When you are injured in a car accident, your life can be seriously affected in a very negative way. You might have serious injuries and damages that deserve full and fair compensation. Our El Paso car accident lawyers will guide you through your case successfully.
After you have read more here about car accidents in El Paso, please do not hesitate to call Chavez Law Firm today to set up your free, initial consultation. These cases are complicated, and you want to ensure that you have the right lawyer representing you.
Injured in a Car Accident | Recovering Compensation
When you have been seriously injured in a car accident, there are a few things that you need to understand before you should call a lawyer about your case. You are seeking compensation for your injuries and damages. Generally speaking, the more severe your injuries are, the more your compensation will be. Additionally, you can get economic and non-economic damages.
The economic damages are the ones that are easily calculated:
- Past and future medical expenses
- Past and future lost wages
You can typically look at medical receipts, pay wages, and lost hours in order to calculate to the penny how much money was lost.
The non-economic damages are harder to calculate and include:
- Past and future pain and suffering
Pain and suffering is a damage that does not have a dollar amount attached to it. It needs to be determined. When determining the amount of non-economic damages you are owed, there are a lot of factors that come into play. If you are not able to do the things you used to do, you cannot return to the same line of work, or you have a decrease in your quality of life, then that is taken into consideration.
Once there is a dollar amount determined, there is one more factor that goes into how much you can collect. In Texas, we follow something called modified comparative negligence, which means the role you played in causing the accident will affect your compensation award. Texas does allow you to collect an award even if you are partially at fault. The way modified comparative negligence works is as follows:
- If you are 0% at fault, your compensation is unaffected
- If you are 1% – 50% at fault, you have a reduced compensation award
- If you are more than 50% at fault, you will not be allowed to collect compensation
The fault that you have in the accident will be determined during insurance negotiations. For example, if someone was speeding a little bit while they were driving, but got hit by someone blowing a red light, they might be deemed 10% at fault. If someone with 10% fault was awarded $100,000 in damages, then it would have to be reduced to $90,000 to account for their role in the accident.
Call Our Office Today
You deserve to have strong, dedicated, and experienced representation for your case. Our El Paso car accident lawyers are here to guide you every step of the way to get you the results you need. If you have been injured in a car accident, please call Chavez Law firm today to set up your free, initial consultation.
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