Suppose you’re involved in a car, motorcycle, or bicycle accident and incur injuries. In that case, you can pursue legal action to recover losses incurred from not being able to execute certain household chores as before.
The CACI 3903E classifies this as “loss of the ability to provide household chores,” including sweeping, cleaning, washing dishes, doing laundry, and cooking. It also includes any other services you’d typically perform but can’t, given the injury.
So what resources can you effectively use to prove your case and quantify your losses? Read on for more information.
Prove That You’re Unable to Execute Household Chores Because of Your Personal Injury
To get adequate recovery for your personal injury, you must prove that your inability to do household chores is a result of your personal injury. You should demonstrate a reasonable value of services you’d otherwise offer your family if you weren’t involved in a motorcycle catastrophe.
To do this, provide your attorney with a list of household chores you’d typically perform before the injury, indicating how often you did them. Some activities (like disposing of trash) might be worth little, but they still offer value. Therefore, keep them on your list.
Next, highlight the activities you could not carry out due to the accident, showing how long you’ve been unable to do them and the extent to which you can perform them now (if at all). By doing this, you can effectively prove your losses and seek adequate recovery.
Quantify the Number of Household Chores You Are Unable to Do Because of Your Personal Injury
Sometimes your injuries are so severe that you’ll abandon your household chores altogether. In that case, you can prove the value of not being able to execute your activities in two ways.
One way is to seek input from an expert regarding the typical cost of each task you cannot do. Hiring an expert can be costly and is only advisable for unique or professional chores. Moreover, its a much better method if your case is nearing success (close to trial).
Conversely, you can hire someone to execute your household chores, pay them, and retain the receipts. However, remember to keep your loss and damages as reasonable as possible. Therefore, check the average going rate for the respective household activity and hire someone within those brackets.
Moreover, let them tackle the same quantity of work you did, working in the exact frequency. That way, you can claim reasonable household losses and avoid obstacles in your lawsuit.
Sometimes you may be unable to hire a replacement service, given your financial state. That means you may not have receipts to show. However, the public policy rationale expects you to cut expenditures when injured. That may suggest letting a family member, friend, or colleague do household chores on your behalf. In that case, you’re still entitled to recovery of the household chores you couldn’t do following the injury.
You can seek legal compensation if you have a personal injury that keeps you from performing subsequent household chores effectively. When working with a personal injury attorney, ensure they track any household chores or daily activities you had to limit or stop doing so they seek adequate recovery from those losses.
