If someone beats you intentionally, you can lodge an intentional tort against the attacker and recover personal injury damages. However, recovering battery damages against your attacker may not be as straightforward as recovering damages in other forms of injuries. Below are some of the tips you can use to ensure that you can actually recover your battery damages.

Confirm Assets of Perpetrator

The first thing you should know is that liability coverage rarely pays for intentional acts. Assault and battery is an intentional act, so the perpetrator's liability coverage is unlikely to compensate for your damages. Thus, you should confirm that your attacker has other means of paying your damages should you prevail with your lawsuit.

This means the defendant should have some personal assets that the court can garnish to pay your damages. Examples include cash in the bank, an adequate salary, and other assets with suitable monetary value. Without such assets, it would be futile to lodge a lawsuit against the attacker since you would have no way of collecting your judgment even if you won.

Look Beyond the Perpetrator

It may be possible that the actual attacker is not the only one responsible for your attacks. If you can find a party whose negligence contributed to the attacks, then pursuing a negligence claim against that party would make sense. This is because the negligent party's insurance company would pay for your damages if your lawsuit prevailed.

Consider an example where you are attacked by a robber in a dark parking lot of a popular shopping mall. In such a case, you can pursue a negligence claim against the shopping mall in addition to an intentional tort against your attacker (if you succeed in identifying the attacker). You can base your claim against the shopping mall on premises liability, specifically inadequate security and lighting. That way, you can get your compensation even if the thug who attacked you doesn't have adequate assets.

Use Criminal Suit as Evidence

Lastly, if the authorities succeed in netting the attacker, then you can use the criminal case as evidence in your personal injury lawsuit. Moreover, criminal cases tend to run faster than comparable civil lawsuits. This means you may be able to get the evidence by the time your personal injury hearing comes around.

As you can see, you have your work cut out for you if you are pursuing battery damages. Consult a personal injury attorney to help you with the process and increase your chances of recovery.