Personal Injury Damages and Ambulance Fees By Chanfrau & Chanfrau on October 14, 2017

If you or a member of your family has been seriously injured by someone else’s negligent or deliberately wrongful actions, it is important that you secure the legal representation of personal injury attorneys who are experienced and have a history of success in handling cases similar to yours. There are many reasons for this. One of the most important is that it requires a great deal of experience and skill to identify all of the potential damages to which an injured plaintiff is entitled. The failure to identify the full measure of these damages could lead to a plaintiff and his or her family struggling with overwhelming debts that they will have no means of paying in the future.

One of the medical expenses often overlooked in the aftermath of a serious accident is the cost of the ambulance used to transport an injured victim from the scene of the accident to the hospital. While this expense may be relatively minor compared to the cost of the hospital stay, any surgery that was performed, and other medical expenses, it is still a significant fee that should be accounted for in a lawsuit. The personal injury attorneys of Chanfrau & Chanfrau meticulously calculate all potential personal injury damages, including any and all ambulance fees, to ensure that no stone is unturned in terms of our clients’ ability to recover every cent of compensation to which they are entitled. Our Bunnell, FL area lawyers keep the best interests of their clients at heart throughout every stage of litigation.

Ambulance Fees and Special Damages

Ambulance fees fall under the umbrella of compensatory damages, meaning that they are awarded to compensate injured victims for an expense or loss related to the injuries they sustained as a result of an accident. Compensatory damages are the most common types of damages awarded in civil cases, as opposed to punitive damages, which are awarded primarily to punish defendants for egregious acts of negligence or wrongdoing.

Ambulance fees can further be subdivided into the category of special damages, in which the term “special” essentially means “specific.” Special damages are awarded to compensate injured victims for expenses that can be expressed in exact dollar amounts as evidenced through bills, invoices, and other concrete means. In general, medical expenses fall under the umbrella of special damages.

It is extremely important that all damages, including ambulance fees, be accounted for in your lawsuit as you have just one opportunity to ask for compensation for your losses and expenses, both current and future. If it turns out that you neglected to include certain losses and expenses in your lawsuit, and you incur costs that you did not anticipate in the future, you cannot return to the courts and ask for further damages. You get, to use an old legal metaphor, only one bite at the apple.

This is one of the reasons that your choice of personal injury lawyer is so important.