Personal Injury / Auto Accidents

In addition to medical bills, this also covers mileage reimbursement, prescriptions, and costs of parking if you have to pay to park in a location related to your medical care (i.e. a parking deck at a doctor’s office, metered parking outside of the pharmacy, etc.). Additionally, you may be entitled to payment for the anticipated cost of future medical treatment. 

This pertains to money you may spend as a result of your injuries that you otherwise would not have spent. For example, you had to purchase a special pillow to sleep comfortably because of a neck injury. 

This encompasses mental and emotional, physical, or both. The most common types of pain and suffering that arise from personal injuries include actual physical pain, anxiety, depression, fear, post-traumatic stress, and loss of enjoyment of life. Obtaining compensation for pain and suffering can be tricky because it is impossible to put a value on it. There is no real formula for determining what is fair compensation for these kinds of damages, so it is important that you have an attorney who can make the case for it.  

Again, this is tricky because it is impossible to put a value on it. However, the law recognizes that this kind of damage is deserving of compensation.

Unlike the other damages that are paid to compensate an injured victim, punitive damages are actually paid to an injured victim in order to punish the at fault driver for his or her actions. Georgia law provides that punitive damages are appropriate if the injured party can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the at-fault party’s actions amounted to willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, and the conscious disregard to negative consequences. Examples of cases where an award of punitive damages is typically appropriate are DUIs, hit and run, and reckless driving.  

An award of payment for lost wages requires proof that the injured party was employed at the time of the wreck, a doctor’s note stating that the injured party cannot work, and proof that the injured party in fact did not work after the wreck.  

There are instances where the nature of the injury permanently prevents an individual from performing their job or permanently reduces their overall capabilities. Consequently, that individual has potentially lost his or her ability to continue earning the kind of money that they were prior to their accident, and the law allows them to receive compensation for that.