A serious accident can affect your life in many ways. The physical and emotional trauma you suffer in an accident can interfere with every aspect of your life, including your ability to enjoy the things that you used to. If an accident in Dallas caused a loss of enjoyment or quality of life, such as by interfering with your ability to play with your children or engage in favorite hobbies, you may be eligible for financial compensation for this loss in a personal injury case.
What Is Loss of Enjoyment of Life?
In personal injury law, loss of enjoyment of life refers to a diminishment of your enjoyment of daily tasks, experiences or hobbies due to your accident or the related injuries that you suffered. If you sustained a permanent disability in a car accident in Dallas, for example, and can no longer do your job, perform household services, participate in favorite activities or spend quality time with your family, you may qualify for financial compensation for lost enjoyment of life.
How Is This Loss Calculated?
Calculating a noneconomic loss such as lost enjoyment of life can be difficult, as you do not have hard evidence to rely on for a numerical amount, such as medical bills. Rather than using bills and receipts, an insurance company, judge or jury will analyze factors that are unique to you to calculate an appropriate amount of financial damages for the loss of your enjoyment of life.
Several of these factors include:
- The gravity of your injuries
- How your injuries will impact you in the foreseeable future
- If you have permanent scarring, disfigurement or disability
- The nature of the activity that you can no longer enjoy
- Your age and overall health
- Your educational background and work history
- Where you live
Financial compensation for the loss of enjoyment of life is included under the damage category of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering in Texas is calculated by analyzing how significantly the injury impacted the victim and will continue to alter the victim’s life. A jury can use a few different calculation methods – or no method at all – to determine a fair amount in financial compensation for pain and suffering.
How Can You Prove Loss of Enjoyment of Life?
Before you can receive financial compensation for reduced enjoyment or quality of life, you or your personal injury lawyer in Dallas must prove your inability to do certain things that you could do prior to the accident. You must show that these activities are now not possible or less enjoyable for you due to pain, immobility, emotional distress, or other factors that stem from your accident or injury.
Some ways in which you may be able to prove lost enjoyment of life include:
- Using your medical records to prove the severe or catastrophic nature of your injury, scars, disfigurement or disability.
- Seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist about your feelings and requesting copies of these medical records.
- Obtaining an official medical diagnosis for a mental health condition, such as depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Keeping an injury journal where you document how the accident has negatively impacted your life.
- Asking your friends and loved ones to give statements attesting to the fact that you can no longer enjoy your favorite hobbies and activities.
- Taking the stand yourself to answer questions about what your life was like before the accident vs. what it is like now.
- Hiring subject-matter experts to testify on your behalf, including doctors and mental health professionals.
You do not have to prove your injury claim on your own. You have the right to hire an attorney to represent you during your case. An attorney will have the knowledge and experience you need to prove intangible losses such as lost enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, and emotional distress. From gathering statements from witnesses to hiring experts, your lawyer can take many steps to strengthen your claim of loss of enjoyment of life.