If you have been injured in an accident, personal injury lawyers in Lafayette may be able to help you earn damages for your pain and suffering and lost wages. Lost wages, or loss of earnings, is sometimes difficult to prove in court and many red flags are raised when someone claims to have lost wages–it is sometimes a very difficult process. For example, it might be unclear if the loss quoted is net or gross pay. Your career will also be called into question as well as whether or not you are salaried, hourly, or self-employed. You will need clean and certifiable records of income to show you really did or do hold that career. Examples of loss of earnings are only difficult to find for self-employed people as there is no specified projection or record of their earnings on what they would have lost from a personal injury. If you are salaried, there are records available to prove that they hold the careers they claim to hold, making it simple to prove what they lost as a result of the injury.
Weighing the Loss of Earnings
In all cases, the loss of earnings must be weighed against all verifiable injuries as well as the medical reports. The reports must show that you are unable to do your job due to your disability. That means there must be a reasonable relation between the actual injury, the length of disability, and the time lost from work.
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Mitigating Damages
You have a duty to mitigate damages. This means that, if you are self-employed and work as an accountant for example, you must hire a replacement instead of not working and building up a loss of profits. The usual loss of earnings is related to the amount paid to the replacement. This is not necessarily the case when there is a clear disparity between you and your available replacement. Your Lafayette personal injury lawyer may be able to help you determine whether you have mitigated damages.
Overtreatment
Overtreatment may count against you. Overtreatment, such as unneeded physiotherapy may be questioned, leading to doubt concerning the loss of time from your occupation. Overextended absences could hurt your case as well. These are things you want to avoid at all costs if you are trying for a personal injury lawsuit.
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Occupations
Some occupations, such as those of taxi and truck drivers, are seen as inherently askance, generally because they are more at-risk careers than other options that are low risk careers. This could hurt your claim if your career is one of these. Others careers that are looked upon with distrust include iron workers, ambulance drivers, doctors, lawyers, and police officers. It should also be kept in mind that rental trucks and other rental vehicles are sometimes used in staged accidents, and this possibility will be well-examined.
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