Pennsylvania law allows victims of a spinal cord injury to take legal action for damages after an accident caused by someone else’s wrongful actions. The amount of damages a person can collect in a personal injury action relating to a spinal cord injury depends upon the specific facts and circumstances of the case.
However, common categories of damages that a spinal cord injury victim may recover include:
- Medical costs: Spinal cord injuries can require extensive medical treatment, immediately after the injury and long term. This care is expensive and often surpasses $1 million in the first year alone. This is not a cost that you should have to bear alone. A personal injury claim can help you recover costs including doctor visits, mental health care, surgeries, medication, medical devices, and physical therapy.
- Lost wages: A spinal cord injury virtually always causes victims to miss time from work. This can quickly affect their finances. When this happens, they should be compensated for this loss.
- Future lost wages: A spinal cord injury also frequently impairs a person’s ability to return to work, or to work in the person’s previous job capacity. A personal injury lawsuit can seek to recover these lost future wages as damages.
- Home modifications: Wheelchairs or other adaptive devices can help you get around. But they can make simple tasks like getting in and out of your own house difficult. In most cases, home modifications are necessary. This may include wheelchair ramps, widened doorways, or lowered counters; the costs of which may be sought as damages in a personal injury lawsuit.
- Occupational retraining: While you may not return to your old job, this does not mean you cannot go back to work. If you need to return to work but lack the necessary skills to do another line of work, worker retraining or college courses can help prepare you for a new position.
- Pain and suffering: Pain and suffering is a legal term that covers the invisible costs of an injury. These are the costs that you can’t see or really put a price on. Pain and suffering covers actual physical pain, as well as mental distress.
- Loss of enjoyment: A major injury like a spinal cord injury can make it difficult to take part in activities you enjoyed before your injury. When this happens, it is not just something you have to deal with. Losing activities that you love can affect your quality of life and mental health. Loss of enjoyment considers the effect your injuries have on your ability to enjoy your life.