Say, for instance, that you have been a victim of a medical professional’s negligence in an instance that constitutes a medical malpractice lawsuit. While you may have incurred serious injuries and damages that you need financial aid to recover from, you may be hesitant to subject yourself to extensive legal proceedings voluntarily. What may help your decision is if you can first establish how much payout you can potentially receive from a successful case. Read on to discover how much your medical malpractice claim may be worth and how a seasoned New York City medical malpractice attorney at Mark L. Bodner, P.C. can help you receive the financial compensation you are entitled to.
What economic and non-economic damages can I claim in my medical malpractice case?
Before sitting down with your attorney at your initial consultation, you should make a list of all the potential economic and non-economic damages that are directly tied to your medical malpractice incident. For one, economic damages are considered the actual financial damages you suffered after being made a victim of a medical professional’s harm. On the other hand, non-economic damages are considered the subjective, non-financial damages you suffered. More specific examples of each are as follows:
- Economic damages:
- Medical bills and expenses.
- Lost wages and ability to work.
- Medical assistive and adaptive devices.
- Medication and rehabilitation.
- Non-economic damages:
- Pain and suffering.
- Mental anguish.
- Physical disfigurement.
- Loss of quality of life.
Considering economic and non-economic damages, how much is my medical malpractice claim worth?
Evidently, you may consider it easy to calculate your economic damages, as there may be a paper trail of receipts to prove the total financial damages you incurred. However, with this, you must not forget to account for the total expenses you might incur in the future. For example, your injuries may be permanent and therefore inhibit you from reentering your previous field of work. With this, you must account for your diminished future earning capacity.
Contrastingly, you may find it more difficult to assign a dollar value to the amount of non-economic damages you incurred. For this, your attorney may look at the “seriousness factor,” otherwise known as the “non-economic multiplier,” to reach an accurate value. This factor may range between 2 to 5 and then it may be multiplied by the total value of your economic damages.
Generally speaking, the formula you should use to calculate how much your medical malpractice claim is worth is adding your total economic damages to your total non-economic damages. Then you must take this trial value and multiply it by your chance of winning (%) to reach your total settlement value. While this may seem overwhelming, you may rest easier knowing that your attorney may retain a forensic economist to ensure that your damages are accurately calculated.
All in all, before you move forward in filing a medical malpractice claim, you must consult a competent New York City medical malpractice attorney. So please reach out to Mark L. Bodner, P.C. today.