text: what losses can i claim if i sue someone? an ongoing legal case has caused me to lose my business and income for the past 18 months, i am going to win my case as the other side has backed down, so can i claim for my loss of earnings plus my loss of savings as i have used them to live on, how do i put a value on my business and the potential growth it would have had over the past 18 months? you can claim for consequential losses, but you have a duty to mitigate your losses, so only those directly and consequentially which are forseeable as a direct result of any incident. 18 months is way to long to claim, at the most losses like 3 months or reasonable in the circumstances, if you could see losses happening, the law states that you have a duty to mitigate.  i will give you an example, if someone crashes into your car, and renders it undrivable, the insurance company will pay your reasonable costs for travel, but if you hire a limo for the time you car is out, thats not reasonable, as you are not mitigating your losses.  give it a shot, a lawyer who tells you go ahead and claim is only interested in fleecing you.  secondly, you should try and get insurance, for costs, if the other side backs down, its doesn't mean you won, its means you settled, and trust me they won't pay your 18 month losses.