Legal Damages. - Personal Injury Compensation Claim

Legal Damages.

Legal damages are those damages awarded to a plaintiff by the defendant or defendants for a loss or a personal injury. The four components of a legal tort in personal injury or other tort is a duty, breach, cause or causation and damages. Here, we will generally cover legal damage theories and damage recoveries but reserve other pages for more discussion on damages. Damages awards can arise through tort like a personal injury claim or they can arise through contract. There are other legal theories where a plaintiff can recover legal damages. Here, we will discuss a quick synopsis on damage types.

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Legal Damages In Personal Injury Cases and Other Cases

Damages are what a plaintiff receives either in a lawsuit or damages settlement. A plaintiff can receive a damage award by a judge, jury or out of court settlement by the defendant or the defendant?s insurance company or other responsible party.

Compensatory damages are the most common form of damages. These damages are what the plaintiff recovers from the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for the loss caused by defendant. Compensatory damages are designed to make the plaintiff whole from the loss. Nothing more or nothing less than the loss is what the plaintiff should recover.

An example of a compensatory damage is where Allen swerves his car to miss hitting a dog. In doing so, Allen hits Ben causing $1,000 in damages to his car. Ben is entitled to $1,000 in compensatory damages to compensate him for his loss from Allen?s negligent driving.

Breach of contract damages are compensatory in nature. There are no awards for punitive damages in actions solely based upon contract law and not partially or in total tort law. Such damages are fairly straightforward in example.

Allen contractually promises to construct a shopping plaza for Ben and Ben promises to pay Allen money to do so. The relationship between the parties exists solely in contract and compensatory damages are what is awarded. If Allen fails to build the plaza and Ben must find another contractor to build the plaza at an additional cost then, Ben is entitled to compensatory damages in the increased marginal amount it cost him to build the plaza. Ben is compensated for his contractual loss. However, if Allen constructs the plaza and Ben fails to pay Allen, then Allen is entitled to contractual compensatory damages in the amount of the fully performed contract.

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In contracts, sometimes parties specify damages called liquidated damages. Again, these types of damages must be compensatory in nature and not tort based as in to punish a wrong doer. Again, the parties enjoy a sole privity of contract relationship. Liquidated damages are a mutual attempt by the parties to qualify and quantify a loss before it occurs. It is based upon a good faith estimate of economic loss to prevent the parties? litigating of such terms of quality and quantity of damages.

An examples of liquidated damages may be how much a day that Allen must pay Ben for each and every day that the plaza is not fully constructed. It is like a ?delay damage? wherein such delay reasonably costs Ben perhaps loss of rent and bank interest. Here, such damages are fairly calculable and can be enforced by the court as they arose in contract and not in tort as in to punish. Such liquidated damages exist to compensate Ben in the even that Allen does not complete the plaza on time.

Tort damages are a different animal than contract damages as the relationship between the parties is non-consentual nor may there be any relationship at all between the parties. Here, there may be some damage other than compensatory damages for different societal reasons. These damages are called something different here. They are general or special damages.

Special damages are those damages that compensate a plaintiff for being made while. Typically, they are easy to quantify and usually have to do with material items, like property.

Here is an example of special damages. If Allen while driving swerved to miss a dog and hit Ben causing Ben $1,000 damages to Ben?s car, then Ben is entitled to special damages in the amount of $1,000.00. from such duty, breach?negligence and cause and now damages from Allen?s negligence. However, the damages can continue.

General damages are those damages which are typically seen in personal injury cases because they are difficult to quantify. They are awarded for pain, suffering, disfigurement, loss of reputation, loss of affection and other hard to determine damages.

If Allen caused Ben to hit his head on the steering wheel knocking out all of his teeth then Ben is entitled to general and special damages. Ben is entitled to the special damages of auto repair and teeth repair. However, there is much disfigurement, pain and suffering involved in this personal injury. As such, Ben is entitled to general damages in addition to special damages. General damage amounts are determined by a judge or a jury.

Speculative damages are those future damages that are reasonably expected to occur to a plaintiff out of damages caused to plaintiff by defendant. They can include general and special damages. They typically include incidental damages or those damages necessary to make plaintiff whole. Consequential damages are those damages that are a natural foreseeable consequence of defendant?s acts or omissions. A consequential damages may be the damage caused to by an arsonists to the plaza where there is a one year period of loss of rents. It is typically foreseeable and in the future.

If in our example, Ben now suffers from debilitating headaches and cannot work as a result of the accident, Ben may be entitled to compensatory special damages for lost wages and medical treatment as well as for general damages from such future pain and suffering. It is a question of foreseeability of such damages.

Typical Legal Damages In Personal Injury Cases:

Simply stated?libraries of books have been written about personal injury damages. We will discuss some of the major considerations of personal injury cases. Such considerations include the type of injury, the length of time of the injury and suffering, age of the plaintiff and, of course, future damages.

Typically and as a general rule, personal injury plaintiffs receive three times damages for their awards to compensate them for pain and suffering. Remember, the general damage rule is only a rule and definitely is bent every day in courts.

The types of injury affects the amount of the award. The amount of the award is a question for the judge or the jury. How much a lost finger is worth versus a lost eye is a question of fact. The facts are important. A pianist will have more of a loss of income award for a loss finger than a loss of eye award as most accomplished pianists play by feel. However, a budding model may receive more for a loss eye for the disfigurement.

Some injuries that last a lifetime can cause a defendant to pay for a lifetime of pain and suffering. If defendant doctor negligently cuts plaintiff?s spinal cord making plaintiff paralyzed from the neck down, then in addition to a lifetime of medical costs and loss of income, plaintiff is entitled to a lifetime award of pain and suffering.

Some attorneys are such awards stating that every waking moment the plaintiff lives in pain must be compensated. They begin by stating if plaintiff is paid at minimum wage per hour twenty four hours per day, per week, per month for x amount of years, then plaintiff is entitled to such some. Take a minute to work such figures, they can be massive.

Further augment such lifetime damage award with the argument that such amount is only for a minimum wage job that is non-painful. How much should the plaintiff be paid for all of those hours if pain and suffering is involved? Union hazard pay at $100 per hour. You can see how the length of time of pain and suffering in future damages can affect a personal injury case.

As you can see now, there should be libraries of books on damages. The damage argument controls what the plaintiff receives from the defendant.

Source: http://www.personalinjurycompensationclaim.com/legal-damages

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