Car Accident Pain And Suffering - Pain and suffering covers the physical and emotional damage a person experiences as a result of an injury. Unlike economic damages related to medical bills and property damage, pain and suffering is more subjective.
The consequences of an injury can be felt long after the accident occurred. Getting fair compensation plays a big role in getting your life back on track, but what determines a fair settlement if you've been affected in priceless ways, such as being unable to participate in your hobbies?
Car Accident Pain And Suffering
In these situations, the injured parties are awarded compensation for pain and suffering. No matter where you are in your lawsuit, looking at pain and suffering settlement examples can help put your expected settlement into perspective.
The Impact Of Injuries: What Is Pain And Suffering?
Pain and suffering is a term used to describe non-economic damages that people can claim for their physical and emotional injuries. Non-economic damages include effects of injury that are less tangible than clear costs.
Non-economic damages can be subjective because they are not tied to specific accounts like economic damages. See the table below for more information on their differences.
When filing a claim, you will not have to choose between claiming economic or non-economic damages. You can get both for the same injury, but you'll have to calculate each separately.
Pain and suffering fall into one of two categories: physical and emotional. Sometimes there is no clear line between the physical and emotional effects of an injury, so it is common for there to be overlap, such as physical impairment leading to loss of quality of life. In these cases, both should be prosecuted in lawsuits for pain and suffering.
Pain And Suffering Damages After Car Accident: What You Need To Know
Physical pain and suffering refers to how your injury affects you physically in addition to economic factors such as job loss. This may include:
Just because you're claiming the physical effects of an injury doesn't mean you can't also claim its emotional effects.
Emotional pain and suffering result from the effects of an injury on a person's mental health. Sometimes it may be related to a specific injury, other times it will be the result of surviving an incident. This may include:
These examples, along with those given as examples of physical pain and suffering, should not be considered exhaustive. If you have been injured in some other way that you believe deserves compensation, contact your personal injury attorney to find out if you are eligible for compensation.
Pain And Suffering Compensation For Atlanta Car Accidents
There are two approaches that insurance companies use to calculate what they consider to be the value of an injured person's pain and suffering.
The multiplier method works by adding up all the economic damages, such as medical bills and lost wages, related to the case and multiplying that number by a number between one and five. The multiplier is chosen based on various factors. In general, a multiplier of one is used for minor injuries and a multiplier of five is used for serious injuries. Insurance companies will almost always use a lower multiplier because they want to pay out as little as possible to the injured.
John was injured in a car accident. He needs surgery and is missing a month of work. His medical bills are up to $25,000 and his lost wages are $6,000. His total economic losses amount to $31,000.
One year after surgery, John still experiences mild pain that limits his physical movements, affecting his daily life. John's lawyer explains this with a multiplier of 5.
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John's attorney uses the $155,000 as a starting point to begin pain and suffering negotiations with the insurer.
The daily method is an alternative to the multiplication method in determining pain and suffering damages. This method is used much less often than the multiplication method. To do this, you assign a dollar value to each day you experienced pain and suffering after the accident.
Determining the appropriate daily dose is difficult. Sometimes this value is equal to your daily earnings before the accident. The insurance company will again come up with the lowest possible daily wage. Let's apply this method to the previous example to see how the results differ:
Since John was making $6,000 a month, that's about $300 a day at work. If he experienced pain and suffering a year after the accident, we would use 365 days as a multiplier:
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Both the multiplier method and the daily income method are starting points for the negotiation process. Figures derived from these methods should not be considered guarantees of what your final settlement will be. You should understand that every accident and injury is different and these differences can lead to very different solutions between injured victims.
Because pain and suffering are relatively subjective compared to other damages such as medical treatments, some states have statutes to prevent abuse. They do this by setting a cap on the total amount of damages for one person's pain and suffering.
Another factor that affects your pain and suffering settlement is the condition of your injury at the time of the settlement. Most claims will not be settled until your medical treatment is complete, so all parties will know the true extent of your injuries and their long-term impact on your life.
If you make a full recovery and return to work, you should expect less pain and suffering awards than if you live with a permanent disability.
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Documenting all the ways you have been limited physically and financially is a great place to start to help you deal with your pain and suffering. If your injury prevents you from going to work, make sure you have a doctor's note justifying your absence.
Keeping track of the days of work you've missed, the medical treatments you've received, and how your injury affects your daily life will make it easier to argue for fair damages.
Another way to ensure fair compensation is to hire a good lawyer. A lawyer with experience in the field of personal data protection law will be able to:
The skills of a good lawyer can easily offset their fee by getting you a settlement higher than you could have negotiated on your own.
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After an accident, I always recommend that clients keep a journal of their experience. In the diary, the accident victim should write down how he feels physically, mentally and emotionally. They should also document things like days they miss work, days their work is limited because of injuries, or when they can't participate in an activity with their friends or loved ones because of their injuries. When we sit down with our clients to prepare their insurance claim, we can review their diary and get a more complete picture of the real ways the accident affected the client's life.
Pain and suffering are intended to help injured persons recover in areas of their lives not covered by economic damages.
Use these pain and suffering settlement examples to guide your claim for damages so you can get the payment you're entitled to.
Some states set limits on the pain and suffering awards a person can receive. Even in states that have this cap, it may only apply to specific cases, such as injuries caused by medical malpractice.
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If the injury requires surgery, you are more likely to receive a larger payout. This is because you have greater economic damages and possibly greater non-economic damages. More damages mean a higher settlement, provided the defendant has sufficient insurance.
Luke is a warm-hearted and highly skilled legal operations professional with an impressive 8 years experience in the personal injury field. As she leads client operations at , she is dedicated to providing exceptional support, transparent communication and genuine empathy to clients throughout their challenging journey. His expertise in streamlining processes and implementing cutting-edge technology makes him an indispensable ally for clients, case managers and attorneys in their pursuit of justice. . However, the average person may not understand the legal definition of "pain and suffering"...or how to pay for it.
Refers to non-economic costs associated with a case of personal injury. Unlike medical services or lost wages, there is no clear monetary value. But victims deserve something to make up for what they've been through, especially if it's caused by the negligence of another driver.
The economic cost of personal injury in a traffic accident is easy to understand. Many things needed to treat an injured person can be calculated on the penny: emergency care, medical bills, surgery, medications, stitches, physical therapy, etc. The at-fault driver's insurance company will usually have no problem reimbursing these costs as long as the injuries are a direct result of the accident
Average Settlement From Minor Injuries From A Car Accident
But what if the victim experiences pain and discomfort during the healing process? Or what if they suffer long-term effects
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