Can You Receive Compensation for Anxiety After a Car Accident?
If you have been injured in a car crash, you may be entitled to receive payment for your injuries. This compensation is meant to pay for a variety of harms you may have suffered. If one of the effects of your accident is anxiety, you may be compensated for it. An attorney can help you understand the ins and outs of asking for this type of compensation after a car accident.
Damages After a Car Accident
When you have been in an accident, the damages that you receive are intended to put you in the same position as if the accident never happened. Your financial compensation is meant to pay you for physical damages that you have suffered as well as more intangible damages. Another way to state this is that you can receive economic and non-economic damages for your injuries.
Economic damages encompass items, such as property damage, the cost of medical bills, and wages that you are not able to earn both in the present and future. Non-economic damages measure your other harms, including pain and suffering and emotional distress.
Non-economic damages encompass the anxiety that you are experiencing. Not only can you be paid for emotional distress that you suffered during the accident, but you may also receive money for what you are going through after the crash. Anxiety is a form of
mental trauma after a car accident, which you may experience for some time to come.
Car accident trauma effects can come in many different forms. You may experience general fear and/or panic caused by flashbacks about the accident, keeping you awake at night or making you afraid during the day. You can also have more specific anxiety such as fear of getting back in a car. Either way, any type of anxiety after an accident can have very real consequences for you.
Can You Make a Claim for Anxiety After a Car Accident?
Emotional trauma is similar to any other injury that you may suffer after a car accident. Just because there is not a physical injury does not mean that you have not been affected. New York personal injury law holds that you can be paid back for anything that impacts you as a result of the accident as long as you sustain a “serious injury.”
However, you are not automatically entitled to payment for anxiety attacks after a car accident. The insurance company or the jury may be skeptical when you claim that you have anxiety, as it’s not the easiest claim to demonstrate. Accordingly, you will need to prove that you have been injured and the kind of injury you suffered. You will also need to show that your anxiety happened as a result of the accident. In other words, this is the causation element of the personal injury claim that you must show in order to be able to receive financial compensation.
You can back up your claim by proving that you deserve compensation for psychological trauma after a car accident by having experts testify on your behalf. You can also present documentation, such as medical reports drafted by psychologists or psychiatrists regarding your condition. You need to show that your quality of life has been affected negatively by the accident, and a lawyer may help you determine how much compensation to ask for.
How Much Compensation Do You Get for a Psychological Injury?
What you receive depends on the facts and circumstances of your unique situation. As referenced above, in most cases you will need to demonstrate a “serious injury,” which a personal injury lawyer can help you with.
You may have travel anxiety after a car accident that
keeps you from living your normal life. This is something that can lead to a loss of enjoyment of activities that you previously did and enjoyed. Your compensation for these damages might be paid in a settlement or a jury verdict depending on whether an insurance company agrees to settle for an acceptable amount or your lawyer recommends going to trial to pursue a higher amount.
In addition, there is another way that you can be compensated for the anxiety that you are suffering as a result of the accident: You can be paid for time that you missed from work and your lost wages in the future. When your anxiety is extreme, you may be unable to work. Anxiety can be so crippling that you cannot even leave home. If anxiety about riding in a car has impacted your career and keeps you from working, it may be factored into your damages calculation. Lost wages are often the biggest part of an award after the accident.
Hurt in a Car? Call William Mattar
A personal injury attorney can review your claim to give you a better idea of how much the car accident anxiety part of your accident claim is worth. The insurance company may have a different viewpoint of how much you should be paid if you are paid at all. This is where you will need an attorney to help you negotiate with the insurance company and help make sure that you receive the financial compensation that you deserve.
If you have been injured in a car crash, you need legal representation as you seek to get the compensation that you deserve. Contact car accident lawyers at William Mattar law offices to get help now.