Personal injury law is made up of broad and fine brush strokes. In Texas, you can build a case using the following “palate”:
- Physical pain
- Mental anguish
- Physical impairment
- Disfigurement
- Medical care
- Loss of livelihood or earnings
Sheltered within these definitions are also some spousal damages. We’ll get into that layer of legality in a moment. What you need to understand first is where the boundaries of the definitions lie.
How Does Personal Injury Law Work?
The award you can expect from a case like this depends on two things:
- The burden of proof
- The jury
The Texas court system does not require you to “prove your case” in all of the damage categories listed. Some of these categories are treated as implicit; others are determined by the jury. The deciding factor depends on how much room for interpretation is left by the law. To illustrate this point, let’s look at physical pain and disfigurement.
The best way to view these two damage claims is to see them as assumptive. Meaning; you can assume they are what they appear to be. Neither term involves a convoluted definition that needs to be supported by a burden of proof. If these things have occurred as a result of a personal injury, the results are obvious. In the event of a serious injury, the jurors are allowed to infer the likelihood of these two outcomes and award the plaintiff accordingly.
The same can’t be said for mental anguish, physical impairment, medical care, and loss of livelihood or earnings.
What has to be Proven in Personal Injury?
The remaining categories have to be definitively proven and distinctly awarded. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is the difference between physical pain and physical impairment? Technically, aren’t they the same thing? Technically yes, but not legally. Here’s how the law sees it: Physical pain is a short-term symptom that may require treatment, but it will pass. Physical impairment is a disability that significantly alters your lifestyle in the long-term. This is something that needs to be independently supported and proven.
The same rule applies to mental anguish. You have to be able to show that it goes beyond normal anxiety-that it disrupts your everyday life. Medical care and loss of livelihood or earnings gets down to brass tacks; a specific amount supported by an educated estimate and documentation. Both of these categories cover present losses out-of-pocket as well as future expenses and losses you incur because you lost the ability to work due to your injury and/or ongoing medical treatments.
The law doesn’t stop there. A spouse can claim loss of services and consortium due to injuries suffered by their partner. As you can see, personal injury damages have a lot of loose ends. The good news is Stockard, Johnston, Brown, Netardus & Doyle, P.C. in Amarillo, Texas can help you tie them all up.