Lost Wages In Baltimore

If you have been hurt in an accident in Baltimore that was not your fault, you deserve to be compensated for your losses. These losses – contrary to what insurance companies will tell you – go far beyond just the costs of your medical expenses. Instead, they include all of your legal damages. Perhaps the most overlooked part of these damages is your lost wages.

The personal injury lawyers at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian in Baltimore represent people who have been hurt in the city and want to recover the compensation they need to make a full recovery.

Legal Damages Suffered in an Accident

The personal injury law in Maryland recognizes that many people in the state get hurt in accidents that were no fault of their own. Just because the person who caused the accident was only being negligent and did not necessarily intend for the accident to happen does not mean that an innocent victim should be left without financial help to recover for their injuries – between a negligent person who caused an accident and a faultless victim, the victim is less culpable and should not bear the costs of the accident.

Therefore, the law in Maryland requires a negligent person to compensate a victim for their legal damages. These damages include the wages that the victim lost, both in the past and in the future.

Past Wages Lost

After an accident happens, the injuries that you suffer are likely to keep you out of work for some time. If the injury is severe or debilitating, it can keep you off your job for weeks or even months. If your boss or employer is unforgiving of your situation – and many of them are – you could find yourself unable to earn an income at a time in your life when you most need to make money to cover the costs of your mounting medical expenses.

The worst part of this situation is that you were not the one responsible for your injuries, leaving you feeling hopeless and victimized by the circumstances.

Even as you progress through the healing process, overcome the obstacles of your injuries, and begin to return to work, there will still be times when you will have to miss time on the job in order to go to the doctor’s office or a physical therapist. Hourly workers will have to clock out for these visits, and even salaried workers can find themselves running out of paid time off, sick days, or personal leave.

This is where filing a personal injury claim can make a huge difference.

Because the time you missed at work – and the income that you lost because you were not on the job – were the direct and foreseeable repercussions of the accident, Maryland’s personal injury law shifts those costs onto the person or the people who were ultimately responsible for the accident. After all, it would be unfair to require you to pay for the costs of someone else’s negligence.

Proving that you lost wages because of the accident is not always easy, though, particularly if you are not a salaried or hourly worker or make a significant portion of your income through commissions or other inconsistent formats. In every case, though, it can be helpful to have the following information to support a claim for lost wages in a personal injury suit:

• Tax returns from previous years
• Pay stubs
• Statements from an employer that outline how much time you missed at work
• Doctor’s records
• Medical bills

Wages Lost in the Future

In Maryland, the statute of limitations requires that personal injury claims be filed within three years of the accident. However, the most disabling injuries that you suffer in an accident can have lasting repercussions to your professional career and ability to earn an income. In some cases, those repercussions last longer than three years, leaving you with the knowledge that you will stand to lose wages in the future, even after your personal injury claim has to be filed in court.

Recognizing how unfair this would be, Maryland’s personal injury law allows accident victims to recover for wages they are likely to lose even after a claim has been filed. Unfortunately, proving your case for these future wages is a little trickier because they are not tangible or concrete. Doing so often requires showing that your injury is permanent or disabling over the long term and that there is a reasonable probability that it will prevent you from earning an income.

Proving a claim for lost future wages often requires extensive testimony from your employer and from supervisors who can attest to your work and your future on the job. For some workers – especially those who work for people who think of your injury as more of an inconvenience to them and are still bitter about your missing work – this can be awkward. However, if it is clear that you were on your way up in the workplace but are now left unable to pursue that professional development because of your injuries, gathering this support for a claim for future wage loss can be worthwhile.

Baltimore Personal Injury Lawyers at Gilman & Bedigian

The professional ramifications of a severe injury are not small, and can drastically reduce your ability to earn a living. This does not just impact you, personally: it also impacts your spouse, children, and family members and community who all benefit from your financial well-being.

Recovering the losses in income that you suffer from the injuries that came in an accident that you did not cause is an integral part of the healing process. That is why the personal injury lawyers at the Baltimore law office of Gilman & Bedigian strive to ensure that you are reimbursed for all of your lost income – regardless of whether it has already happened or is likely to happen in the future. Contact us online to get the legal representation you need to make the full recovery that you deserve.