Recovery of lost wages from car accident
When you sustain an injury from an automobile accident, it is possible that you will lose time from work because of your injury. If the other party was responsible for the car accident, then they are responsible for all the damages you sustained including lost wages.
If you lose time from work, you are eligible to receive the gross earnings that you would have made during that period. You would need a letter from your employer stating how many days you missed from work and how much you made per hour. Also, it would be helpful to present pay stubs from your employer, which would further evidence your gross earnings.
It is also critical that you have a doctors work status report stating that you were not able to work for the period of time that you missed work. If your doctor states that you can not work because of your automobile accident, then you should follow your doctor’s instruction. If you present the doctor’s work status report and the required letter from your employer, you will be eligible to recover for the gross earnings you would have earned if it wasn’t for your car accident.
You can also recover for wages you will lose in the future because of your personal injury. This is called loss of earning capacity. For example, if you were an engineer prior to the accident and your car accident affected your ability to process information, then you may not be able to work as an engineer for the rest of your life.
In order to recover for loss of earnings capacity, you would need medical doctor report stating that you will lose time from work in the future. You also need an economist to prove how much you would have earned in the future and to discount that amount to future present value.
It is very important that you are fully compensated for the lost wages and loss of earning capacity from your car accident.
