Auto Accidents:   

Car Wrecks

Truck Accidents

Motorcycle Accidents

Pedestrian Accidents

Bus Accidents

Bicycle Accidents

Train Accidents

  Other Types Of Injury Cases:   

Dog Bite/ Animal Attacks

Firearm Injuries

Premises Liability

Slip & Falls

Wrongful Death

All types of Job Injuries

Construction Accidents 

 

  Catastrophic Injuries:   

Amputations

Blunt Trauma

Brain Injuries

Head Injuries

Spinal Injuries

Burn Injuries

 

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COMPENSATION In Your Personal Injury Claim

COMPENSATION is the key word.  Georgia law states that if you are injured because of someone else's negligence you are legally entitled to be compensated.  What exactly does that mean to be compensated?  In a nutshell, compensation means to be "made whole" and is broken down into two areas to arrive at a value:  (1) special damages, and (2) general damages. 

 

Special damages are basically anything you can identify with a specific dollar amount--the amount of your current medical bills, future medical bills, your current lost wages, future lost wages due to diminished ability to work, etc.  General damages are things that cannot be identified with a specific dollar amount--your physical pain and suffering, mental pain and suffering, emotional distress, humiliation, shock, fright, future pain and suffering, etc.  Legally speaking, you would be considered to be compensated for an injury you sustained because of someone else's negligence if you were paid an amount of money that represented all of your special damages and all of your general damages. 

 

As easy as it is to calculate special damages (just add up the numbers), it is quite difficult to calculate general damages--they are very subjective in nature.  What is pain and suffering worth?  If you are injured by someone's negligence and the injury causes you to miss an important family event (a wedding, a graduation, a baptism, a summer picnic)--what is that worth?  No amount of money will replace having to miss a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.  What is emotional distress or humiliation or future pain and suffering worth?  How can they be measured for valuation purposes?

 

The legal professionals at Weaver Law Firm will help you come up with accurate values that will enable you to be fully compensated for your injuries.

 

CONSORTIUM

CONSORTIUM--what does this word mean? 

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Consortium is the right of a married person to enjoy the services of their spouse.  Spousal service includes household labor, but it is not limited to that and also includes society, companionship, affections, and all matters of value arising from marriage.  When a person's spouse is injured due to someone else's negligence and that injury affects the marital relationship, the non-injured spouse has a claim for loss of consortium.  As you can see, loss of consortium damages are for both the loss of the spouse's ability to help with household labor, but also for those intrinsic aspects of a marriage such as the loss of relationship with one's spouse. 

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Georgia loss of consortium law

Often you will read a plaintiff in a lawsuit was awarded "loss of consortium" damages.  

A large part of loss of consortium damages are somewhat immeasurable. How then does a Georgia jury measure such damages in a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit? The judge will instruct the jury that these damages are measured by their reasonable value as determined by the enlightened conscience of impartial jurors taking into consideration the nature of the services and all the circumstances of the case. There does not have to be direct evidence of their value. In other words, a jury hears evidence of the marital relationship before the tort was committed and does its best to determine how much it has changed since. The jury then decides how much that is worth based on their personal beliefs and values, i.e., their enlightened conscience.

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In wrongful death cases and those serious injury cases where the injury will last the rest of the lifetime of one of the spouses, the jury looks at the joint life expectancy of both spouses (how long they would have lived together as a married couple). This can often be shown by mortality tables or expert testimony.

 

Under Georgia law loss of consortium damages are available only to married persons.

Loss of consortium in a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit in Georgia is a type of damage available only to a plaintiff who is the spouse of the injured/deceased person. When one or both spouses have been injured or when one spouse is deceased because of the negligence or bad act of another party, the spouse(s) can seek loss of consortium damages. These damages are not available to other loved ones of the injured party such as children, parents, fiances/fiancees, or other significant others--only spouses in a legal marriage.

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