Lost Wages in Personal Injury Cases

Lost Wages in Personal Injury Cases

Lost Wages are Recoverable in Personal Injury Cases – Notwithstanding Salary or Vacation Days

Often victims in personal injury cases are unable to work at their trade or profession. Sometimes, a victim has vacation time or short-term disability benefits that pays the victim some, or all, of the income the victim would have earned, but for the accident.

The Virginia General Assembly has codified (passed a statute) which expressly states that evidence that a victim receives income from an entity other than the victim’s employer shall not be admissible as evidence in any trial. In addition, evidence of the lost wages claimed by a personal injury victim shall not be diminished because the victim was reimbursed by any other source. See Va. Code Section 8.01-35 “In any suit brought for personal injury or death, provable damages for loss of income due to such injury or death shall not be diminished because of reimbursement of income to the plaintiff or decedent from any other source, nor shall the fact of any such reimbursement be admitted into evidence.”

What this means to a personal injury victim is that all wages, salary, bonus or other compensation normally earned is recoverable in a personal injury lawsuit, even if the victim received reimbursement. So, if you are the victim of a personal injury accident and you are unable to work and lose wages, you can claim those wages, even if you received disability, vacation or other reimbursement. Contact the Paullin Law Firm (804) 432-7423 for help in your case.



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