Many injuries force car crash victims to spend time away from their jobs during recovery. In severe cases, injured parties may even be permanently restricted from performing their work. Fortunately, after a collision you may pursue payment for the lost wages you incur.
You can seek to recover payment for lost wages after a car accident in Indiana by filing a claim against the party who caused your crash. Still, the path to monetary damages can be complicated. The defendant and their insurer will typically attempt to avoid paying you the full compensation you are owed.
If you suffered lost wages because of your car accident injuries, seek guidance from our Indiana car accident attorneys at Wruck Paupore today by calling (219) 322-1166.
If you suffered a car accident, then you may be unable to work while recovering from your injuries. Thankfully, you may pursue compensation for the lost wages you incur.
To recover payment for lost income, you must bring a claim against the party who caused your collision. Unfortunately, the process for pursuing a car accident claim is not always straightforward. Defendants are often represented by insurers and their lawyers who attempt to dispute plaintiffs’ assertions and avoid paying what is required.
For your claim to succeed, you will have to present evidence that proves your accident occurred as the result of the defendant’s careless conduct. Furthermore, you must establish that you sustained injuries as a result of the crash and that those injuries caused you to lose income. There are many ways that the defendant may attempt to refute your case. Accordingly, assistance from our Indianapolis car accident attorneys may be very beneficial when gathering evidence and fighting for the full extent of damages available to you.
If your car accident injuries prevent you from performing work in the future, then you may be able to recover payment related to your lost earning capacity. However, pursuing damages for lost future income can be challenging. It is important first to create sufficient documentation of your medical injuries to substantiate your inability to work. Often times, your treating physician will write an order that you are unable to work or to prescribe work restrictions. This is very important to your claim and you should make sure to have a conversation with your medical provider about how the injuries have reduced or prevented you from doing your job. It is important that the doctors document that the inability to work is related to your accident.
Additionally, if you are unable to perform your current job, the insurance company may argue that you should be able to obtain other work which you are capable of performing. In these instances, we often use skilled Vocational Experts to evaluate your injuries, the job market, and your ability to work.
Evidence in these areas can be complicated and support from our legal team can be immensely valuable when fighting for these damages in your case.
Your time window to file a car accident lawsuit in Indiana is established by I.C. § 34-11-2-4(a)(1). Accordingly, you will usually have two years from the date of your collision to file a lawsuit seeking compensation for your lost wages. Failure to act per this deadline could cause you to miss your chance to recover any payment for the harm you endured. Moreover, there are a number of situations where you may be required to act far sooner than the two-year limit so it’s important you act as soon as possible and not delay.
If you suffer lost wages because a crash aggravated a pre-existing injury, then you can still pursue financial compensation. However, compensation will only be awarded for the degree of aggravation you incurred. Accordingly, you will have to prove that your accident made your injury worse and that you now cannot work because of your aggravated injury.
These types of cases can be complex. Defendants often try to argue that their accidents are not the cause of plaintiffs’ worsened conditions. You must have competent legal representation behind you when seeking to prove that your collision aggravated a pre-existing injury.
When pursuing compensation for lost wages, it should not make a difference if you used sick days or vacation time while recovering from your accident. You are entitled to paid time off as a benefit, and you can use your time off as you wish. If you are forced to use time off in order to attend doctor’s appointments and allow your injuries to heal, then that time off may be compensated as if it is lost income in the context of your car accident lawsuit.
If you share fault for your car accident, you may still pursue compensation for lost wages caused by your injuries. However, the amount of payment you are awarded can be limited.
When awarding damages in Indiana car accident cases, courts will abide by the doctrine of comparative fault. This means that damages are assigned based on the parties’ percentages of responsibility. For instance, if you are 30% to blame for your crash while the defendant is 70% at fault, then they will have to reimburse you for 70% of the damages you suffered while you are left to account for the remaining 30% on your own.
However, if your share of the blame surpasses 50%, then you will be unable to recover payment for the lost wages you incurred. Defendants and their insurance companies often try to blame plaintiffs for their accidents. Still, you should not let this deter you from seeking financial compensation after your crash. Multiple types of evidence can be used to prove that the defendant is at fault.
If you sustained an injury as the result of a motor vehicle collision, seek assistance from our Hammond, IN car accident lawyers at Wruck Paupore by dialing (219) 322-1166 for a free evaluation of your potential case.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
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