All Limbs Are Not Created Equal When It Comes to Amputation Injury Settlements
If you have suffered a traumatic injury that resulted in the amputation of a limb or other extremity, then there is no doubt that you deserve compensation for your loss. With many injuries, they hurt and can lead to temporary losses, but they will often heal to be as good as new. However, with amputation, that arm, leg, finger, or toe is gone forever. The wound will heal, but the amputated limb won’t grow back. This leaves you with a permanent disability that can be treated with artificial limbs, but you will never be quite whole again.
However, while you are almost assured compensation for your amputated area providing it was not purposeful or due to extreme negligence, not all amputations are valued equally. This means that your settlement will not be as large if you had a finger cut off at the knuckle compared to losing the whole thing. Furthermore, if you lose the whole leg compared to if you lose a whole arm, you are still looking at different settlement amounts.
Compensation is Determined by Degree of Disability
Often the biggest issue in amputation-related personal injury cases is not so much proving liability or that you deserve compensation, but rather how much compensation you deserve. In these cases, often your degree of disability is the deciding factor for how much you receive. Understandably, a knuckle of a finger does not add up to the same level of disability as the loss of the whole arm.
Any amputation has an effect on your life, but to varying degrees. For this reason, you can expect more compensation for whole limb loss amputation or whole hand and foot loss as this can impede your ability to do far more jobs in the future compared to losing a finger or a toe.
What Else Can Affect the Compensation Amount for an Amputation Injury?
When it comes to all injuries, not just amputation, all cases are different. This is why it is so hard to give a concrete number on what your unique injury will be valued at. A number of factors are considered, more so than just a loss in quality of life or loss of potential future earnings.
Often the ability to return to your current job is considered. If you cannot, you may also receive compensation for new vocational training. However, often the biggest factor that causes the fluctuation in the amount of compensation you receive is pain and suffering. With amputation injuries, often there is a large amount of pain involved and the suffering can go well beyond the time of injury. If you experience Phantom Limb Syndrome, it can also manifest itself as pain in the area where the limb or extremity once was. It can be argued that this could cause prolonged suffering even if it has not yet manifested yet as many amputees often experience it at some point.
Providing you are not filing a suit through the worker’s compensation system, which does not account for pain and suffering compensation, you can receive quite a bit of compensation for pain and suffering through a personal injury suit.
Have You Been Injured and Need Legal Representation?
If you have suffered an amputation injury and are seeking compensation for your lost limb or extremity in the Oshkosh area, contact us today. Without a case evaluation, it is difficult to assign value to your unique injury. However, by coming to see us and discussing you accident and injury, Harnitz Law Office can help you get an estimate for how much you can receive as well as help you pursue it so that you get the best possible results.
