Injured in a truck accident? Contact an experienced truck accident legal expert today for assistance.
The shock of a truck accident doesn’t diminish after initial treatment to repair the damage has been completed. Indeed, it lingers for a while and amplifies as other existential threats become apparent.
How are you going to pay for all these medical bills? How are you going to pay for any bills now that you’re missing work? When will you be able to get to work? How will your family manage without your income?
Even during the recovery and rehabilitation process, these questions remain which bring many to our website to research their options.
Among their top questions: What is the average accident settlement for a truck injury? But this is the wrong question to ask. The real question is: What is the extent of your injuries are what are your real damages?
Calculating Your Damages in a Vermont Truck Accident
As in any traffic accident liability claim, you may recover specific damages for your injuries. Traffic accidents with commercial trucking companies involve claims against the company’s insurance policy. They are not that much different than a claim against an individual driver’s auto insurance policy so you are entitled to recover the same damages. Since a semi truck’s potential to cause harm is greater, you’re not encumbered by a policy limit. In addition, if the company’s own negligence caused the accident, you may directly sue the company as well with much better results than if you try to sue an individual who may or may not have assets from which to recover.
What exactly can you recover? You can recover both economic and noneconomic damages. Economic damages are those on which it is easy to establish some price. For instance, your medical expenses have a demonstrable cost. So too does your lost wages and missed time from work. Economic damages include any other expense related to your injuries.
Noneconomic damages are more difficult to put a number on. These include elements like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment, emotional trauma and more. This is generally calculated on a per diem basis. In other words, a jury (if your case went to trial) would assign some number to your daily sufferings and award you that amount of money over the number of days you suffered.
In cases where you have a permanent impairment or disfigurement, you will be entitled to collect damages not just for missed time from work, but for future wages that you could lose due to your impairment. Additionally, you deserve compensation for any permanent disfigurement you must live with for the rest of your life.
Compensation and Fault
The above section lists the type of damages that you may collect in a personal injury lawsuit against a commercial trucking company. The second part of the equation is determining the truck driver’s level of fault.
In cases where you share partial accident blame, your recovery is diminished to the percentage of the truck driver’s blame. In other words, if a truck driver is 80% responsible for an accident and you have $10,000 in damages, you will recover $8,000 for your injuries.
According to Vermont’s comparative fault rule, if your share of the blame is 50% or higher, you cannot recover any damages for the accident.
Recovering the Full Amount of Compensation for Your Injuries
When you file a claim with an at-fault driver’s insurance company, the insurance company immediately goes out of their way to reduce the value of your claim. Their interests are aligned with their policyholder’s. Your attorney’s interests are aligned with yours. Our job is to ensure that you recover as much money as possible up to the total value of your damages.
This is why it’s very important to involve an attorney early in the process. For those seriously injured by a commercial truck, you have three years from your accident date to file a claim. But you should move much more quickly than that.
Insurance companies will attempt to contact you, they will scour your social media profiles, and they will do what they can to prove your injuries are not as serious as you claim or you were to blame for the accident. This is their standard practice and their mode of operation.
When you hire an attorney, that attorney handles all communications with the insurance company and allows you to focus on your recovery without dealing with the stress of a lawsuit.
Contact the Vermont Personal Injury Attorneys at Sabbeth Law
The attorneys at Sabbeth Law understand the position you are in. Give us a call or talk to us online to set up a free consultation today.