Can I Recover Damages If I Can’t Work After a Truck Accident?
Given the significant weight and size difference between trucks and passenger vehicles, truck accidents can have devastating consequences. These events can leave victims with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), disfiguring injuries, and other lingering or permanent impairments that greatly impact their quality of life.
Among the biggest challenges that truck accident victims face is loss of earnings. If you’re recovering from a truck accident and cannot work due to changes in your physical or mental health, you’re entitled to compensation. The key to getting the settlement you deserve lies in understanding your rights and finding the right legal representation and truck accident lawyer.
Permanent Injuries and Loss of Earning Capacity
Commercial trucks can weigh as much as 30 times more than passenger vehicles. Even when these trucks are traveling at modest speeds, truck accidents can result in:
- Loss of limbs
- Partial or full paralysis
- Chronic pain
- Broken or fractured bones
- Severe burns and permanent disfigurement
- Permanent damage to internal organs
- Complex joint damage
These and other severe injuries can take months or even years to heal, and some people never regain their pre-accident health at all.
Spinal Cord Injuries and TBIs
Severe spinal cord injuries can result in full or partial paralysis. Both spinal cord injuries and TBIs can lead to loss of coordination, loss of fine motor control, balance difficulties, and problems walking. These changes, the medical treatment they entail, and their often bleak prognoses could leave accident victims unable to return to work in their former capacity.
Traumatic brain injuries can diminish cognitive functioning and memory. People with TBIs can experience long-term difficulties in paying attention, solving problems, and emotional regulation. TBIs can also cause adverse personality and behavioral changes, vision loss, and speech difficulties.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Truck accidents can also take a lasting toll on mental health. It’s estimated that over 50% of truck accident victims develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among the most common symptoms of PTSD is avoidance. This is the deliberate effort to avoid all actions, activities, and thoughts that bring traumatic events to mind. As a result, many truck accident victims avoid driving. Some even experience heightened or irrational fear when simply riding in vehicles as passengers.
Even if you’re physically able to return to work and resume your former duties, transportation to and from your job site could be a major issue. People with severe PTSD that prevents them from enjoying normal, productive lives deserve compensation, too.
Compensation You May Be Entitled To
Truck accident law protects people from the devastating financial effects of these events. Truck accident claims provide compensation for all medical expenses, lost wages, and future earnings. When needed, they can also cover long-term rehabilitation and care costs. These claims additionally compensate accident victims for their pain and suffering and for their loss of enjoyment of life.
Lost Wages
Compensation for lost wages accounts for any wages that you miss due to your medical treatment and recovery. With a truck accident, your recovery could last years. A truck accident attorney will negotiate your settlement based on your pre-accident earning capacity.
Loss of Future Earning Capacity
If you can no longer return to your former work duties, you’re entitled to loss of future earning capacity. Your truck accident lawyer will calculate your settlement based on your long-term prognosis and your assessed ability to eventually resume your job duties. Attorneys additionally account for the impact that delayed returns have on career trajectories.
In the event of severe truck accidents and permanent injuries, you may be entitled to compensation for lost wages for the remaining span of your career. If you intended to work for another 15 to 20 years before retiring and can no longer work at all, a fair settlement will help you maintain an acceptable quality of life both now and in your retirement years.
Decreased Earning Capacity
It’s possible to sustain significant truck accident injuries that don’t prevent you from returning to work. However, your injuries might still keep you from working in your former capacity. Changes in the work that you’re able to perform could lead to lower wages, demotion, and less job satisfaction overall. Changes in your work title, salary, and responsibilities can also provide smaller returns on your investments in higher education or specialized professional training.
Medical Expenses
Automotive accident victims are entitled to receive all the care they need to regain their post-accident health. This includes:
- Emergency room services
- Treatment from general practictioners
- Specialized medical care
- Non-traditional therapies and medical services
To alleviate their pain, expedite their recoveries, or sidestep the need for invasive surgeries and prescription pain medications, many people work with natural and holistic practitioners. If you receive treatment from naturopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists, or myofascial specialists, you can include the costs of these services in your medical expenses.
Many truck accident victims also require special transportation to and from their appointments. Whether you take taxis, use ridesharing services, ride in an ambulance, or give gas money to family and friends, keep your receipts. You can seek reimbursement for all treatment-related transportation costs in your settlement.
Medical expenses additionally include any special equipment or supplies required for your recovery or ongoing care. These include bandages, gauze, prescription and non-prescription pain medications, and personal care products, among other things.
Rehabilitation and Care Costs
Unfortunately, some truck accident injuries require lifelong care. For people with loss of mobility, severe TBIs, and debilitating or disfiguring injuries, care received in rehabilitative centers alleviates pressure for family caregivers. It also ensures that accident victims get the time and attention they need during the formative or most challenging stages of their recoveries.
