Found At-Fault for an Accident? How Accident Attornies Can Help

Posted on: 17 December 2015

There's no doubt that when you sustain a car accident injury, your life is dramatically affected. If the accident wasn't your fault, as you prepare a potential settlement case with a personal injury attorney, one of the biggest components will be your evidence of pain and suffering. As you work on this statement, it's important to consider how your injury has been a burden to others and ultimately changed your life. This can make a huge difference in the way your case moves forward and any possible settlements that are agreed upon. Consider each of the following ways the accident has affected your life and how to include it with the pain and suffering statement that you draft with an attorney.

Children

If you're a parent involved in a car accident, there are a number of ways that a child could be included in a settlement case.

Activities: An injury can easily prevent your mobility and ability to drive around. This can make it a challenge for a child to attend sports leagues, group activities, or other functions. Along with your social life, the injury could play a huge role in the social life of your child.

Everyday Parenting: Cooking proper meals, cleaning the home, and taking care of general family obligations could be extremely limited while you heal from an injury. Work with an attorney to showcase the forced changes to family eating habits and the differences in the daily routine.

Child's Psychological Impact: Even though they weren't involved in the crash, your child could face a lot of fear and trauma associated with the accident. Along with a fear of losing a parent, a child could face issues associated with car accidents. This includes getting injured or possibly dying in a car accident themselves. If the stress extends for a long period of time, the child may have to seek professional assistance.

Significant Others

Along with children, the daily routine with a spouse or partner may change due to your injury. Injuries can change job functions, daily life, and introduce a lot of stress for couples.

• Work Hours: To help make up for lost income, a partner may be forced to work additional hours. As this occurs, they can go through emotional changes and increased stress.
• Separation: Big life changes could eventually lead to separation or divorce. If your spouse divorced you as a result of an injury, you may lose even more income and have an increased amount of stress in your life. This could have a large influence on your possible settlement case.

Work Partners & Other Staff

When you lose time out of work or are forced to quit all-together, it creates an instant loss to your personal wages. You may also feel guilt and abandonment associated with co-workers. By working with an attorney, you can determine the impact your job or wage loss has had on other employees.

For example, if you had an assistant or multiple assistants, they may have lost out on wages during your absence or until a replacement was found. Some work projects may have been canceled or put on hold, resulting in the loss of wages or bonuses. The emotional and psychological repercussions this has had should be noted through your pain and suffering statement.

Hobbies

A number of hobbies are done for fun and excitement, but a lot of them may also involve a large investment with you and some friends. It's important to break down the hobbies that you lose out on and how it changes others involved with the hobby. For example, if you love fishing, you and a friend may have purchased a boat together. As you deal with an injury, you may not have the money to continue payments on the boat. If the boat is paid off, you may not have money for maintenance, storage, or proper docking.

Other hobbies include fantasy football leagues with friends, any type of sports or recreation league, and other outdoor activities like hunting. An attorney can help you figure out the financial impact for you and your friends while you express the emotional changes that occurred with the loss of this hobby.

Even if something seems insignificant, it's a good idea to bring it up with your personal injury attorney. A lot of little things can help add up to one big successful settlement case.