Each claim is different and depends upon the extent and nature of your injuries. It usually is not possible to give a dollar amount until all the information is properly reviewed and assessed, particularly your medical records.
The law allows you to be compensated for your pain and suffering, loss of amenities and loss of enjoyment of life. Not only are you entitled to compensation for the pain and suffering, but you may also be entitled to recover personal expenses incurred, wage loss, cost of medical care, or loss of earning capacity. A person’s entitlement to damages for their pain and suffering varies according to a variety of different factors. Such an award is intended by the Court to compensate you, to the extent that money can do so, for the impact the injuries have had on your life.
When you are injured as a result of someone’s negligence, you are entitled to recover the total net wage loss you suffer if you are unable to work as a result of your injuries. Often, a person’s wage loss claim becomes complicated with unforeseen events such as the loss of one’s job caused by being off work for an extended period of time. Other complications arise for people who are self-employed and whose salaries are not always clearly defined, or who miss out on opportunities to accept job offers or business ventures.
When a person has suffered an injury of a significant magnitude there is often a claim for loss of future earning capacity.
In making an award for loss of future earning capacity, the Courts in British Columbia recognize the loss of a chance for that person to earn future income. In order to make such an award, the Court requires proof of what the claimant would have gone on to earn in future years had the accident not occurred. This claim is often analyzed by the Courts as a loss of an asset, and the means by which the value of the lost or impaired asset is to be assessed varies from case to case.
Some of the considerations taken into account in making an assessment includes whether:
1. The Person has been rendered less capable overall from earning income from all types of employment;
2. The Person is less marketable or attractive as an employee to potential employers;
3. The Person has lost the ability to take advantage of all job opportunities which might otherwise have been open to him or her, had he or she not been injured; and,
4. The Person is less valuable to himself or herself as a person capable of earning income in a competitive labour market.
Usually, when a person is injured in an accident, there are expenses incurred that would not have been spent if the accident had not occurred. Commonly, people injured in accidents have additional expenses for things like prescription medication, physiotherapy, chiropractic, massage therapy or other types of rehabilitation programs, taxi fares to and from appointments, and many other forms of expenses. As a general rule, if you incur an expense that you would not otherwise have incurred had you not been injured, you can recover that expense as part of your claim as long as it is “reasonably necessary”. You may also be entitled to recover funds not only for past expenditures but also for future expenditures related to your ongoing care, rehabilitation, education and training. In more serious cases, injured people often face the prospect of future treatment, which may have to be undertaken for months or years to come.