Colorado Bodily Injury Lawyer
Within Personal Injury law, there are different categories of damages that you can recover including non-economic and economic and for past, present, and future conditions. Within these categories of damages, underneath the economic recovery would be bodily injury.
Bodily injury is used as a label to distinguish between property damages. In some cases, like a in a car accident, there may be both property damage (to a vehicle) and bodily injury, as in harm to one’s person. C.R.S. § 13-21-124 defines bodily injury as “any physical injury that results in severe bruising, muscle tears, or skin lacerations requiring professional medical treatment or any physical injury that requires corrective or cosmetic surgery.”
The reason why bodily injury would fall under economic damages is that there are medical bills and even potentially further complications. For instance, being hurt in an accident and having a knee that has been impacted by trauma at some point in your life may make you more likely to get seriously hurt years down the road if you fall as an older person. Beyond that, a scar can be bodily injury because it is a permanent reminder of the event that injured you. Although there may not be an obvious cost associated with the scar, the non-economic damages would be determined by the jury in a trial setting.
Serious Bodily Injury in Colorado
While Colorado defines what bodily injury entails, it also distinguishes between bodily injury and severe bodily injury. Under C.R.S. § 42-4-1601(4)(b), severe bodily injury is marked by a substantial risk of death, of serious permanent physical disfigurement, of loss or impairment of any part of the body, or includes second and third-degree burns or broken bones. Serious bodily injury, because of the nature of the injuries sustained, will likely result in more money awarded in a trial or settlement.
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