With the seriousness that truck accidents typically pose, recovering losses tends to be a massive task that strains the recovery efforts of you or a loved one. Instead, let an attorney work for you to recover Chattanooga truck accident damages on your behalf. An experienced attorney could evaluate the circumstances of your wreck, determine negligent parties, and draft a claim against them while seeking the compensation you need.
What Are Economic and Non-Economic Losses
Economic losses, known as damages in the legal field, are clearly quantifiable losses such as a person’s lost wages, medical bills, and loss of future earning capacity. In short, these are damages that are an exact number.
Non-economic damages are not easy to calculate. They are the human losses, the intangible effects on a person’s life, like physical pain, suffering, emotional distress, humiliation, embarrassment, and inconvenience. In a truck accident, because of the seriousness of the crash, an injured person is more likely to have serious non-economic damages as well.
Calculating Non-Economic Losses
Economic damages are calculated in a variety of ways. A person’s medical bills are calculated by gathering their medical bills and presenting them to the jury or the insurance company. A person’s lost wages are frequently calculated by looking at that person’s past wages (what wages that person was able to earn per week or per month before the wreck) and compare those wages with what he or she is able to earn per week or per month after the wreck.
What Could a Lawsuit Help Victims Recover After a Chattanooga Truck Wreck
After a truck accident, a person could recover his or her economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages include their lost wages, medical bills, and loss of future earning capacity (if that person now has permanent injuries).
Depending upon the seriousness or the grossness of the truck driver’s violation, if a person could prove that the truck driver’s conduct was reckless or intentional, then the plaintiff might be able to recover punitive damages, which have the purpose of punishing the driver. Those specific damages are based upon the amount of money it would take to deter the company or the driver from engaging in future similar conduct in the future.
Auto-Insurance Coverage and Punitive Damages
A person’s auto insurance frequently covers all of the damages that are recoverable in a lawsuit. In a trucking case, that includes economic damages. Whether punitive damages are recoverable under an insurance policy depends upon the language of the policy.
