What Can I Expect From a Virginia Pedestrian Accident Case?
If you have been injured in Virginia as a pedestrian you may be eligible to receive compensation. Below are frequently asked questions regarding expectations in pedestrian accident claims. For more information contact a Virginia pedestrian accident lawyer.
What Should I Expect When Filing a Pedestrian Accident Claim in Virginia?
If someone is involved in a pedestrian accident, they should immediately contact a medical provider and expect there’s going to be some sort of documentation process. They should also contact law enforcement cause there may very well be a criminal element as well concerning the driver’s actions or inactions.
So they want to be assured that they participate with all parties that are seeking information from them. Having an attorney that practices in pedestrian accidents with them at this time can be helpful. It’s not necessary in all cases but it can certainly be helpful so they can focus on recovery and the more procedural aspects can be handled by an attorney.
How Long Will A Virginia Pedestrian Accident Case Take?
Every case is unique and every case takes the right amount of time. What I mean by that is that it is important to never rush a case because the potential pedestrian accident claimant only gets one bite at the apple, only one shot at recovery against the responsible party.
Typically, persons injured as a result of pedestrian accident want to make sure that they make a full recovery prior to making a formal demand for settlement. They want to achieve what’s called maximum medical improvement, and then fully ascertain what type of long-term impact their injuries may have on them with their employment, and their quality of life before attempting to resolve their case.
What Else is An Individual Able to Recover Damages for?
You can also recover damages for medical expenses called special damages. Additionally, you can recover lost wages, or loss earning capacities if you’re permanently injured. You can also recover damages for the mileage having to go to and from medical appointment, as well as pain and suffering. If you have a permanent disability, then there may be damages with that as well.
How Are The Damages Calculated?
You calculate the damages based upon your medical bills as those are the easiest to quantify. When I say medical bills, I mean the actual charges incurred without any regard to what your insurance is in the process. During the pedestrian claimant process, insurance is not taken into consideration. It’s simply the charges that are incurred and that is calculated as your special damages. In addition, the calculation on how much time you have to miss work as a result of your damages will be calculated as loss wages with a simple equation of time missed times your hourly rate. For a salaried employee, your attorney will help you try to establish an effective hourly rate in order to properly calculate how much time you’ve missed from work.
Regarding pain and suffering, that’s the toughest thing because no one can put a price on their quality of life. But an experienced attorney that practices in this area of law quite often can assist you in developing strategy to come up with a figure because unfortunately that’s the only thing we have to reimburse people.
We can’t take them back in time and make their injuries go away. We all would like to but the only thing that the court has to make the injured party whole is monetary damages. So we try to put a figure on that pain and suffering and that loss in enjoyment of things depending on the permanency and the severity of injury.