If you or someone you love is injured as a result of another party’s actions or negligence, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit and be granted an award. In Minnesota, your award is generally based on two types of damages – compensatory and punitive. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at the types of compensatory damages available in Minnesota and how a lawyer can help you maximize your award by pursuing different types of compensatory damages.
The Two Types Of Compensatory Damages
While compensatory and punitive damages are the two main types of damages that are used to develop a personal injury award, there are also subsets of categories within each of those umbrella topics. For example, compensatory damages are typically divided into two subcategories, which are economic and non-economic damages. We’ll take a look at both below.
Economic Compensatory Damages – As the name implies, these are damages that you can be awarded for affected factors that can have a calculated economic impact. For example, if you had $3,000 in medical bills as a result of the accident, you would be able to file for $3,000 in economic compensatory damages related to your medical bills. You can easily put a specific dollar amount to these types of damages. Besides medical bills, some examples of economic compensatory damages include:
- Lost Wages
- Property Damage
- Legal Fees
- Costs of Repair/Replacement
You can also collect for future economic damages that you will eventually incur as a result of your injuries. For example, if your future earning potential is hindered or you will have additional medical costs down the road, those can be factored into your economic compensatory damages. Any objectively verifiable monetary loss is considered eligible for economic compensatory damages.
Non-Economic Compensatory Damages – The other type of compensatory damages are considered non-economic. That’s not to say that a monetary amount cannot be placed on these damages, they just can’t be objectively quantified. These are considered subjective monetary losses and include things like:
- Pain and Suffering
- Emotional Distress
- Loss of Consortium
- Loss of Enjoyment of Life
- Mental Anguish
As you might imagine, it’s not easy to put a monetary value to a subjective factor, which is why it’s in your best interest to connect with a personal injury lawyer like Dean Margolis and the team at Margolis Law Office. Not only can we ensure your economic compensatory factors are calculated fairly, we can ensure that you aren’t underpaid for future expenses or subjective non-economic compensatory damages.
If you have questions about getting compensation for compensatory or punitive damages following a personal injury, take a free consultation with our team and learn how we can help get you every penny possible. For more information, or to set up that appointment, give our team a call today at (952) 230-2700.
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