Personal injury victims in Virginia can receive compensation for the pain and suffering they endure after an accident. This law makes sense. The physical and emotional effects of a serious accident can be disabling. Many people will struggle to leave the house or return to enjoying their hobbies. They might withdraw from loved ones or sink into a deep depression and be unable to leave the bed.
Our Winchester personal injury attorney is committed to helping clients obtain the most compensation available under Virginia law. To that end, we offer the following tips for fully documenting your pain and suffering. Juries and insurance adjusters are often skeptical that a person is in as much distress as they claim. By documenting your pain as thoroughly as possible, you can secure a favorable settlement to your case.
Keep Your Prescription Pill Bottles
Doctors prescribe various medications to help accident victims with their physical pain and emotional distress: painkillers, anti-anxiety medication, sleeping pills, and antidepressants, among others. You should hold onto the little orange bottles that these pills come in. If your case goes to trial, we can literally show to the jury all the medications you have taken to help with your injuries. This is much more dramatic than simply reading off a list of medications to a jury.
Keep a Pain Journal
If you daily document your pain and emotional distress, you will have powerful contemporaneous evidence of how the accident has affected you. We recommend that clients get a journal and daily enter how they are feeling. For example, the pain in your hip might have prevented you from sleeping more than three hours. Write that down. Or the painkillers you take might blunt your pain but make you feel spacey with low energy. This documentation helps bring your injuries “alive” for a jury.
Talk to Family Members about Testifying
Nobody understands how an accident has affected you better than the people you live with. They see you daily and can report confidently about how the accident has changed you. They can testify as to how your mood has changed or whether you avoid social situations. This testimony might seem embarrassing, but it is very powerful for jurors to hear.
We Can Ask Your Doctor or Psychologist to Testify
Expert medical testimony is always helpful in personal injury cases. Jurors tend to look at these people as having credibility, and they will listen carefully as a doctor explains the severity of your physical or emotional injuries. For these reasons, we always recommend that accident victims go to the hospital soon after an accident and that they accept all offers of therapy for working through negative emotions caused by the crash.
Contact Correll Law Firm for More Tips
Serious injuries deserve serious compensation, and we never forget that pain and suffering are real. At Correll Law Firm, our attorney works closely with his clients to build solid claims for compensation. Please contact our firm today by calling 540-535-2005 or sending a quick online message. Our consultations are entirely free.