In our last post, we began looking at the topic of brain and spinal cord injury, the effects of such injuries on a motor vehicle accident victim’s life and the costs involved with such injuries. As we noted, new and sometimes experimental treatments are emerging which hold out the hope of improving and accelerating recovery for brain and spinal cord injury victims, but these treatments are not available to many and can be costly.
All of this has relevance to the issue of damages in personal injury litigation, because one of the goals of damages is to compensate the accident victim for the costs of the injury the defendant caused. Compensatory damages come in two basic types: economic and non-economic. Economic damages are awarded for things like medical costs, lost wages, loss of future earning capacity, and losses that can be easily monetized.
Non-economic damages, on the other hand, are awarded for losses and injuries that are more difficult to measure, such as pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and such injuries. Non-economic damages can be an important avenue of recovery for accident victims, particularly when unique circumstances result in an economic damages award that doesn’t adequately compensate the victim for his or her injuries.
When it comes to brain and spinal cord injuries, it is absolutely critical for an accident victim to establish an accurate estimate of the costs involved in addressing the injuries and to aggressively seek that compensation at trial.
In our next post, we’ll continue this discussion.
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