On November 2 at 2:00 a.m. we turn back our clocks.
Benjamin Franklin suggested Daylight Saving Time as a way to save on candles. Since then many studies have confirmed its usefulness as a way to save energy. It also saves lives.
According to a 2007 RAND Corporation study, Daylight Saving Time “significantly reduces automobile crashes in the long run with an 8-11% fall in crashes involving pedestrians, and a 6-10% fall in crashes for vehicular occupants in the weeks after the spring shift to DST.
If only we could turn back the clock on some of the events of our clients’ lives. Of course, we can’t. But if you are injured through no fault of our own, the law may provide a right of monetary compensation. That’s where we, as personal injury lawyers, come into the picture. We can obtain compensation for your economic losses, such as lost time from work, medical care, and other costs. We can also recover money damages for your non-economic losses, such as disfigurement, loss of function, and emotional distress.
Yet every day as personal injury lawyers we are reminded that we can’t work miracles. Particularly in death cases, but also in some of the other, more serious claims we handle, the hardest part is not the struggle to obtain a verdict or settlement for our personal injury clients, but knowing that, no matter how satisfied we may feel about a result, we can never turn back the clock on our clients’ lives.
As personal injury lawyers, we must remind ourselves, and also sometimes our clients, that the settlement funds they receive are not meant to replace the lives that have been lost or those injuries that will not heal. If that is the goal we will never succeed. But compensation is the only way we have to try to bring back some normalcy to our clients’ lives. We’ve all heard it said that “time is money.” Surely, time may be money in many ways, but settlement money cannot turn back time. We wish we could do more, but we can’t.
