involved in a hit and run accident can be a very stressful and traumatic experience. In addition to damages to your vehicle and injuries to you and your passenger, the identity of the other party involved is unknown. As a result, recovering damages in a hit and run accident can be more complicated than in ordinary car accidents. Call and schedule a consultation with our Howard County car accident lawyers immediately for help in recovering damages for your case.

Liability in Howard County Hit & Run Accidents

For a hit and run accident, you just need to show that some other driver was negligent and because of that negligence you sustained injuries. It is not necessary that there be contact between your vehicle and the vehicle that left the scene, but you will still have to prove that they were negligent in the operation of their motor vehicle. You still have to show that you’re free from any negligence for the hit and run accident. Therefore, it’s very similar to other accidents, but in the hit and run you don’t have another driver contradicting what you’re saying.

Recoverable Damages

In a hit and run accident you make a claim against your own insurance policy under the uninsured or underinsured motorist endorsement. You make a claim against your uninsured motorist endorsement because you don’t know whether or not the person had insurance. Thus, you’re unable to determine what their amount of insurance coverage is.

If that’s the case, you make a claim against your own policy under the uninsured motorist endorsement to claim for damages that you would claim against the policy of another driver if you were able to identify the driver that struck you. The damages that you would claim are the same categories: i.e., past and future lost wages, past and future medical expenses, past and future pain and suffering.

We only get the future aspects of those damages if a doctor who provided treatment and care for you could opine to a reasonable degree of medical probability that your injuries would last into the future and they’re permanent in nature. As to future medical expenses, the doctor would have to set forth an estimate of the cost of medical expenses that he thinks you would sustain in the future such as future surgeries or any diagnostic treatment or pain meds such as injections or therapies.

Differences in Recoverable Damages With Other Cases

To show punitive damages, you need to show that someone acted with actual malice. Actual malice is an evil intent or an ill will. You would have to show that someone did something very bad, one example would be that they tried to run you off of the road or repeatedly hitting you. This might be difficult to prove without being able to cross examine the other driver involved. Punitive damages are rarely assessed in the state of Maryland.

Punitive damages are very difficult to prove in general and they really don’t lend themselves to a hit and run unless you can prove that the person had actual malice or evil intentions.