Facing the struggle of recovery after an accident or injury can be overwhelming; medical bills, loss of wages due to the inability to work, pain and emotional stress, these things take a toll that jeopardize your quality of life. Timmons, Owen, Jansen & Tichy Inc. are aggressive advocates for victim’s rights and will provide clarity and direction as we work towards the compensation you deserve.
Determining Liability
Liability means simply that an individual or entity is held responsible for something; legally liability usually means having to pay damages to the aggrieved individual. Sometimes legal liability is easy to determine. For example, if you have been hit by a drunk driver, you will be trying to demonstrate that the driver is liable for the injuries you have sustained, although in practice you will be filing your claim against the driver’s insurance company, if any, and possibly your own. However, issues of liability are often more complicated than might be readily apparent. For instance, if the airbags failed to deploy correctly when the drunk driver hit you, you may be able to file a product liability lawsuit against the manufacturer of the car as well as against the drunk driver. If the accident took place on another person’s property where there were dangerous driving conditions of which the property owner was aware and failed to address and which may have contributed to the likelihood of an accident, you may be able to make a premises liability claim against the property owner. As experienced personal injury attorneys, we can help you to determine who is liable and hold them accountable for their action.
Types of Compensation
There are two general types of compensation you can collect from a personal injury lawsuit. These are compensatory damages and punitive damages.
Compensatory damages are simply the funds that the plaintiff receives for their injuries and losses and is used to pay for medical bills, lost wages, and damaged property. Compensatory damages themselves are of two types: economic and non-economic. Economic damages cover tangible and quantifiable expenses such as balances associated with medical care, while non-economic damages cover losses that are harder to quantify such as pain and suffering and humiliation.
The other primary type of recoverable compensation besides compensatory damages are punitive damages. Punitive damages are not directly tied to the pain and suffering of the plaintiff. They are intended to punish the responsible person for their misconduct or negligence and are quite rare. Their amount is established by legislative and public policies and are usually reserved for extremely egregious behavior.
