Things That Affect Your Compensation
Are you looking to start a personal injury case to seek financial reimbursement? Before you speak to a Tampa personal injury lawyer, here are some things that affect your compensation.
Things That Affect Your Compensation | Pre-Existing Conditions
As an experienced Tampa Personal Injury Lawyer I am often asked about pre-existing conditions. Pre-existing conditions can impact your personal injury case. We call that the eggshell plaintiff. If you are injured and those injuries are made no worse, then you probably don’t have an injury claim, but in most cases, pre-existing injuries can be made much worse and permanently worse so that you could recover for an exacerbation of your pre-existing injury.
Things That Affect Your Compensation | Emotional Distress
As an experienced Tampa Personal Injury Attorney I am often asked about emotional distress. In most cases, one of the potential elements of damages is mental anguish or emotional distress. There are a few causes of action where emotional distress is not available in some wrongful death cases and in some injury cases involving maritime or admiralty law or even Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA), a railroad worker hurt on the job. There are situations where emotional damages may not be available to let’s say family members, spouses, children, but for the most part, emotional damages or mental anguish is available.
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One of the things you should understand about mental anguish is that some people may have prior treatment with a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and what the defense attorney will try to do is bring up that prior treatment with a psychologist or a psychiatrist to basically claim that your emotional problems, your mental anguish, are really preexisting. They’re just problems that you had prior to this accident, prior to your injuries, and sometimes the effect of that prior psychological or psychiatric treatment can impair your ability to get a fair shot at trial. Sometimes your attorney may discuss with you the possibility of dropping your mental anguish claim in order to keep the psychological or psychiatric records out of evidence, which will oftentimes benefit you in the prosecution of your case.
Things That Affect Your Compensation | Partial Fault Claims
As an experienced Tampa Personal Injury Attorney I am often asked if one can sue if they were partially at fault during the incident. What ultimately is the measure of what a jury will consider, so if you’re partially at fault, you can still recover for that percentage of responsibility that is assigned by the jury to the defendant. For example, if you’re determined in a slip and fall accident for example to be 25% at fault and your damages are $100,000 as awarded by the jury, then you would be able to recover 75% of your damages or $75,000.
Are you worried about the things that affect your compensation? You can call our office today for a free consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers.
