Accidents happen, and by extension, so do injuries. Depending on the circumstances and severity of the accident, victims may find themselves in a financial pit, unable to gather the resources necessary for them to move forward from the accident and get on with life.
That is where personal injury lawyers come in. By providing clients with their services, personal injury lawyers help accident victims secure, speed up, and maximize insurance claims, getting the compensation they need to recover from tragedy.
And when you need these services in Orem, Utah, you’ll find no better than Valley Law Accident and Injury Lawyers. We have recovered over $100 million for our clients over the years and look forward to providing you with the same quality of service.
Helping victims is all we do. Call us today at (801) 212-9084.
When Should You Hire an Orem Personal Injury Attorney
Not every accident involves serious injuries, which means not every case needs a personal injury attorney on your side. For example, if you sustain a fracture in a slip-and-fall and the cost of treatment falls within the insurance policy’s limits, you can just file for that.
In most instances, getting legal help in such a case wouldn’t make sense. You can just file a claim and get the amount needed for treatment.
Things change with more serious injuries. If we assume you sustain more serious injuries that prevent you from getting back to work – God forbid, a broken spine that needs surgical intervention, for example – you’re going to need to account for more than just your medical bills.
For the most part, the more serious the accident and the more money is involved, the less likely the insurer will be willing to hand you a payout. They are, first and foremost, a business and may look for any reason to diminish the value of your claim to save them money.
This means the more money is at stake, the more likely you will benefit from having an attorney.
Here are some general criteria that, if you meet them, might make it a good idea to work with our lawyers at Valley Law.
You’ve Sustained Injuries
For the most part, you’ll want to have some sort of heavy injury before acquiring the services of a personal injury lawyer. This isn’t always the case; you may still want a lawyer to represent you when you have minor injuries and serious property damage.
There is a caveat to what we’ve said earlier when we mentioned more serious injuries are more likely to need a lawyer’s services. Not every serious injury might be noticed immediately after it is sustained.
For example, you might walk away from a car crash with just a little neck pain and a few bumps and bruises. However, over the next two weeks, you may notice weakness or lack of sensation in your hands or some dizzy spells.
It’s important to get a medical diagnosis as soon as possible to determine the extent of injuries after an accident, even if you might feel fine on the surface.
Your Damages Are Caused by Another Party
Utah is a no-fault state, which means residents first turn to their own personal insurance policies before looking for compensation elsewhere. This means regardless of fault, people are in charge of getting a payout from their insurance provider.
However, PIP is not always sufficient to cover all damages, so once the limits are reached, accident victims may step outside the no-fault system and pursue a claim from an at-fault party. The defendant will likely avoid taking the blame, making a lawyer’s services necessary.
Your Damages Are Tied to the Accident
Theoretically, this might seem easy to prove, but it is often far more difficult in practice. Insurance companies might seem to be on your side by paying for your damages when they occur, but again, as they are businesses, they will attempt to save money where they can.
It isn’t uncommon for insurers to try and disprove that your injuries were caused by the accident you filed a claim for, thus reducing the amount you can get. Also, just as frequently, insurers may argue that your actions (or inaction) worsened any damages you sustained.
Working with a lawyer means having a professional who knows these tactics and how to beat them. Your attorney can build a case that accounts for any strategies the insurance companies will try to employ to protect the maximum value you can get.
What Can My Lawyer Do for Me?
Personal injury attorneys fight to increase the odds that you receive a payout. They also aim to increase the total amount you get from your claim.
A recent survey found working with a lawyer means that claimants are far more likely to receive a payout from an insurer. More than nine out of ten respondents received compensation compared to only a little over five out of ten who represented themselves.
Of those who did secure a payout, those with lawyers recovered an average of $77,600 compared to the $17,600 average of those who self-represented their claims.
The data showed that even after deducting the average value of attorneys’ fees from the claims, plaintiffs who opted for legal representation recovered net payouts up to three or four times higher than those secured by unrepresented plaintiffs.
So, while not all cases might warrant a lawyer’s services, a good legal representative offers a far greater advantage in those times that they do. Those are the exact advantages Valley Law affords you.
What Damages Can I Recover in My Personal Injury Case?
In legal terms, “damages” refer to both losses and compensation for losses.
In the first case, damages mean harm or loss due to a legal wrong. For example, someone injured in a car accident would have medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other losses as their damages.
As forms of compensation, damages refer to the money a court orders a defendant to pay the victim. This compensation is intended to make the victim whole or to restore them to the position they would have been in if the wrong had not occurred.
Regardless of how the terms are used, the value of damages is what we aim to recover in a personal injury case.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are losses with a verifiable objective value. This means medical bills, repair services, and anything that can be tracked with official receipts or some other paper trail.
