Determining Denver Slip and Fall Damages
Determining Denver slip and fall damages typically entails calculating economic damages or the actual monetary damages. The injured person’s medical bills, the quality and quantity of the treatment they have had if it is soft tissue injuries, and the kind of minimal treatment needed to resolve it are all considered for economic damages.
A different situation would be when someone slipped and fell, and fractured their hip or broke an ankle because their treatment is going to be a lot more thorough for an extended period of time. After the medical bills, other economic damages would be the individual’s lost wages. If they are missing time from work, how much time have they missed. An experienced slip and fall attorney will be the contact with the employer and prepare a wage loss claim.
Determining Slip and Fall Damages for Permanent Injuries
If the slip/trip and fall caused permanent injuries, this will cause the damages in that particular case to go up substantially because it is a person’s lifetime. An example would be that the doctor stated that prior to this incident the client had a full range of motion in the ankle and now, as a result, has a 25 percent loss of range of motion, which equates to an X-percent whole person impairment.
What are Non-Economic Damages?
After determining Denver slip and fall damages for monetary loss, there are non-economic damages (pain and suffering, emotional distress, and how this has non-financially impacted the individual). It is hard to assess what non-economic damages are, but the best way to assess it is to look at how it has actually made an impact on the injured person’s life.
Role of Establishing Responsibility for Someone’s Fall
If the attorney could establish responsibility for prevention of these types of cases, there could be a case with punitive or exemplary damages. If for some reason there has been an established pattern of conduct of this defendant in not maintaining their premises or not keeping people safe that can help in determining Denver slip and fall damages.
Knowing When to File for Punitive Damages
A jury cannot award punitive damages, however it can still be beneficial to know when punitive damages are applicable to one’s case. If there have been six or seven reports of a slip and fall for the same aisle in the store, for the same use of sidewalk outside of their store, and they have known about it but willfully chose not to repair or do anything to prevent injury, a motion could be filed asking for punitive damages. Punitive damages are basically to punish the defendant or to make them pay for their bad conduct.
Most of the time this is not an issue, but a punitive damages award is the jury sending a message to the defendant that they feel their conduct was wrongful and they knowingly violated their duty. And therefore, in order to make them more mindful in the future, they are going to enter this additional award against them of punitive damages.
