CHICAGO, IL – If you’ve been involved in an accident, you know how overwhelming the situation can be – especially if you’ve been injured. The ramifications of a car accident can impact several aspects of your livelihood. You may have suffered catastrophic injuries and be unable to return to work, preventing you to contributing as the main source of income for your family. You may struggle to pay rent or your mortgage, food, utility bills, and other expenses you face.
Whatever the case may be, it may be possible for you to recover lost wages with the help of a knowledgable personal injury attorney. Learning about your rights to compensation is essential when first beginning this process.
Step 1: Assess the Situation
If you have only missed a few weeks of work or already returned, this situation would be pretty straightforward. It will be easy for you to assert your right to compensation. In more complex cases where someone may be unable to return to work for months or years, it’s in your best interest to obtain a personal injury attorney will assess whether you can still file a claim under Illinois’ statue of limitations. It’s possible your attorney could settle the case outside of court to make the process fairly simple for you.
Step 2: Understand What Recovery is Available
Understanding what recovery you could receive for your injuries is the next step. You may receive lost earning capacity, past lost wages, and future lost wages when you have missed work due to an injury after a car accident.
The plaintiff must be able to prove that they were so injured or that their injures will require life-long medical care that a future ability to earn an income is impaired. The court considers many factors when determining if someone is eligible for future earning capacity. These factors may include your current health, life expectancy, age, income level, talents, experience, skills, education, and much more. Furthermore, the court will consider the past income level to determine the appropriate income figure for loss of earning.
The court will add up the number of days from the time of the injury to the date of settlement to determine the total amount of wages that person will be entitled to receive over a period of time.
Step 3: Consider Your Line of Work or Occupation
Depending if you are salary or hourly, this will ultimately impact the amount of compensation that you will receive.
Salaried employees will take the total amount of annual salary that they receive. The court will then divide the total salary amount by 2,080 to determine the hourly rate that will be used when calculating damages. They will then multiply that number by the number of days you have missed or hours you have worked.
On the other hand, hourly employees is much less intensive. The court only multiplies the total number of hours missed from work by an hourly rate. This figure may also include overtime the plaintiff was forced to miss due to injuries.
Step 4: Consider What Other Damages Available
It’s important to consider what other damages may be available to you. This is why it’s important to have an experienced personal injury attorney who can explain the types of damages that may be offered to you.
For example, you may be entitled to receive damages for:
- Future medical expenses
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of consortium
- Loss of companionship
- Permanent Disability
- Disfigurement
- And other damages
Because of how many damages you can collect compensation for, you should contact a personal injury lawyer to help you determine what types of recovery may be available for your case.
Step 5: Settling Your Case in a Timely Manner
If you want to settle your case in a timely manner, you should contact an experienced personal injury attorney. The personal injury lawyer will be able to discuss if you should settle your case outside of court or if it’s best to take it to trial.
The experienced personal injury lawyers of Dinizulu Law Group can assist you and help you find the financial relief that you need. Call our office today for a free consultation at (312) 384-1920.
