Whiplash is one of the most common car accident injuries. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most widely misunderstood and often difficult-to-prove injuries in car accident claims in St. Louis, Missouri, when an injury victim seeks compensation for injury-related damages like medical expenses, lost wages, and compensation for pain and suffering. Besides compelling evidence of the at-fault driver’s liability, a successful claim requires a carefully calculated list of the injury victim’s recoverable damages.
What Is a Whiplash Injury?
The human head weighs an average of ten pounds and is supported by the relatively thin structure of the neck and cervical spine. During a powerful back-and-forth jarring motion, such as one that commonly occurs in a car accident, a motorist’s head whips rapidly back and forth, over-extending the soft-tissue structures of the neck and causing damage.
Whiplash injuries may occur even in low-speed accidents. The crash force of an accident turns a 100-pound person into a 3,000-pound force at only 30 miles per hour.
Whiplash injuries aren’t always evident immediately after a crash. Instead, the painful symptoms develop during the hours and days after an accident as inflammation causes pressure against sensitive nerves. Whiplash reduces range of motion and can make it painful to turn the head, walk, bend, reach, or stretch, often temporarily impeding the ability to work.
What Types of Damages are Recovered In Missouri Car Accident Claims?
Under Missouri 537.765, the state’s fault-based personal injury law, a car accident victim may recover compensation for common economic and non-economic damages, such as the following:
- Reimbursement for medical expenses already paid
- Anticipated future medical expenses for necessary further care, appointments, procedures, and physical therapy
- Out-of-pocket injury-related costs
- Lost wages
- Future income loss
- Diminished future earning ability
- Compensation for pain and suffering
- Catastrophic injury damages for permanent harm, such as disability or disfigurement
Depending on the severity of a whiplash injury, the injury victim may sustain some or all of the above damages.
How Does a Missouri Car Accident Lawyer Determine the Value of a Whiplash Accident Claim?
Economic damages from whiplash are tangible. Calculating them is typically a straightforward process of adding up medical expenses, receipts from out-of-pocket costs, and total past and future lost earnings; however, non-economic damages are intangible and less easily calculated.
Personal injury lawyers use one of two formulas to calculate compensation for pain and suffering.
The multiplier method uses the total cost of the injury victim’s medical expenses and multiplies it by a number between 1 and 5, depending on the injury victim’s level of pain. The per diem method assigns a daily monetary amount for every day the injury victim can expect to feel pain based on medical expert testimony.
The Challenges of Recovering Compensation In a Whiplash Injury Claim
The injury victim’s attorney presents a list of their client’s economic damages and an estimated amount for pain and suffering compensation to the at-fault party’s insurance company, along with evidence of the at-fault party’s liability. It often takes assertive negotiation and compelling evidence to obtain a payout on a whiplash compensation claim in Missouri and elsewhere. Because whiplash is a soft-tissue injury, it isn’t clearly visible on medical imaging tests.
In addition, many whiplash injury victims don’t seek medical care immediately after the injury because their symptoms develop in the days following the injury. These factors contribute to the common denial or devaluing of whiplash injury claims unless the injury victim has skilled, assertive legal representation from a St. Louis whiplash injury attorney.