If you’ve been in a major accident, no one can prepare you for how difficult life can be post-accident. While you may expect that you’ll need time for your injuries to heal, you might not have thought about how much time you would need to take off work to rest or attend physical or occupational therapy. It might take you longer than expected to heal from your accident injuries, and in the meantime—you’re losing out on wages.
But just because you must miss work doesn’t mean that you won’t ever get those wages repaid, especially if your accident was the result of someone else’s negligence or recklessness.
Lost wages can be recovered—and you might just be entitled to your fair share of compensation.
WHAT ARE LOST WAGES?
Lost wages specifically refer to income that you can’t earn due to your injuries. For example, if an accident caused you to have a neck injury that required surgery and six months of intensive physical therapy that required you to miss work, then you might be entitled to three months of wages for all the days you missed.
Lost wages cover the period during which you don’t work, and they also cover lost earning capacity if you have a long-term disability that makes it impossible to work. However, future earning capacity is tricky to figure out as far as concrete numbers go, but if you have enough evidence that you suffered a severe injury that will have an effect on your future income, then you can include this in your personal injury lawsuit.
WHAT WILL I NEED TO RECOVER LOST WAGES?
In addition to a skilled personal injury attorney, you will need to have supporting evidence to file a claim. If you are employed, then you will need to collect paystubs from the six months prior to your accident to prove the amount of your income. If you are self-employed, contact your accountant that you work with regularly to present evidence of your accounts from the six months prior to your accident.
You will also need evidence from your physician, which is typically a letter documenting your injuries.
When you’ve been severely injured in an accident—whether it was a car accident, a slip, and fall accident, or an on-the-job injury—you deserve to be paid if your accident was someone else’s fault.
Don’t let injuries from an accident ruin your financial future. To determine if legal action is in your best interest to pursue compensation for lost wages in Georgia, contact us online or call 404-969-1284.
