Wellington Injury Attorney

Will Wellington Accident Lawyer Care For The Collateral Source Payments?

There are a few possibilities in personal injury law. Firstly, it is possible to claim compensation for your injuries and cost of damage caused to property from a defendant who is found to be negligent. Secondly, you can claim compensation from multiple defendants involved as well as any business entity, whether private or government. Thirdly, you can include all your non-economic losses with the economic damages called specials and increase your claim amount to make it fair and reasonable. Fourthly, it may be so that the defendant is not adequately covered by insurance to meet up with your demand. The Wellington Accident Lawyer in such cases has to look for alternative sources.

Collateral Source Payments When it is found that the resource of the defendant is not sufficient enough to pay the claims then the Wellington Accident Lawyer especially the jury will use the concept of collateral source payments. This is the concept when your injury claim amount may be reduced to the value of any collateral source payment so that you get at least a considerable portion of your claims. You must know that the law always wants that all get a fair justice and it will therefore consider the ability of the defendant to make such payment.

However, the law will try to procure as much as possible from the defendant but within the peripheries of it.

Examples Of Collateral Source Payments The collateral source payments are those payments that are made by the entities which are other than the defendant. These are the entities that are used to compensate you with your claim amount for your injuries to make you into a ‘whole’ person just like you were before the accident injured you. Ideally, the Wellington Accident Lawyer will look into the most common and easily accessible sources for collateral payments that are permissible in personal injury law statues. These sources include workers’ compensation insurance and benefit including medical insurance payments.

Awareness Of Such Sources More often than not the jury is not made aware of the existence of such collateral source payments in almost all personal injury claim cases. In fact, the evidence of any such collateral source payments isdisallowed by and large. The primary reason and intent of such suppression of facts is to eliminate the scope of the deliberations of the jury to be influenced. This is to provide protection to the injured parties as much as possible. The jurors may very easily reduce or even decline from offering an award to you if they come to know that you are being compensated already from such collateral source payments.

Judge Makes the Final Decision It is the judge that makes the final decision whether or not, use the collateral source payment concept in the end, to reduce the claim amount, depending on the local law and its permits. The jury as well as your injury attorney is supposed to act,according to the law of the land and apply it to the realities of your case to reach to a final verdict.