The damages that have been unfairly thrust upon you after your accident are enormous. You’re probably trying to figure out how to pay your medical bills at a time when you’re unable to work, but the noneconomic losses that have been incurred may be even more stressful and overwhelming. After all, your injuries may have left you with extensive pain and suffering that makes getting by on a day-to-day basis challenging, disfigurement that you find embarrassing and loss of enjoyment of life that is depressing and nothing short of tragic.
Although these losses might have you feeling like your future is bleak, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. This is especially true if you’re able to pursue a personal injury lawsuit against the parties responsible for your wreck. Although you’ll have to put a lot of work into proving liability, you’ll also have to be diligent in presenting evidence of the damages that you’ve suffered.
But how do you go about doing that? Let’s look at some ways that you can gather evidence to support your request for compensation:
- Follow your doctor’s recommendations: Medical expenses may be a major part of your financial recovery. However, in order to demonstrate the full extent of your medical needs, you should follow your doctor’s recommendations for ongoing care and treatment. If you don’t, the other side is probably going to argue that your claim for ongoing medical treatment isn’t necessary since you haven’t sought it out in a timely fashion.
- Secure your medical records: Your medical records can also show the extent of your injuries and your need for ongoing treatment. They can also help show how much you’ve incurred in medical debt up to this point.
- Talk to a medical expert: The damages that you seek are going to include those that you’ve already incurred, but it’s also going to be forward-looking so that you can recover the compensation that you need to offset the damages that are yet to come. By talking to a medical expert, you might be able to obtain testimony that persuasively demonstrates your diagnosis, your prognosis, how your injuries will affect your ability to live a normal life moving forward, and how much your ongoing care is going to cost.
- Obtain employment records: These documents will help show how much money you’ve lost on account of missed work, and they can help you calculate your anticipated lost wages.
- Speak to an employment expert: An expert in your field of work may be able to testify as to how your injuries will impact your ability to secure work or advance in your career. This speaks to lost earnings capacity, which can be another big portion of your damages.
- Keep a journal: Your pain and suffering, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life can also be a major part of your damages. But these losses can be hard to calculate since they’re noneconomic in nature. However, you can help paint a picture of how your injuries have affected your life by keeping a journal of how your life has changed post-accident, which you can then present at trial if your case makes it that far.
There may be other steps that you can take to support your request for compensation, which is why you may want to discuss the facts of your claim with an attorney who has a track record of successfully arguing these kinds of cases. Hopefully, you can build a strong case that sets you on the path to a brighter future and a fuller recovery.