If you’re involved in a car accident, injured in a slip and fall, or hurt in some other way as a result of the negligence of another, chances are you have had to miss time from work.  Your personal injuries may have made you miss time from work because you were injured and needed time to recover, or because you were required to attend hospital appointments. Regardless of which of these reasons it is, one thing we routinely hear from prospective personal injury clients in Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, and Long Beach is, “I can’t afford to miss out on time from work, can I get that money back?”  The answer to this question depends on several factors, some laws including the California Civil Jury Instructions (or “CACI” for short) can serve as a guide.

California Civil Jury Instruction No. 3903C, specifically lays out what is required to recover past lost wages.  CACI 3903C states, “[T]o recover damages for past lost earnings, the Plaintiff must prove the amount of income that he/she has lost to date.”

How a person injured in a car accident proves the amount of income they lost varies from case to case.  In some instances, it may be enough to procure a letter from your employers’ human resources department setting out your hourly wage and the number of hours missed from work as a result of your injuries.  In other cases, often for self-employed individuals, it may be a more complicated situation where an expert comes into detail how your injuries affected the income you would have ordinarily received as opposed to that which you received.  In short, each case of lost wages is something that should be discussed and determined with the aid of an attorney.

Therefore, if you have been injured in a car accident, slip and fall, or some other personal injury case and need to figure out how to prove and recover your lost wages, consult one of our personal injury attorneys as soon as possible!
