The ultimate goal of a personal injury lawsuit is to recover fair financial compensation after exposing and proving the legal liability of those responsible for the injury in eyes of the law. Calculating just how much money a fair settlement entails is extremely challenging for a non-professional and proving responsibility is even more difficult. The best person to determine fault, prove culpability and calculate adequate recompense is an experienced personal injury lawyer.

Calculating a Fair Settlement
Many factors go into the calculation of a fair settlement including: the financial total of all expenses paid resulting from the accident such as medical costs, out-of-pocket travel expenses, property damage repair fees, physical therapy and rehabilitation plus other, less obvious factors. Wages lost and loss of future income is a reality after any personal injury but not as directly clear as a pile of payment receipts. Another aspect of calculating a just compensation total is the emotional and mental toll the injury extracted from the victim. All of these are different types of what is called "damages" from an accident and special formulas beyond simple addition and subtraction go into their calculation. The insurance companies and lawyers work together to come to what is considered to be a fair amount; cases settled in court are calculated by the plaintiff’s attorneys and assessed by the judge and jury.

Proving Legal Liability
In order to be considered eligible to receive fair compensation, the liability or guilt of the defendant must be proven in the eyes of the law and, in some cases, the insurance company. In personal injury cases, the claim is valid if an individual, a group of individuals or a professional entity can be proven to have had an obligation to protect the victim and to have failed in their obligation. This obligation is called a "duty of care" and any clear breach to that duty that directly caused an accident leading to the injury or directly caused the injury itself is grounds for proving liability. Knowing it is true and proving it is true are two separate things, however, and the aid of a personal injury attorney is the only guarantee of successfully showing the guilt of the defendant for your injury.

Recovering Compensation
Only after a fair settlement amount has been calculated and the guilty parties have been consistently proven to be at fault can you, the injury victim also known as the plaintiff, successfully recover your compensation. Depending on the degree to which you have been injured and the egregiousness of the defendant’s negligence, you may be awarded additional compensation above and beyond the total for reimbursement of costs and emotional pain and suffering. Called "punitive damages" and imposed as a measure of justice to financially penalize the defendant, these act as a discouragement for future breaches of the duty of care.