- Medical Expenses: These often make up the bulk of most personal injury claims. Hospital bills, treatment costs, doctors’ fees, and any expenses necessary for recovery are included here.
- Lost Wages: This includes compensation for any income the plaintiff missed due to their injuries. Lost wages may account for the potential income from business deals and decisions that fell through due to the victim being indisposed.
- Loss of Earning Capacity: Some victims may not only lose income for a duration, but they may find that the long-term effects of their injuries are so severe that they cannot resume their work after the point of maximum medical recovery. To address this, loss of earning capacity accounts for any income the plaintiff will lose in the foreseeable future.
- Property Damages: This accounts for the plaintiff’s personal property lost or damaged in the accident. In a car accident, for example, this would be damage to your vehicle, objects within your vehicle, and objects on your person at the time of the accident.
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- In addition to physical objects, you may also be reimbursed for the value of lost digital property. If you had a laptop or tablet rendered unusable and with valuable data rendered unrecoverable, you may be owed compensation for the value of the data lost.
- Out-Of-Pocket Expenses: Personal expenses incurred due to the accident may be recovered as damages. Examples are transportation costs, childcare costs, household services, and nursing or home care services.
Non-economic Damages
These damages are losses without an objective monetary value but still have a personal value to the plaintiff.
- Pain and Suffering: The most common non-economic damage recovered. The idea is that one would not have had to endure pain and suffering if the accident had not occurred, and therefore, an accident victim deserves compensation for their discomfort.
- Emotional Distress: Sometimes included as part of pain and suffering and sometimes calculated separately, emotional distress includes PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Specifically, this means the experience of such conditions rather than the expenses associated with the condition, which are considered economic damages.
- Loss of Consortium: This damage is awarded to an accident victim’s spouse – or, on occasion, children – to compensate them for the loss of companionship. While normally seen in cases of wrongful death, this is also awarded in any instance where the victim’s injuries prevent them from fulfilling their normal role in the family, even if they survived.
- Diminished Quality of Life: If a victim can no longer enjoy their life in some way due to their injuries, they may be awarded this type of damage. Examples of such a situation would be if a former athlete can no longer play their sport, a painter loses fine control of their hands, or a photographer loses function in an eye.
Because non-economic damages are subjective and vary from person to person and case to case, they are more difficult to assign a specific monetary value to. However, there are two generally accepted ways of calculating their worth.
- Per Diem Method: The per diem (Latin for “per day”) method assigns a daily monetary value to the plaintiff’s pain and suffering, multiplied by the number of days the plaintiff experienced pain and suffering to determine the total non-economic damages. The per diem rate is typically based on the plaintiff’s age, occupation, and lifestyle.
- Multiplier Method: One of the most widely used approaches, this multiplies the total amount of economic damages by a factor ranging from 1.5 to 5. The logic behind using economic damages as a baseline is that the greater they are, the more we can assume a more serious impact the injuries have on the plaintiff’s life.
- Modified Multiplier: Combining elements of the multiplier and per diem methods is possible. This involves assigning a multiplier to the plaintiff’s pain and suffering and then multiplying that multiplier by the per diem rate.
Some cases may involve other methods. For example, courts may use case law as a reference for the value of non-economic damages if the circumstances of a personal injury case are similar enough to another from the past.
Punitive Damages
Unlike economic and non-economic damages, Punitive damages are not compensatory by nature. As the name suggests, they are intended to punish an at-fault party for their wrongdoings and deter others from committing the same acts.
Punitive damages are not always available to claimants; most civil cases only award compensatory damages. That said, punitive damages are often awarded in cases where an offending party committed a crime, especially if their conduct was intentional or malicious.
Cases Our Orem Personal Injury Lawyers Handle
Our personal injury lawyers at Valley Law handle various practice areas, allowing us to serve our clients no matter what circumstances led to their injuries.
Orem Personal Injury Law Firm
Valley Law Accident and Injury Lawyers are your allies when making a personal injury claim in Orem. When your bills are piling up and the costs of your injury are weighing down on your life, don’t hesitate to contact us so we can help you fight for what you are owed.
Under Lead Attorney Brigham Richards, Valley Law has become a leader in the field. We are a two-time Gold winner for Top Law Firm by Salt City Best Magazine.
We serve our clients in both English and Spanish. Our contingency policy ensures you risk nothing; you don’t owe us anything unless we win your case for you.
Work with our team today and maximize your personal injury claim. Call Valley Law Accident and Injury Lawyers at (801) 212-9084 or complete our online contact form today.
