If you have been injured as the result of someone’s negligence, you may be able to seek compensation for your damages, and the only way of doing this is through a personal injury lawyer. If in any of these damages is any money that you lost because an injury forced you to remain out of work for a period of time, it comes to be known as lost wages.
Types of Lost Wages
- Past Lost Wages
When you have been injured, you might be missing work because of surgeries, hospitalizations, and other medical treatments. You might also miss work due to follow-up doctor’s appointments. These missed days of work can cause serious financial difficulties for some accident victims.
To prove lost wages have happened there must be evidence that you missed work as a direct result of your injury. This can be proven through your medical records. Copies of payment records and income tax documents are necessary to show the number of wages lost.
- Future Lost Wages
You may have sustained a serious injury that will impact your ability to work in the future in many ways. In that case, you may be able to recover for future lost wages. Future lost wages are calculated as a loss of income based on what you would actually lose in the future because of the pay cut. To prove future lost wages, you must prove that the injury is permanent and that there is a reasonable probability of further loss, according to EIDabe Ritters Trial Lawyers.
A serious medical injury can have a lasting impact on your physical and mental capacity to earn in the future. Lessened earning capacity is a loss of future earnings due to a salary reduction or a shortened lifespan. Your salary could be reduced because now, if you may only capable of working part-time. You could recover future lost wages based on the difference between what you earned before the accident and what you are capable of earning in the future.
Proving lost and reduced earning capacity will usually involve the expertise of lawyers who will analyse your situation and issue an opinion on what they think you would have made if your injury had not altered situations. The necessary evidences may include:
- Medical expert opinions on whether a full recovery from your injury is possible and if not, an idea of what your capabilities and limitations might be
- Evidence of how your injuries might affect your ability to perform at your job
- Financial expert opinion comparing what your income could have been if you were not injured and what you could reasonably expect to earn later.
Contact an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney
If you’ve lost wages due to an injury caused by someone’s negligence, you need the assistance of an experienced attorney. Experiences attorneys are the only ones who can save you under such experiences and explain the intricacies involved. The paper work involved in this case is extremely harrowing, and only a proper personal injury attorney can guide you here.