H Law GroupPersonal Injury

Compensation

What California law allows you to recover

Every injury claim is built from categories of loss the law recognizes. Understanding them is how you tell whether an offer is serious.

How recovery is measured

What California law lets you recover

People usually call with a version of the same question: what is my case worth. It is a fair question and it deserves a truthful answer, which is that nobody can responsibly tell you a number early on. What can be explained, and what actually helps, is the structure. A claim is assembled from defined categories of loss, and each one is proved with different evidence.

Those categories divide roughly in two. Economic damages are the losses with a paper trail: medical bills, wages, replacement services, property. Non economic damages cover pain, suffering, disfigurement and the parts of life an injury takes away, and California sets no formula for them. In a narrow set of cases punitive damages may also be available, but only on clear and convincing proof of malice, oppression or fraud.

What moves a claim is not a demand letter but the completeness of the record behind it. Treatment that is documented and consistent, an accurate earnings picture, a physician’s opinion about what comes next, and in product cases an engineering analysis of why the item failed. Insurers price a claim by how well it would present to a jury, so building it properly is the same work as valuing it properly.

  • Past medical expenses

    The reasonable value of the treatment you have already received for the injury, from the first ambulance ride through surgery, hospitalization, imaging, medication and therapy. These are documented rather than estimated, which makes them the most concrete part of a claim.

    • Emergency transport, emergency department and trauma care
    • Surgery, hospital stays and follow up procedures
    • Imaging, laboratory work and specialist consultations
    • Prescription medication and medical equipment
    • Physical therapy, occupational therapy and rehabilitation

  • Future medical care

    The care you will reasonably need going forward. This is proved with medical opinion rather than receipts, and it is the category most often left on the table when a claim is settled before the treating picture is understood.

    • Additional or revision surgery
    • Long term therapy and pain management
    • Prosthetics, orthotics and durable medical equipment with replacement cycles
    • Home modification and attendant or in home care
    • Ongoing monitoring for burn, brain or spinal injuries

  • Lost earnings

    The income you did not receive because of the injury, including wages, salary, self employment income, tips, overtime and used sick or vacation time that you would otherwise have kept.

    • Wages lost during hospitalization and recovery
    • Missed shifts, overtime and contract work
    • Lost self employment and business income
    • Used paid leave, sick days and vacation time
    • Lost bonuses, commissions and benefit contributions

  • Lost earning capacity

    A separate and often larger category than lost earnings. It compensates the reduction in your ability to earn over your working life when an injury limits what work you can do, not merely the paychecks already missed.

    • Inability to return to a physically demanding trade
    • Reduced hours, duties or advancement because of a permanent limitation
    • A career path closed by a disabling injury
    • Retraining or education needed to work in a different field
    • The effect of injury on a young person before an earnings history exists

  • Pain and suffering

    The physical pain and mental suffering the injury caused and will continue to cause. California law does not fix these damages by formula, and no lawyer, insurer or website can tell you what they are worth for you. They are established through evidence about your specific experience.

    • Physical pain during treatment and recovery
    • Anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress following the event
    • Sleep disruption and chronic discomfort
    • Fear of recurrence, particularly after a fire, burn or crash
    • The daily burden of a permanent condition

  • Disfigurement and loss of enjoyment of life

    Compensation for visible scarring, amputation or disfigurement, and for the loss of activities and relationships that made up your life before the injury. Burn and crush injuries from defective products commonly implicate both.

    • Scarring, grafting and visible disfigurement
    • Amputation or loss of use of a limb
    • Inability to continue a sport, hobby or physical activity
    • Loss of participation in family and community life
    • Effects on intimacy and on the marital relationship

  • Property damage and out of pocket costs

    The tangible losses that accompany an injury and are easy to forget by the time a claim is presented. Keep receipts, because these are recoverable and they add up.

    • Vehicle repair, diminished value or total loss
    • The defective product itself and property it destroyed
    • Home or personal property damage from a fire
    • Travel, parking and lodging for medical treatment
    • Household help, childcare and services you could not perform

  • Punitive damages

    California Civil Code section 3294

    In limited circumstances California allows damages intended to punish rather than to compensate. Civil Code section 3294 permits them on clear and convincing proof of malice, oppression or fraud, which in product cases usually means evidence that a company knew of a danger and shipped anyway. They are never assumed, and they must be pleaded and proved.

    • Internal documents showing a known hazard was concealed
    • A decision to omit a warning that was recommended internally
    • Continued distribution after a pattern of injuries was reported
    • Falsified or withheld testing and certification
    • Conscious disregard of a regulator’s findings

  • Wrongful death damages

    California Code of Civil Procedure section 377.61

    When a defective product or an act of negligence causes a death, California allows specified surviving family members to recover their own losses. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.61 governs what may be recovered, and a separate survival action can be brought on behalf of the estate for losses the person suffered before death.

    • Funeral and burial expenses
    • The financial support the person would have contributed
    • The value of household services the person provided
    • Loss of the person’s love, companionship, comfort and guidance
    • The estate’s own claim for pre death losses in a survival action

No one can promise you a number

We do not publish settlement amounts, verdict figures, averages or estimated ranges on this site, and we will not quote you one before we understand your case. The value of a claim depends on the specific injuries, the medical evidence, the available insurance and assets, the strength of the liability proof and where the case is filed. Every case is different, past results never guarantee a similar outcome, and any lawyer who gives you a number in a first phone call is guessing. What we will do is explain which categories apply to you and what it would take to prove them.

No fee unless we recover compensation for you. In some matters a client may still be responsible for case costs and expenses, and we will explain exactly how that works before you decide to hire us.

Answers

Questions about compensation

Because at the start of a case anyone who does is guessing, and a guess sets an expectation that the evidence may not support. Value depends on the injuries and their permanence, the medical proof, the available insurance and assets, how clear the liability picture is and where the claim is filed. Once treatment and investigation give us a real basis, we will discuss value with you candidly.

Have your claim reviewed at no cost.

A conversation costs you nothing and there is no obligation. No fee unless we recover compensation for you. In some matters a client may still be responsible for case costs and expenses, and we will explain exactly how that works before you decide to hire us.

What compensation may be available

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