The term damages refer to money spent by the victim of an accident. A proper assessment examines the cost of seeking treatment, the cost of receiving therapy, and the length of that same therapy.
Other factors considered when court assesses damages:
• Nature of injury
• Cost of injury
• How injury affected the ability of the victim to work and to carry out daily activities.
• The victim’s lawyer often reviews previous cases.
Damage awards studied during such a review:
• Housekeeping expenses
• Property loss
• Cost of medical treatments, including estimated costs for future care.
• Pain and suffering: In Canada few victims qualify for more than $340,000.00. In order to obtain a larger award for pain and suffering, victims’ injuries must exceed a given threshold and must have produced one of 3 possible results: Death of the injured victim; Serious disfigurement of some part of victim’s body; Permanent or serious impairment to one of victim’s physical, mental or psychological functions.
• Repayment of lost income: covers period of recovery following the first 7 days after the accident. Before any trial this equals 70% of the victim’s pre-accident salary. After a trial this equals the full amount of the pre-accident salary.
• Family member claims: usually become a consideration during situation in which the victim died as a result of the accident-related injuries. The size of such claims depends on the number of family members that were directly affected by the fatal injuries that were sustained by a loved one.
Other rules that can affect the size of a victim’s award:
Canada demands payment of a $15,000 deductible, unless the claim exceeds $50,000.00, or the victim died as a result of the accident.
If victim guilty of contributory negligence, the judge in the courtroom decides to what extent that negligence seemed to have played a part in creating an accident-prone situation. The judge’s opinion determines the percent of cause attributed to the contributory negligence. After calculation of the percent of cause, the award’s true worth gets determined.
Personal Injury Lawyer in Cambridge knows that a value equal to the percent of cause gets used to calculate the amount of money that will be deducted from the victim’s award. For instance, if the judge feels that the negligence exhibited by the victim contributed 25% of the factors that aided creation of an accident, then 25% of the amount originally selected as what should be awarded to the victim must be removed from that same compensatory fund.
The judge’s decision cannot be changed through an appeal, unless it can be proven that the judge held some sort of prejudicial opinion. That would be one that pushed the judge to favor one of the 2 parties involved in the dispute that had been reviewed by the court.
