Recovering Lost Wages After a North Carolina Car Accident

Recovering lost wages after a North Carolina car accident includes steps such as proving your income, documenting your missed time from work, connecting your injuries to your lost income, and calculating your total losses. It can be a lot to handle, especially when you’re also dealing with serious injuries, missed paychecks, medical bills, and tremendous mental and emotional stress. A car accident lawyer may be able to relieve some of your burden.

Get medical care, and follow the treatment plan

In North Carolina, you may not be able to recover lost wages if you cannot link your injuries and missed work to the car accident. Separately, North Carolina’s strict contributory negligence rule can bar recovery if you share fault for the crash. Being even 1% at fault could mean not getting compensation.

Failing to follow medical advice could weaken your claim. Say you attend only one session of physical therapy for back pain, even though the pain continues. The insurance company could later say that you could’ve returned to work earlier if you had finished treatment.

Notify your employer, and record your missed time

It’s important to document your time away from work, including the exact hours and days you missed due to the car accident. Likewise, note if you had to change to shorter work hours or lighter work. Record if this time away meant you missed special projects, bonuses, commissions, promotions, or other potential losses.

Prove your income

Your personal injury lawyer can work with you to identify your earnings patterns pre-accident. Gather documents such as pay stubs, direct deposit records, W-2s, tax returns, and bonus records. It helps tremendously for your employer to verify your income, as well. An employer letter can confirm your job title and position, pay rate, average hours worked, your dates of missed work, and whether you missed opportunities, such as bonuses.

About 1.1 million small businesses operate in North Carolina. If you are self-employed, records to gather may include 1099s, profit and loss statements, invoices, and business tax records. In lieu of employer verification, you can use client records, contracts, and other types of business documents.

Show that the accident caused the lost wages

Part of recovering lost wages after a North Carolina car accident is following a chain that goes like this: car accident, injuries, medical restrictions, missed work, lost income. All these elements ideally would be present, and both medical and employment records can help.

As a simple example, suppose you were in a Charlotte car crash and sought prompt medical treatment. You were diagnosed with a back injury. Your doctor restricted you from lifting more than 10 pounds and told you not to work for four weeks. Your job duties require heavy lifting. You missed work and lost wages as a direct result of that collision and your injuries.

Calculate all wage-related losses

For full recovery of lost wages, your claim likely needs to include more than missed paychecks. Explore losses such as:

• Past lost wages, including income you lost while recovering
• Lost benefits, including sick leave and vacation days you had to use because of the accident, and retirement contributions that didn’t happen due to the accident
• Reduced earning capacity, which could apply if you can work only part-time or not at the same level as before
• Future income loss, which could require vocational expert assessment, economists’ opinions, and medical input

If you had an opportunity already set before the accident (a promotion scheduled to occur next month), this loss would go into future income loss. If your opportunity was likely to happen but not 100% confirmed, a good place for it would be in a reduced earning capacity. You still need evidence of this likely (but not confirmed) opportunity. Speculation won’t get you far.

For business or self-employment lost opportunities, you may need to put them in both lost business income and future earning capacity. For example, lost contracts and missed growth opportunities could fit in both.

Package the claim for the insurance company

At this stage, you should have medical records, medically recommended work restrictions, pay documentation, employer verification, calculations of total wage loss, and more for the insurance company. These records need to be complete and straightforward to support your lost wages recovery.

Handle insurance pushback and negotiate

The insurance company probably will have questions, especially given North Carolina’s harsh stance on liability. (Remember, if the insurer can make the case that you are even 1% liable, it’s possible you get nothing.) Car accident or personal injury lawyers can counteract insurance aggression. They can reinforce that you do not bear fault and that, yes, you were injured badly enough to miss work, you could not have returned to work sooner, your doctor was not overcautious, and your income records are clear.

Accept a settlement or file a lawsuit

Several intense rounds of negotiation may be necessary before the insurance company makes an acceptable offer. Be sure the offer is enough to truly cover your lost income and other losses, such as long-term medical bills and pain and suffering. After you accept the offer, you won’t be able to go back later for more damages.

If a settlement does not seem like it’s happening, your lawyer may have to file a lawsuit. You can still settle with the insurance company at any point, including during trial and even during jury deliberations (as long as the jury does not have a verdict). Expert witnesses can testify about the injuries limiting your ability to work and how various factors translate into lost income over time.

You can consult with a car accident lawyer in any of these stages, but the earlier, the better. For example, lawyers can help preserve evidence if they’re able to send evidence preservation letters for camera footage early on. They can also ensure you meet legal deadlines and don’t make mistakes, such as implying to the insurance company that you share fault in the crash.

Reach out to Price, Petho & Associates

Recovering lost wages after a North Carolina car accident can be tricky. Contact Price, Petho & Associates to discuss your case. We’re here to help.