Unveiling the Types of Compensation Available in Degloving Injury Claims

If you don’t know what it is degloving probably doesn't sound too bad just looking at the word itself—after all how painful can it be to take off a pair of gloves? Unfortunately, this isn’t what a degloving injury actually is; this type of injury is severe and can even be life-threatening.

When the top layers of skin and tissue are stripped away it’s known as a degloving injury. This brings us to the types of available compensation for a degloving injury. Can you recover compensation? If so, what damages can you claim?

Proving Negligence in a Degloving Injury Claim

Before you can start thinking about recovering compensation it helps to know if you have an accident claim. This means proving negligence and yes it’s a requirement in Texas and pretty much every other state.

To prove negligence, you need to do a little more than point your finger at the defendant. You must meet the four key elements of negligence, duty of care, breach of duty, causation, and damages.

Duty of Care

Pretty much everyone owes someone a duty of care. This means acting in a way that doesn’t knowingly or unknowingly put others at risk. Motor vehicle drivers owe others on the road a duty of care. A shop owner owes its customers a duty of care. You get the general idea.

To show a duty of care, you must establish a relationship between you and the at-fault party. Sticking with the shop owner scenario. A business owner has a relationship with their customers.

Breach of Duty

A breach of duty occurs when someone’s actions place others at risk. A motor vehicle driver not following all traffic laws is breaching their duty of care. If a store owner fails to remove all hazards like spilled liquid on the floor, it can be seen as a breach of duty.

Essentially, any action or behavior that knowingly or unknowingly results in an accident can potentially be considered a breach of duty.

Causation

Proving this element of negligence is usually pretty easy, once you get through the first two. You must show that the defendant’s actions or behavior is the direct cause of your degloving accident.

A good tip is to use the ‘but for’ scenario. For example, The degloving injury wouldn’t have happened but for the defendant’s actions. In a car crash, the defendant’s inability to follow traffic laws is the accident’s cause.

Damages

To show this final element of negligence you must prove your damages like your degloving injury are directly caused by the accident. In other words, the accident is the only way your degloving injury would have occurred.

If you can show negligence, there’s a good chance your degloving injury claim can move forward. Now, it’s time to start calculating your damages.

Available Compensation in a Degloving Injury Claim

Proving negligence can be the toughest part of filing a degloving injury claim. Now it usually gets a little easier. You’re moving on to figuring out which damages you can list on your claim.

Technically, there are three types of recoverable damages but you can only list two. We’ll get into this in a bit.

Economic Damages

All degloving injury claims include economic damages. If you can’t list any economic damages, there’s probably no reason to file for compensation.

Your economic damages are tangible things like your medical expenses, property damage, and lost income. Your lost income may only include current earnings or also any future wages. The severity of your injuries plays a huge role in the type of economic damages you can list on your claim.

If your degloving injuries force you to miss work, this is considered lost current income. Since degloving injuries tend to require extensive long-term medical care, you’re probably going to miss at least a few days of work. Some degloving injuries are especially heinous. The injury can be life-threatening. If your injury prevents you from returning to the workforce in any capacity, your claim can also include lost future wages.

Your medical expenses are probably going to make up a huge portion of your claim so save every bill, receipt, and even prescription relating to your degloving injury. Property damage that occurs during the degloving accident can also go on your claim. However, the property damage must occur during the accident.

Non-Economic Damages

Don’t forget about any potential non-economic damages. These losses can help maximize your accident claim’s value. Not sure what non-economic damages are? These are things like your pain, suffering, mental anguish, and loss of life enjoyment to name a few.

Since your pain and suffering aren’t going to come with bills and receipts, calculating the value can be a little tricky. However, don’t put down your calculator. You’re still going to need it to figure out the value of your non-economic damages.

Working with your injury attorney, you can use either the per diem or multiplier method to come up with the estimated value of your non-economic damages. If you’re wondering if one method is better than the other, the answer is not really.

Both are accepted by insurance providers though it’s not a bad idea to use both formulas so this way. you’re ready with a counteroffer if the insurance provider rejects your initial one. Sometimes, doing so can help speed up the claim process by just a little bit.

Punitive Damages

Remember earlier how we mentioned you couldn’t just list one type of damage on an accident claim when trying to seek compensation? We’re referring to punitive damages. This type of damage can only be awarded by a judge or jury in a civil lawsuit. Punitive damages also aren’t a given. Not every degloving lawsuit results in a punitive damage award. You must show gross negligence is the direct cause of your degloving accident.

Recovering Compensation in a Degloving Accident

You should be able to recover compensation after a degloving accident. You’re probably going to need to prove negligence before you can start looking at potentially receiving compensation. While you can go through the claim process on your own, it’s rarely a great idea. Instead, let an experienced Houston accident attorney handle all of the legal details.