You were injured in a Virginia trucking accident. Driving to work one day on the highway that you take every day to get to work at the hospital where you are a registered nurse, you are side-swiped by an eighteen-wheeler whose driver fell asleep and his truck drifted over into your lane. You wake up in a bed at the very hospital that you work at with no recollection other than blaring your horn as the truck came into your lane. Your co-workers tell you it is a miracle that you survived, but one of your arms is likely to be limited in mobility for the rest of your life. After four months of numerous surgeries, grueling rehabilitation, and physical and occupational therapy, you are discharged from the hospital. Although you are expected to make a full recovery, your ability to use your left arm is impaired just as predicted, making it virtually impossible for you to continue working in your chosen profession as a registered nurse. You thus are likely to lose a substantial amount in income as a result of your injuries from this accident, both in the past as well as in the future going forward.
Lost wages are a key part of damages in any personal injury case. If you were in the hospital and missed four months of work as a result of this trucking accident, then it is not hard to quantify how much your lost wages would be for that period of time: the amount that you were not paid for that four months is a fairly simple calculation. Where it becomes more difficult is when it comes to quantifying the amount that you will lose in the future as a result of your injuries given that you will have a permanent impairment that is likely to result in an inability to continue in your current field. If the work that you are able to do with the impairments that you have as a result of your injuries from this accident, then you can recover under Virginia law for the difference between what you have made in income over your career if the accident had never happened and how much you will actually make with the limitations you now have as a result of your injuries from that accident.
The experienced trucking and motor vehicle accident attorneys at Kalfus & Nachman have litigated cases involving complicated calculations of future earning capacity. With the help of expert economists and vocational experts, we have had great success in convincing Virginia juries to award our clients their full damages caused by a truck driver or motorist’s negligence, including both the client’s past lost wages and lost future earning capacity as a result of the negligence of the truck driver or motorist.
Proving Lost Wages in a Virginia Motor Vehicle Accident Claim
Depending on your particular injuries, lost wages and lost future earning capacity may be a significant part of the value of your damages in a personal injury case. When it comes time to prove those damages for purposes of either settlement negotiations or a trial, then proving up lost wages can be much more simple than proving future earning capacity. The simple part is proving the time that you were out of work due to your injuries from the trucking accident in this scenario.
The more complicated part is proving the amount of future lost wages or loss of future earning capacity you have suffered and/or will suffer in the future as a result of your injuries from this accident. Given that you will never have full use of one of your arms again due to your injuries, it is unlikely you will be able to continue work in your chosen profession given that nursing is an occupation that requires the ability to turn or lift sometimes heavy patients and other strenuous activities that recover full use of both arms. Therefore, even if you are able to find work that is less physically demanding than the job you had prior to the accident, this work may pay less than your previous work as a nurse. You would be entitled to recover the difference between the amount that you can now earn with your workplace limitation as a result of the trucking accident and what you would have expected to earn if this accident had never taken. After all, if your ability to earn a living is compromised by an accident caused by someone else’s negligence, then you should be (and are) entitled to recover that measure of damages from the person whose negligence caused you to suffer those damages.
Contact the Experienced Personal Injury Attorneys at Kalfus & Nachman
At Kalfus & Nachman, our experienced Virginia personal injury attorneys have recovered millions in compensation for our clients who have been injured due to someone else’s negligence. We work with a team of experienced economists and other experts to ensure that we prove to a jury exactly what each of our clients has lost in the form of past lost wages and lost future earning capacity and recover as much as possible of that amount for our clients. Therefore, if you live in the Norfolk, Hampton, Newport News, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, or Roanoke, Virginia, areas and have been injured as a result of someone else’s negligence in a trucking accident, motor vehicle accident, or in any other scenario, then please contact Kalfus & Nachman PC by phone today at (855) 880-8163 or through the form on this page to schedule a free consultation regarding your particular situation.