Depending upon the extent of your injuries, you might need a live-in nurse or a nurse who regularly visits your home for the rest of your life. When your long-term treatment needs are known, your truck collision attorney will calculate your future medical, mental health, and rehabilitative costs and account for these in your settlement as well.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering represents the non-economic portion of your damages. It accounts for:
- Decreased quality of life
- Depression
- Anxiety
- PTSD
- Physical pain
Pain and suffering is a subjective form of loss. It may be calculated based on the expected duration of your recovery, your ability or inability to return to your pre-accident health, and the extent of your injuries, among other factors. Severe injuries that impact victims’ permanent daily lives cause considerable pain and suffering.
Loss of Enjoyment of Life
While compensation for pain and suffering focuses on the physical and emotional suffering a truck accident causes, loss of enjoyment of life accounts for diminished life quality.
Like pain and suffering, loss of quality of life is subjective. It’s often calculated using the multiplier method. Settlement negotiators multiply total economic damages by a multiplier (1-5). For less severe truck accident injuries, negotiators may opt to use a per diem method instead. With per diem, loss of life is calculated according to the expected duration of the individual’s recovery.
Multiple factors can result in a loss of quality of life following a truck accident, including:
- Disfigurement
- Loss of limbs
- Vision or hearing changes
- Loss of function
- Chronic pain
- Short or long-term memory loss
- Changes in cognitive functioning
For highly trained professionals, the inability to return to work and the inability to work in one’s former capacity can also cause loss of quality of life. For most people, work provides a sense of fulfillment and purpose. If you trained for years to be a veterinarian, doctor, or architect, losing the ability to work in your chosen field could be devastating.
How Loss of Earning Capacity Is Calculated
Loss of earning capacity is different from lost wages. When calculating your lost wages, your truck collision lawyer and the responsible party’s insurance company will add up the total hours and wages that you missed while healing. Loss of earning capacity accounts for the change in your ability to earn money and support yourself following your recovery.
This is a complex calculation. Your truck crash lawyer might subtract your post-accident earning capacity from your pre-accident earning capacity. However, they’ll also consider the trajectory of your career, losses in retirement savings, and cost-of-living raises over time.
The Importance of Evidence in Truck Accident Claims
For every personal injury claim, evidence is critical for success. This is especially true when seeking fair and full compensation for loss of life quality and loss of earning capacity. The more records that you keep and the more detailed your records are, the easier it will be at the negotiating table.
Medical Records
No matter how minor your post-accident injuries might seem, the first thing to do following any auto accident is to visit the emergency room. This associates your injuries with the event that has caused them. People who walk away from accidents seemingly unscathed often wake up stiff, sore, or in excruciating pain.
Emergency room doctors will document your injuries and make sure that you’re in stable condition. You should follow this appointment with a visit to your general practitioner. Your general practitioner will perform a more thorough examination to check for soft tissue injuries and latent injuries. You can additionally visit a chiropractor to learn how your accident has affected your musculoskeletal system.
When you work with a truck accident attorney, you’ll need to sign a medical release form to share your medical records with your legal team. Be sure to keep all doctors’ notes, copies of correspondence between your doctor and your employer, and all medical bills.
Save receipts for all medical expenses as well, including:
- Medical supplies
- Prescription medications
- Over-the-counter medications
- Medical-related transporation costs
Doctor’s Notes
Doctor’s notes for truck accident claims can provide helpful evidence to optimize your outcome:
- Details of your injury
- Proof of causation
- Treatment plans
- Anticipated duration of treatment
- Short and long-term prognoses
- Impact on your daily life
- Impact on your ability to work
- Assessment of your pain levels
Your doctor can also make as-needed recommendations for mental health treatment, physical therapy, and other specialized care, and include these recommendations in your treatment plan.
Vocational Assessments
A vocational assessment is a detailed assessment of an accident victim’s ability to return to work in a full or partial capacity based on their injuries and expected recovery.
These expert-led evaluations:
- Detail past and current work abilities
- Explore work histories
- Describe physical and mental limitations
- Assess viable job opportunities within the local market
When victims’ inability to return to work is called into question, vocational assessments show that victims have done their due diligence to determine their employability post-accident. More importantly, they provide a solid basis for calculating loss of earning capacity.
Employment and Wage Records
When building your case, you can share your paycheck stubs and employment records with your truck crash attorney. Your employer can additionally craft a letter describing changes in your job duties and pay, missed hours, and your former, current, and future roles.
Why You Need Legal Help
Even minor truck accidents can have devastating and long-lasting consequences. As with all personal injury claims, you can only seek compensation from the responsible party once. Settling your case for far less than it’s worth could leave you paying out of pocket for future care and other medical needs.
Attorneys can draw upon their extensive legal experience and the outcomes of prior cases to arrive at the right compensation amount for you. They can also offer ongoing guidance throughout your claim to ensure that you don’t make potentially injurious statements to claims adjusters and that you gather and retain all necessary evidence. With an attorney on your team, no aspect of your personal and professional losses will go overlooked.
Moving Forward with Haney Paschal & Romoser
Whether large or small, we work hard on every truck accident case. As a full-service law firm, we provide seamless, end-to-end support. With over 33 years of combined legal experience, we know what it takes to get accident victims the compensation they deserve. If you’ve been in a truck accident and need help collecting your lost wages and other damages, get in touch with Haney Paschal & Romoser today.