Filing a personal injury lawsuit can be an excellent way of securing the compensation that you deserve. However, filing a lawsuit isn't as easy as it might seem, and this is only compounded by the fact that every state has different laws that you will need to think about. For instance, if you are filing in Colorado, here are some questions that you should consider:

How much time do you have to file?

In Colorado, you usually need to file your lawsuit within 2 years of the accident, or else it will probably get dismissed. You don't want all of your evidence to go to waste just because you missed the deadline by a couple of days, so you should immediately check to see how much time you have left.

However, this window does increase to 3 years if you were injured in an accident involving cars.

What do the different types of damages mean?

There are two types of compensatory damages that you can ask for: economic and non-economic damages.

Economic damages are pretty simple, and refer to all sorts of financial hardships that you have gone through as a result of your injury. If you needed to pay for car repairs or medical bills, or if you simply lost wages due to being unable to work, then you can sue for those exact dollar amounts. These damages are essentially unrestricted by law, since they are intrinisically tied to objective valuations.

Non-economic damages are a lot more subjective, since they refer to stuff like pain and suffering, which is not clearly associated with a dollar amount. You might think that your pain and suffering is worth $1,000 or $1,000,000, and there isn't really any way to prove either is true.

Non-economic damages are limited, but the limit can vary from situation to situation. It's best to talk to a lawyer before you calculate how much damages you can actually expect to win, since the circumstances in your case can dictate the size of your compensation cap.

What happens if you were partially to blame for your injury?

Like many states, Colorado says that if you were partially to blame for your injury, then your compensation will be reduced proportionately. If the other party can prove that you were 20% responsible for your accident, then you might only get 80% of the compensation that you want.

However, there is one thing that you do need to keep in mind, and that is that if the other party can prove that you were more than 50% responsible for the injury, you will win absolutely no money whatsoever.

If you believe that the other party might be able to prove such a thing, you should talk to a lawyer to try and figure out what your best course of action is.

For an auto accident lawyer, contact a company such as Zavodnick, Perlmutter & Boccia LLC.