DC car accidents can be immensely disruptive. Not only might you lose your only mode of transportation while it is in the body shop, but you may be missing work after a DC car accident. Our personal injury law firm has represented over 10,000 clients since our founding in 1954. During that time, countless clients faced financial struggles because of their inability to work. The vast majority of us work because we cannot afford to survive otherwise. When a negligent driver crashes into your vehicle, injuring you, it is not fair that you should no longer be able to support your family.
Lost wages are considered economic damages related to a car accident. This means that if a few elements are present, you can eventually recover lost wages.
The first avenue to recovering lost wages is if you use your car for work. If you are an UberEats driver, for example, and your car is in the shop or totaled because of the accident, you have no way of working. This is not your fault and is causally related to the accident. Thus, your lost wages are compensable. Our personal injury lawyers, upon retainer, will first prove your average weekly wage by looking at past weeks of employment with UberEats. Because you are, in a sense, self-employed, we must establish your salary. We must also establish that your car was unavailable for the duration you were missing work after a DC car accident.
If the car is deemed a total loss, you cannot simply receive compensation for lost wages for a limitless period. As a plaintiff, you have a duty to mitigate the damages you incur. This means you eventually will need to purchase a new car or find a new job. However, you have what a jury ultimately determines to be a reasonable period to accomplish this.
If you are hurt due to your DC car accident, you may be unable to work. If this is your chosen avenue to recover lost wages, it is imperative that you are excused by your treating physician prior to missing time from work. While it is possible that we can hire an expert witness to testify at trial that you were unfit to work due to your injuries, doing this retroactively is less convincing to a jury. It is also expensive to hire an expert witness, possibly erasing the amount you would recover for the lost wages to begin with. Moreover, an insurance carrier is far less likely to believe the argument during settlement negotiations. Thus, we likely would have to file suit on your claim. This increases fees and drastically lengthens the legal process.
To recover lost wages for an injury, we need two more elements beyond the doctor’s excuse from work. First, your treating physician must relate the excusal to the DC car accident. If your doctor writes you a note excusing you from work but does not list the reason or the reason as something other than your car accident, it will be insufficient. Second, your job must require some level of physical labor. For example, your doctor may merely excuse you from lifting heavy objects. This is wholly irrelevant if your job requires you to type at a desk.
The financial implications of missing work after a DC car accident are complex.
Your loss of income should be fully compensable as long as you establish the abovementioned elements. Stated briefly here, we must establish that your treating physician has excused you from work and that you have a legally legitimate reason to have missed time from work. So long as you meet these elements, you are working with a skilled DC personal injury lawyer, you meet the statute of limitations, can establish liability, there is sufficient coverage, and you can meet all the other necessary quirks of your case, you should receive the entire lost wage claim. But what about earning capacity?
A loss of earning capacity is also compensable for a car accident claim. How do we prove a loss of earning capacity? It is not as easy as a lost wage claim. With lost wages, we consider your past wages and prorate them by how much time you miss from work. But with a reduced earning capacity, we must first establish your earning capacity prior to the injury. Then, we must show your new earning capacity and, if there is room for that, return to baseline. We also must establish a causal link between the car accident injury and your loss of earning capacity. Last, we determine how much compensation you are entitled to for the loss of earning capacity. If we can establish that you did, in fact, lose earning capacity, then determining how much it is worth is simple.
What about when you miss work after a DC car accident because you are receiving medical treatment? The general guideline is that you are allotted three hours off from work on days you are receiving medical treatment. This accounts for travel time and medical treatment.
You may recover three types of damages for a car accident case in DC. Put simply, there are economic damages, noneconomic damages, and, in rare cases, punitive damages. Lost wages fall under the category of economic damages. Economic damages are the simplest to calculate because there is a direct bill attached, whether it is medical expenses, lost wages, Uber charges, or some other cost. While not as simple as the other economic damages, lost wages can still be solved with simple math. And the nice thing about math is that it is indisputable. Math is provable. Remember, the insurance company will fight everything we propose in court vigilantly. Thus, proving lost wages and the exact amount is critical.
PIP, or personal injury protection, is complicated in Washington, D.C., but it is far simpler in neighboring Maryland. In fact, even Virginia has a comparable benefit known as Medical Payment coverage. If you have PIP on your DC insurance policy, you will unlikely be able to use it. First, there is a 60-day statute of limitations for your PIP application. This means you must speak with a personal injury lawyer and file your application within 60 days of your car accident. But more importantly, you can only make either a PIP claim or a third-party bodily injury claim. A large majority of the time, you can only pick one option. The only time you may make both claims is if your damages are in excess of the liability coverage available. And it may be hard to know if that is the case in the first 60 days anyway.
PIP, or no-fault coverage, is one great way that many states allow victims to protect themselves in the event they cannot work. Unfortunately, DC’s laws do not protect accident victims like other states. Fortunately, there are still steps you can take.
Missing time from work following your DC car accident is stressful. You want your case to end as quickly as possible with mounting bills. Unfortunately, the legal process can be slow. The good news is you can take steps to protect your rights. Call a personal injury lawyer today for a consultation at no cost.
Gelb & Gelb, P.C.
N/a
Copyright © 2024 Gelb & Gelb, P.C. All rights reserved.