San Antonio Car Accident Passenger Injury

Michael Grossman, Car Wreck Lawyer in San Antonio TX, Discusses Injured Passengers in Car Accidents

In theory, filing an insurance claim after a car accident should work like this:

1. Driver A is somehow negligent and causes an accident in which driver B is hurt.
2. Driver B contacts driver A’s insurance company to receive compensation.
3. Driver A’s insurance company determines the full extent of driver B’s damages.
4. Driver A’s insurance company then pays for the expenses associated with driver B’s injuries and property damage.

Unfortunately, the process is rarely this straightforward. Numerous factors can complicate things. Driver A may not have insurance or may not have enough insurance. A passenger in one or both of the vehicles might have been injured. Driver A may fight charges of liability. Any of these elements can turn a simple process in a tangled legal nightmare. But an experienced auto accident attorney can help you receive the compensation you need, regardless of your particular situation.

Receiving Compensation as a Passenger in a Car Accident

Passengers have numerous options available for seeking compensation if they are injured in an accident. As a passenger in a car driven by the plaintiff, you may also be eligible to file a lawsuit against the negligent driver in addition to the lawsuit filed by the plaintiff. You may also be able to seek compensation through the plaintiff’s insurance policy. Even if you are a passenger in the car driven by the responsible party, you may be able to seek compensation from one or both of the insurance companies involved. You may even be able to file a personal injury lawsuit in order to secure the full extent of the compensation you are owed.

Special and General Damages

Injured passengers can seek compensation for two broad categories of damages: special damages and general damages. Special damages are the most straightforward, though even they have their complexities. Special damages include a victim’s past and future medical expenses, damage to the victim’s property, court costs, lost wages, and lost potential future income.

Calculating lost wages is relatively simple. Lost wages simply covers the money you could have made if you had not spent some time in the hospital recovering from your injuries. Lost potential future income is much more technical. This covers any loss in earning capacity due to your injuries. For example, if a construction worker who makes $50,000 a year is paralyzed after a car accident, he or she likely can no longer perform his or her job. In this situation, let us say that the victim would have continued working for another 25 years if the accident had not taken place. This means that the victim is entitled to almost $1.3 million just to cover his or her lost income capacity. As you might imagine, proving up these damages is not an easy process. In particular, you must convince a jury or insurance company that you will likely never be able to return to work due to your injuries. An experienced lawyer can help you convince insurance companies of the validity of your claim.

General damages are even more complex. General damages cover less tangible damages such as pain and suffering, mental or emotional turmoil, disfigurement, or even a damaged reputation. The extent of these damages is entirely subjective, and it takes an aggressive attorney to successfully convince a jury that these types of damages deserve compensation. Determining how much compensation to request is a technical process, involving legal precedents and the attorney’s experience with these types of cases. If you ask for too much, the credibility of your claim could be damaged, but if you do not ask for enough, you will not receive the compensation you deserve.

In order to see the subjective nature of these injuries, consider these two theoretical examples. Let us say that a car containing a driver and one passenger is involved in an accident that was caused by a mechanical defect on the car. Both people in the car receive almost identical injuries, requiring very similar medical treatment. The compensation they might receive for special damages would then be almost identical. But let us say that the driver was knocked unconscious in the accident and remained unconscious for most of his recovery, while the passenger was fully aware of the entire process. The passenger would therefore experience much more pain due to the accident and would likely be entitled to a larger general damages claim.

As a second example, let us say that a driver is hurt in a car accident due to another person’s negligence and receives a large facial scar that will never heal. Anyone receiving such a disfigurement would deserve some sort of compensation for it. But if the victim was a model, he or she would likely receive much more compensation through a general damages claim than a plumber with the same injury. A facial scar impacts a model’s life much more than it would a plumber’s (in almost all cases).

As you can see, the extent of general damages is entirely up for negotiation – and insurance companies do not play nice when it comes to general damages. They will do everything they can to discredit your claims, and this process is much easier when the damages involved do not have an immediate monetary cost associated with them.

But our firm has been handling all kinds of car accidents for twenty years. We have successfully resolved hundreds of high-profile cases against every major insurance company in the nation. We know how to argue for the validity of even the most subjective types of damages. We are dedicated to making sure you receive compensation for the full extent of your injuries. Furthermore, insurance companies are aware of our successful track record, and they will often cooperate with our demands in order to avoid fighting a legal battle with our attorneys in the court room. So if you or a loved one has been hurt in a car accident, regardless of the specifics of your accident, contact experienced San Antonio car accident attorney Michael Grossman today.