Pain & Suffering Damages in a Personal Injury Claim

How Pain and Suffering Damages in a Lawsuit Work

Pain and suffering is the term used to describe the combination of physical pain and emotional anguish that follows a personal injury.

The effects of any injury can go far beyond the immediate damage, affecting the quality of life, social standing, and occupational opportunities of the injured party.

Damages of this type exist within the law to allow an injured party to seek recovery for all the results of an injury, not just the immediate ones.

Pain and suffering damages are most often part of personal injury lawsuits against negligent parties or against insurance companies that are not meeting their contractual obligations to cover care.

The purpose of claiming personal injury damages is to recover an amount that will compensate you, the plaintiff, for the intagible losses suffered outside of your medical bills and property losses.

In this guide, we cover how to determine if you are eligible to claim damages for the pain and suffering that you've experienced.

If you have questions about a case, contact the personal injury lawyers at Lawsuit Legal to discuss the specific details of your case to learn your legal options for compensation.

First, a look at the accidents most often associated with pain and suffering cases…

 

 

Is Your Case Eligible?
Accidents that are likely to involve Pain and Suffering Damages

Your likelihood for recovery for the pain and suffering you’ve experienced may depend on the type of personal injury case that you are pursuing. Personal injury cases related to the following incidents are more likely than some others to involve these damages:

Vehicular Accidents
Whether it involves a car, truck, or motorbike, vehicular accidents can be catastrophic. If you have been injured in a car accident, you may be looking at the potential of many long-term injuries, including those that involve the spine, skeletal system, or nerves. Recovering from these accidents can take months or years and permanently diminish professional prospects.

Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice can easily be deadly, but when it’s not, it can result in long-term damage to the body and mind. Improper or improperly performed procedures can result in organ damage, permanent loss of function, penalization, and even death.

Defective Products & Unsafe Properties
Defective products are capable of not only causing injury themselves but of creating situations where injuries are likely when they don’t work as advertised. Manufacturing safety products, such as railings, pressure valves, and fire control equipment, for example, can cause catastrophic injuries when simply failing to operate at all. This is not a complete list of cases where pain and suffering may be a factor.

 

 

 

These are all considered non-economic damages, a difference that will be explained in more detail in the following section.

When juries award pain and suffering damages, the amount awarded may depend on the presence or severity of one of these factors or a combination of them.

 

What are Considered Factors in Pain and Suffering Claims?

• The severity of your injuries and anguish suffered
• How much pain, inconvenience, and other discomfort results from the injuries
• The impact of your injuries on your life
• The impact of the injuries on your social status and relationships
• The impact of the injuries on your career prospects
• The time it is expected to take for the injuries to heal
• The necessity of ongoing therapy or psychological care
• The necessity of care in the future, including prescriptions, future operations

 

Here are some of the more detailed examples of injuries, conditions, and painful obligations that may be considered answerable with a claim:

Medical procedures and recovery:    Even medical treatments that are successful can be painful to go through. For example, physical therapy requires pushing past the pain to rebuild flexibility for possibly months or years on end. The amount of pain you experience may be calculated into your award.

Long-term or permanent pain:    Not all medical conditions can be fully healed. Some may have to be treated with pain medication for the rest of your life. You may be able to claim damages based not only on the pain you’ve experienced but on the cost you must now be expected to pay to manage your pain.

Injury that results in occupational impairment:    Not all career paths are possible again after an injury. Professional athletes, drivers and anyone who relies on vision, reflexes or standing physical labor may permanently lose the possibility for career advancement after an injury. The loss of professional capacity can be considered a factor in the award.

Post-accident trauma (PTSD):    Mental anguish can take many forms. PTSD is one example of a long-term condition that happens commonly in accidents and may affect the mental health of plaintiffs for as long as their entire lives. The need for long-term therapy and the related expenses can be used as a factor in valuing awards.

Social isolation:    As a result of an injury, someone can be left isolated from their network of friends and professional connections. This can happen because the combination of medical recovery and prescription side effects can make socializing properly impossible. When this results in depression, alienation, or even a loss of social status, it may become a factor in the award.

Lack of consortium and other injuries that affect quality of life:    Some injuries that seriously inhibit quality of life may be considered a factor in awards. Injuries that result in an inability to have sex can be devastating to existing marriages or other relationships and may be factored more heavily as a result.

While it’s one thing to make these claims of damage, it’s another thing to manage to win the case so that the award can be assigned.

 

In cases where you are suing someone else, the insurance companies may not be the defendants themselves but may be partly or fully responsible for paying out the awarded damages.

They will aggressively fight injury suits they believe they can win, and try to pay out the lowest possible amount.

 

Claiming Damages against your own Insurance Company

Many insurance policies provide coverage for pain and suffering in addition to basic accident coverage, but they may have strict guidelines for the payout of these claims. The amount they offer you when you are injured may be far under what your claim is worth. They may try to limit your insurance payout to economic damages and then provide almost no value for the additional non-economic factors of your injuries.

In these cases, winning is a matter of proving that the insurance companies are legally obligated to pay out the claim that you are making. Evidence in these cases often involves contracts and the application of past cases.

 

Fighting for these Damages in Court

Pain and suffering damages frequently go before juries, and when juries are present, they usually have broad authority to decide the amount that will be awarded.

It’s a challenge in these types of cases that you must be forthright and even emotional about your injuries and how they affect you. No one wants to be considered a complainer, but if you understate the severity of your injuries, the jury is likely to take you at your word.

 

Your lawyer will help you prepare for testimony and help you understand in what ways the questions you’re asked will intrude on the personal.

If all goes well, your case will reach the stage where you’re awarded damages. These are calculated in several ways.

How Pain and Suffering Awards Are Calculated

The awards that are given out for claims of pain and suffering are based on two distinct types of damage, known as economic and un-economic damage.

These are added together and then multiplied by different numbers to reach the value of the final award.

 

Different Types of Damages

Economic: These damages can be calculated the most easily because they have accountable cash values associated with them. For example, the amount that you paid in medical bills or the dollar value of the wages you lost while injured would both be considered economic damages. Depending on the type of accident, this may also include associated property damage.

Non-Economic: Non-economic damages are those injuries like those discussed in the last section. They are considered to be injuries such as permanent pain and emotional anguish that may have a massive effect on a life but are hard to quantify into a dollar amount.

The dollar amounts of the award can be very difficult to figure out, but juries have several options to choose from when they need help making the decision.

 

Calculating Awards using the Most Common Methods

How Is Pain and Suffering Calculated

The final value of a pain and suffering award is usually calculated using the multiplier method, the per diem method, or one of several other methods at the court’s discretion.

Multiplier method: The multiplier method starts with economic measurements, such as the cost of accumulated and ongoing medical bills, and multiplies that amount to get a number that represents the amount owed for pain and suffering. Presented as an equation, it might look like this:

The value of the multiplier is a significant factor in the outcome of cases, and that number is typically decided based on severity. Light injuries will only result in a multiplier of 1.5 (the lowest), but for severe injuries, the medical bills can be multiplied by up to 5x.

Per Diem method: The per diem method attempts to calculate and then assign a dollar method to the amount of pain or discomfort that you experience on a daily basis. It effectively “pays” you for your pain and suffering you’re enduring as if the money was compensation for duties. More intense and frequent pain is usually treated with a higher daily dollar amount.

Other methods of calculation: The court is not obligated to prefer one method over another. In the case of a settlement, either party may come to an agreed figure by any means that they can both agree to. Sometimes, this is drawn from the rate of the doctor who will be providing the most care. Other times, the court may hire focus groups to offer a polled response on a fair amount.