If you get injured in a car accident, you may be able to seek compensation for a number of economic damages. These are direct costs resulting from the crash. For instance, if you spend time in the hospital, economic damages could include medical bills that you have to pay or the wages that you lost due to your injury keeping you out of work.
But there are also non-economic damages, which are ways that the accident affects your life that cannot be as easily quantified. You may still deserve compensation because the other person’s negligence did affect you, but it can be complex to put a number on these damages. One example is seeking compensation for a loss of enjoyment in life.
Lingering injuries
Essentially, this just means that the accident negatively affected your life and made it more difficult for you to enjoy life in the way that you did before. This could be because of injuries that tend to linger.
For instance, say that you are a new parent. In the accident, you suffer a severe spinal cord injury. Even though you do recover, you are going to be living with chronic back pain for the rest of your life. This limits your ability to play with your child or even hold them, changing your experience as a parent significantly.
In a situation like this, you certainly may be able to seek compensation for your medical bills if you needed spinal cord surgery or something of this nature, but you may also want to consider non-economic damages because of how the effects of the injury have changed the rest of your life. You can also consider if an injury keeps you from participating in hobbies that you used to enjoy or affects your relationship with your spouse.
Seeking compensation
This is just one example of a non-economic damage, but it helps to show why it is so important to understand your legal options after a car accident.
