Recovering from a motorcycle accident can be a difficult road. Your injuries might leave you unable to work, plus the costs of rehabilitation and physical therapy might be mounting. In many cases, you do not need to cover these expenses out of pocket, and the driver who caused your accident can be held responsible.
Our attorneys have experience representing car accident and motorcycle accident victims, fighting to get them the help they need. Do not rely on insurance companies to cover everything, but instead, consider taking the driver who hurt you to court to get justice.
Call the motorcycle accident attorneys at Howe Law for a free case review at (844) 876-4357.
Damages You Might Face After a Motorcycle Crash in Lebanon, TN
Motorcycle accidents often leave riders with devastating injuries. Motorcycles are perfectly safe – generally speaking – as long as the rider is alert and paying attention to traffic signs and signals. In many cases, accidents only happen because of adverse road conditions or because another driver did something dangerous to cause your crash. When other drivers hit you, they could put your life in danger and cause substantial injuries, resulting in the following damages that our motorcycle accident lawyers can help you calculate and claim in your injury case.
Medical Expenses
The cost of getting medical treatment for serious injuries is incredibly high. People injured in motorcycle accidents today might find themselves in dire straits trying to pay for their emergency medical care, let alone the follow-up care needed for physical therapy, rehabilitation, medical devices, prosthetics, and more.
Your insurance might have some first-party medpay benefits to help you cover these injuries, and your medical insurance might reduce the bills you ultimately face. Nonetheless, the driver who caused your accident should be the one to pay for these expenses, not you. Whether you ultimately get paid through their insurance company or out of pocket, seeking compensation for these expenses will be a big part of what our motorcycle accident lawyers do for you.
Lost Wages
While you recover from your injury, you will face other expenses and costs. Affording things like mortgage/rent payments and groceries will be hard if your injuries keep you from going back to work.
Whether you are out of work on a limited basis during your hospitalization or you face permanent disabilities, the at-fault driver should also be responsible for any of these medical expenses. This can include claiming compensation for losses as you go forward without a paycheck, with missed promotions, or with a less demanding position to cope with your injuries and disabilities.
Other Economic Damages
Other expenses and costs might arise because of the accident. These should all be compensated as well. This can include things like the cost of household services your injuries keep you from performing. Overall, any financial harm you face can qualify for economic damages.
Non-Economic Damages
Often grouped under the term “pain and suffering,” non-economic damages are paid to compensate you for mental, emotional, and physical harm that is not accounted for under the category of economic damages. Physical pain, mental suffering, emotional distress, and more can all be compensated under this category of damages.
The value of these damages is unique to your case, but motorcycle accident injuries often result in high-dollar compensation for pain and suffering because the injuries are often so severe.
Punitive Damages
Although they are rare, punitive damages can be paid to punish the defendant in many cases. However, there must usually be some culpability above and beyond mere negligence.
Proving Negligence in a Lebanon, TN Motorcycle Accident Case
To hold a driver liable for the injuries they caused you, you need to show that they were negligent. Under the law, negligence is the violation of a legal duty that results in injuries to another person. So in the example of a motorcycle accident, negligence usually involves a crash caused by some traffic violation or other unsafe driving event.
Examples of Negligence
How negligence arises in your case will change depending on what exactly the responsible driver did wrong and what the road and driving conditions were like. For example, going fast on a wet, slippery road at night is quite a bit more dangerous than speeding on a dry road in the daytime, and even speeds below the speed limit might be dangerously high in those conditions. Even so, some dangerous traffic violations like speeding, drunk driving, and distracted driving are the most common examples of negligence that cause motorcycle crashes.
Claims of Comparative Negligence
Motorcycle riders are not immune to claims that they shared in the negligence that caused the crash. In fact, many motorcycle accident cases are going to involve the defense that what the driver did was dangerous and that the defendant was not actually at fault. These factual questions about who did what and whether their actions were dangerous are decided by a jury.
However, some questions do not get all the way to the jury. If you are accused of causing the crash merely because you were on a motorcycle, that is unlikely to be allowed to go to the jury. Riding a motorcycle is perfectly legal in Tennessee if you have the proper licensing, and discrimination against bikers has no place in a serious injury trial.
As long as you are under 50% at fault for the crash, the other driver can still be made to pay you for your damages. If you are found to share partial fault below 50%, then your damages will be reduced by that percentage. For example, if you were driving a bit over the speed limit but the other driver was drunk, the court might find you were 15% at fault and reduce your $100,000 damages to $85,000.
Call Our Motorcycle Accident Attorneys in Lebanon, TN Today
If you were injured in a motorcycle accident, reach out to our motorcycle accident attorneys at Howe Law today at (844) 876-4357 for your free case evaluation.
