Care costs after personal injury and family care services

After a personal injury, the costs are often not limited to medical treatment. A person may temporarily or permanently need help with washing, dressing, getting up, cooking or household tasks. Relatives frequently provide this support. The absence of an invoice from a professional care service does not automatically exclude recovery.

Care costs after an accident or other bodily injury must be connected to the injury in fact and in time. The relevant questions include the concrete need, the services actually provided, their duration and the available evidence. It also matters who provided the care and which loss is being claimed.

Section 1325 ABGB addresses the consequences of bodily injury, including necessary treatment costs. The Austrian Supreme Court has repeatedly held that family assistance does not simply release the tortfeasor. This article explains how to record care provided by relatives and distinguish it from other heads of loss.

Section 1325 ABGB requires the tortfeasor to cover, in particular, the treatment costs caused by bodily injury. Costs arising from an injury-related need for care and assistance may also be relevant. This is not limited to hospital care or paid professional services. Necessary help at home can matter as well.

The key question is not whether a family normally helps one another. The question is which additional services became necessary because of the harmful event. Help with getting up, personal hygiene or transfers must be distinguished from unchanged everyday support that existed before the injury.

The topic page on personal injury and treatment costs explains the medical and financial consequences. The overview on evidence, negotiation and limitation helps structure the evidence chain.

Relatives often do not ask for immediate payment. That does not necessarily mean that the tortfeasor should benefit from their work. The OGH has consistently stated that services provided by third parties because of family obligations do not generally relieve the tortfeasor when they meet injury-related additional needs.

The claim still requires a precise account of the economic allocation of the service and of the head of loss being claimed. The injured person can describe the need and the assistance that became necessary. The carer can give evidence about the actual tasks and the period involved.

A claim cannot be established merely by saying that a family member helped. There must be an injury-related need, services that were actually necessary and a comprehensible assessment. The family relationship is relevant to the context, but it does not replace the factual evidence.

Personal care may include help with hygiene, dressing, eating, using the toilet, positioning, transfers and medication organisation, where the specific assistance was necessary. Household help may include shopping, cooking, cleaning or laundry if the injured person could no longer perform these tasks because of the injury.

Not every hour of presence is a compensable care hour. Visits, general affection and ordinary family closeness must be distinguished from concrete care and support. It must also be considered whether the person would have needed help anyway or whether the additional effort began only after the event.

The OGH has recognised care provided in the family home and accepted that its amount may be estimated under section 273 ZPO where an exact minute-by-minute calculation is impossible. That does not make documentation unnecessary. It shows that missing invoices do not automatically end the assessment.

The injured person, the relative providing care and any professional service must be kept separate in the assessment. The injured person can establish the need and the resulting loss. The relative often supplies the most direct evidence about the tasks and their duration.

In special situations, the loss of care that the injured person previously provided to another person may raise a separate issue. The OGH has considered claims concerning care that an injured person could no longer provide to dependent parents because of an accident. Sufficient factors linking the loss to the tortfeasor are required. This is different from care provided to the injured person.

If several relatives help, use one shared schedule. It should avoid double counting and show who performed which tasks on which days. Where professional and family care coexist, overlaps and the remaining need should be explained.

The amount is not determined by choosing an arbitrary hourly rate. The assessment may consider the nature and difficulty of the tasks, the necessary time, the duration, the required level of skill and the cost of comparable assistance. In suitable cases, the cost of unskilled or professional care may provide an orientation.

A flat monthly figure without an explanation is vulnerable to challenge. A schedule by day or week is more useful: morning assistance, transfers, attendance at treatment, household work and night-time support should be separated. Each item should fit the medical evidence and the actual course of recovery.

Care allowance may be factually connected with a claim for care costs. Its receipt, period and purpose should therefore be disclosed. The same concrete expense should not be compensated twice. The legal treatment depends on the services and any statutory transfer of claims.

Timely medical records, discharge reports, treatment plans and descriptions of daily restrictions are particularly important. They should show which movements or activities were impossible and for how long help was required. A diagnosis alone often does not answer these practical questions.

Keep a care diary as well. Record the date, carer, concrete activity, approximate duration and any special circumstances. Calendars, messages, journeys to treatment, confirmations by relatives and care allowance documents can support the schedule. The damage documents checklist helps organise the file.

Explain inconsistencies openly. If the need declined during recovery, include that development in the chronology. If one person was unavailable and another took over, the schedule should show it. A plausible and moderate record is stronger than a total reconstructed without a clear basis.

Care costs concern personal assistance and supervision. A household-management loss concerns the injured person’s inability to perform household work. Treatment costs concern medical care and necessary related expenses. These categories can overlap in practice, but the same hour should not be claimed twice.

Travel costs, aids, therapy and loss of earnings belong in their own categories. The damage documentation check connects events, documents and open questions. The limitation check provides initial orientation on timing.

The assessment may change if an injury becomes permanent, residential care is required or social-insurance benefits are involved. Record those developments with their dates and documents instead of placing everything retrospectively into one care-cost item.

First secure the medical records and prepare a chronology from the event until the assistance ended. Mark when the need began, changed and stopped. Record whether treatment, relapses or lasting consequences affected the level of assistance.

Then record every carer and every task. Do not write only “care”; describe the actual assistance. Separate personal care, supervision, household work and accompaniment. Add which professional support was paid for or refused.

For legal assessment, also collect accident records, insurance correspondence, care allowance decisions, invoices, medical reports and existing notes. A clear file allows the legal basis, amount, development over time and possible objections to be assessed together.

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