Okay you've been in car or truck crash and it's obvious that your injuries are going to make work impossible for a while. What do you need to do receive compensation for lost wages or lost income earning opportunities?
The five basis things are the following:
1). Establish legal liability. This means in Maryland establishing the fact that the other driver or drivers were negligent and were a proximate cause of the crash that injured you. Sometimes this is obvious such as when you have been stopped at a traffic light for a substantial period waiting for a light to change and you get clobbered from behind and sometimes it is not such as when there is a disagreement as to who had the green light and who had the red light.
2). Establish that you weren't negligent. In Maryland there is a pernicious legal doctrine of contributory negligence which has been explored elsewhere on this website ad nauseum but essentially stands for the proposition that even where another driver was negligent and a proximate cause of an accident you need to prove you weren't negligent At All.
3). Obtain medical support that you have been injured as a result of another driver's negligence and that you can't perform your regular work. Typically this is done through a treating doctor, who provides a note saying that you couldn't work for a fixed period of time and documenting in their accompanying medical report why you can't. Perhaps your work involves heavy lifting and your back injury precludes that or you are concussed and drive for a living. There are many possibilities.
4). Document what your wage or income loss is in writing being specific on dates or hours lost and amounts of money lost. This often is easy when you work for a company that has an H.R. department that can author an official letter delineating this information but much harder when you are self-employed.
5). Make sure the wage loss claim jibes with the medical support documentation. If your doctor supports being off for three weeks you will get substantial pushback if you claim eight weeks. In court the extra five weeks may not reach the ears of the judge or jury.
There is plenty more and obviously consulting an experienced lawyer is the best approach take a listen to Allan Steinhorn at https://www.maryland-law.com/library/insurance-guru-allan-steinhorn-on-maryland-crash-coverage.cfmn to
