Evaluating a Personal Injury

Transcript: Hi, I’m David Holub. This video will provide informational tips about how to assess and evaluate a personal injury claim.

Every injury case is different. Rarely will an attorney concentrating in personal injury law be able to give you anything more than general advice as to the type of compensation you would get for your injuries. This only makes sense, until the full extent of your injuries is known, including time lost from work, days in the hospital under a doctors care, no attorney can predict what you would be entitled to with any accuracy. Be cautious about any attorney who claims that they can assign a dollar value to your claim when you walk in the door. The type of information that you need to gather to help your attorney and yourself try to evaluate what your claim might be worth would include medical expenses, all of the expenses you have incurred to date, plus estimated future expenses. You also would need information about your lost income, permanent physical disability, disfigurement, loss of family social and educational experiences, expenses associated with job retraining, suppose for example you were a truck driver and you were able to climb up on the truck and do very heavy work of strapping down a load but now you are going to have to be retrained to do some more sedentary work that kind of cost would be something that would be compensable. Emotional damages such as the emotional stress of being involved in an accident and having to fight to recover that from that accident. Embarrassment that you might suffer, having to have others take care of you bath you and do different things. A lot of times people suffer from depression following an accident, pain or suffering, both temporary and permanent pain and suffering, for example you may have a very high level of pain while lets say a broken arm is healing over six weeks, but then you have a lesser degree of pain while you are going through therapy for another month, or two months, and then you have some residual level of pain, all of those kinds of elements and factors need to be considered in trying to evaluate what your claim may be worth. If you don’t have the type of information I just listed, you will need to get that, that type of information is going to be necessary to help determine and evaluate what your claim may be worth. This video message only constitutes general information, its because every case is different and many factors that I didn’t mention may come into play, as always consult an attorney of your choice for specific legal advice.