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Yes. When an injury leaves a person with a permanent disability, a Maryland personal injury claim can include the cost of changing a home or a vehicle so that person can live and travel safely. Ramps, accessible bathrooms, stairlifts, wider doorways, hand controls, and wheelchair-accessible vans all carry a price. The claim has to prove that each change is needed because of the injury and what it will cost over a lifetime. A Maryland catastrophic injury attorney builds that proof with medical and rehabilitation experts and presents it to the insurer or a jury.
Home and Vehicle Changes a Claim Can Include
A permanent disability can change how a person gets through the front door, into the shower, and to a doctor’s appointment. The changes that follow are expensive, and each one can become part of the claim when the injury makes it necessary. Common examples include:
- Wheelchair ramps at entrances, porches, and garages
- Bathroom remodeling, such as a roll-in shower and a sink a wheelchair user can reach
- Stairlifts or platform lifts for homes with more than one level
- Widened doorways and hallways so a wheelchair can pass
- Hand controls, swivel seats, and wheelchair lifts for a vehicle
- A new van or other vehicle fitted with adaptive equipment
Each item needs a price and a reason. Spinal cord injury and paralysis claims raise these costs, and so do claims after an amputation or a severe burn injury.
A ramp shows how large these projects get. Federal accessibility standards for businesses and public facilities allow a ramp to rise no more than 1 inch for every 12 inches of length. Under that standard, a front door 24 inches above the ground needs a ramp at least 24 feet long, plus level landings at the top and bottom. The same standards call for a ramp at least 36 inches wide and limit each run to a 30-inch rise.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that hand controls cost under $1,000, while a new vehicle modified with adaptive equipment costs anywhere from $20,000 to $80,000. A lifetime plan also has to price the equipment again when a vehicle wears out and is replaced.
What Proof Makes These Costs Recoverable
An insurance adjuster will ask two questions about every modification: Did the injury cause the need, and will the need last? The answers come from medical records. The strongest claims connect each change to a specific limitation that a doctor or therapist has documented.
A physician can confirm that a patient cannot climb stairs. An occupational therapist can explain why a standard bathtub is unsafe. A driver rehabilitation specialist can test strength, range of motion, and reaction time, then list the vehicle changes the person needs. NHTSA warns that a driving evaluation done too soon after an injury can show a need for equipment the person will not need later. Timing matters for that reason. Some changes can wait until the person’s condition is stable, while others, such as a ramp to leave the house, are needed the day the person comes home from the hospital.
Receipts and contractor estimates prove what the changes cost. Photographs of the home before and after the work show a jury why each change was necessary.
How a Life Care Plan Puts a Price on Future Needs
Some home and vehicle costs come due years after the injury, such as a replacement van or the same changes made again in a new home. A life care plan is a written estimate of every future need and its cost, prepared by a rehabilitation professional who works from the medical records.
A Maryland case shows how this works in court. In a lawsuit filed in Prince George’s County, a 4-year-old girl had been left paraplegic when a trash bin at her apartment complex fell on her. A certified rehabilitation counselor prepared a life care plan that estimated her future needs, including housing and transportation. The defendants argued that the counselor was not a physician. Maryland’s intermediate appellate court upheld the trial judge’s decision to admit her opinions and found them supported by medical evidence where that support was required.
The jury in that case awarded $10,965,085 for future medical expenses. The court described that figure as the present cash value of her future medical needs, which her evidence placed at just over $101.7 million in total. A present cash value is a smaller sum paid now to cover costs that come due over many years.
How Maryland Law Treats These Damages
Maryland requires the jury, or the judge in a trial without a jury, to break an injury award into six categories: past medical expenses, future medical expenses, past lost earnings, future lost earnings, noneconomic damages, and other damages. That itemization shows how much of an award is meant for future care.
Maryland caps noneconomic damages, and medical malpractice claims follow a separate law. The general cap covers pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of consortium, and other nonpecuniary injury, meaning harm that has no price tag. A ramp, a stairlift, and a van conversion each come with an invoice, so their costs are not noneconomic damages and the cap does not limit them.
A judge can order the future medical and earnings portion of an award paid over time through an annuity or periodic payments instead of in one lump sum. The judge decides whether to do so, and the defendant or its insurer must then provide security for the payments.
Contributory Fault and Deadlines Are Strict
Two rules can end a Maryland personal injury claim before anyone asks what it is worth.
Maryland generally allows three years from the date a claim accrues to file a lawsuit, unless another law sets a different deadline. “Accrues” is the date the law treats the claim as having started. For most personal injury claims, that is the day you were injured. In wrongful death cases, it is the date the victim died. A child usually has until three years after turning 18 to file their own claim. A claim against a Maryland state or local government usually requires a written notice or claim within one year of the injury.
Maryland also follows contributory negligence. An injured person whose carelessness helped cause the injury can be barred from recovering anything, however small that share of the blame. Defendants have every reason to raise that defense, and we answer it with evidence.
Talk With McGowan & Cecil About Your Future Needs
We work with medical and rehabilitation experts to price every ramp, lift, and vehicle change your injury requires over your lifetime. Our attorneys bring over 120 years of combined experience, and every client works with real attorneys and real paralegals. You pay no attorney fee unless we recover money for you. Contact our Laurel office for a free consultation. Se habla español.