If you’ve ever been in a life or death situation, you know how there’s often little time to act before something catastrophic happens. In some cases, there are those good-willed individuals who are willing to risk their safety to come to the aid of others. When this happens, there are often legal questions that arise after the fact as to whether or not the rescuer should be owed compensation for injuries they sustained because they were acting voluntarily. The answer to this question is yes.

According to the Rescue Doctrine, a rescuer can recover damages from a defendant when the rescuer is injured while helping someone. In order for an injured party to seek compensation through this doctrine, however, they need to be able to prove four specific elements. If you’ve been in a situation where you helped someone in an accident and were hurt as a result, our lawyers may be able to help you prove you are owed monetary damages for your losses.

If you’ve filed a personal injury claim after suffering catastrophic injuries, you may be eligible for compensation from the negligent party that caused your injuries. Calculating that compensation can be difficult if your future cost of care or future lost wages need to be taken into consideration. This is where the concept of present value comes into play.

In order to understand the concept of present value of future losses, you first need to understand how compensation works for personal injury claims. The legal term for compensation is damages. In a typical personal injury case, damages are separated into economic and noneconomic categories.

Economic damages refer to the monetary expenses related to your injury. These can be calculated exactly and there is no limit to the types of claims that can be made or the amount a person can be awarded. The most common types of economic damages include loss of earning, loss of future earnings, medical expenses, cost of future medical care, costs associated with canceled plans, and household expenses.

As ubiquitous as social media is these days, it’s been known to get people in trouble for things they’ve said – comments and posts that are new or old. And if you’re a plaintiff in a personal injury trial, you must know that everything you do and have done will be under scrutiny and can be used against you.