Hi, I’m Tony Castelli, a Cincinnati personal injury trial attorney.  My message today is what are the items of damage for a personal injury case.

If you’re injured, let’s say, in a car accident or a product liability case or you fall in a store as a result of the negligence of the store, what are the items of damages that you’re entitled to recover?  

Well, first of all, of course, the reasonable value of your medical care and treatment.  The second that we all talk about is your lost wages.  Most people know about those two items.

But it’s two other items that people seem to know about, or at least one of them, but they’re separate.  There's pain and suffering, of course, and you’ve heard that, and the other thing is a loss of enjoyment of life.  Those two items of damage are separate, and if you would go before a jury, there would be a separate line for the jury to put down loss of enjoyment of life.  In other words, what is that you like to do in your spare time or with your family?  Do you like to go hiking?  Do you like to play golf?  Do you like to bowl?  Do you like to play softball?  Is it hard for you or you can't go to church like you used to?

Those are your activities separate and apart from an award for pain and suffering.  So those are the four primary items we look at, when we evaluate a case.  And we look, of course, at what has happened in the past and then we also have to make a determination what is reasonably certain to occur in the future and you're entitled for past and future damages.  

A fifth item would be disfigurement.  If you had some type of scarring, you would be entitled to get a recovery for that, also.

So those are the most common items of damage in your personal case, and that's how a good personal injury lawyer looks and calculates what your case is worth by determining those items of damage.  

Thank you very much for listening.  Have a great day.