Punitive damages are a special kind of compensation. These are damages meant to punish a defendant for some kind of malicious or reckless actions.
Anchorage, AK – After an accident, the victim always has the ability to bring a civil lawsuit against the responsible party to try to recover their losses. This is true even if they have some kind of relevant insurance coverage. Civil cases for negligence divide these types of compensation into a few different categories. These are economic, non-economic, and punitive damages. The state has also placed certain kinds of limitations on the amounts available in injury lawsuits. Anyone who has specific questions about the total amount of compensation available for their injuries can get in touch with an accident attorney in Alaska.
Economic damages
When someone has been injured in an accident, their most obvious expenses will fall into the category of economic damages. This includes things like costs of property repairs, emergency medical treatment and healthcare costs related to the injuries, and financial losses related to not being able to work for a certain time frame following the incident. These kinds of losses may also be projected into the future so that the victim can receive sufficient compensation to cover all of the costs created by their injuries over time.
Non-economic damages
Accident attorneys in Alaska and other states are given a chance to ask for various losses on their client’s behalf that may not be as easy to calculate. The attorney will attempt to put a price on things like physical and mental pain, trauma related to the incident, and reductions in the victim’s quality of life. The lawyer has to convince a jury at trial or others during settlement negotiations of the actual monetary value of these kinds of problems.
Alaska has special rules that limit the amount of non-economic damages available to a victim called damage caps. These are set at $400,000 per victim in accident lawsuits, or $1,000,000 in cases where the victim experiences severe disfigurement or some kind of impairment.
Punitive damages
Punitive damages are a special kind of compensation. These are damages meant to punish a defendant for some kind of malicious or reckless actions, and they are generally not available in all accident lawsuits. Alaska has also set a damage cap in accident cases for punitive damages at $500,000 or three times the victim’s economic damages. Legal advice may be necessary to determine if punitive damages are available based on the severity of the defendant’s conduct in each case.
Meeting with a local attorney to learn more
USAttorneys.com is a site that helps people find lawyers after they have been hurt in an accident in Anchorage or other cities around the country. The directory is organized by state and practice area to make finding a lawyer easy.
Join the conversation!