When you are involved in a car accident, you may suffer different kinds of losses, or “damages.” You can claim compensation for these damages – including pain and suffering, even though it’s a non-economic loss that does not directly impact your finances like lost wages or medical bills.
Pain and suffering are the physical and mental/emotional stresses you experience from an injury. It’s not the injury or medical damages associated with it, but the pain you feel and its consequences.
What are examples of pain and suffering?
The most obvious example is the physical pain you feel from the injury. Others include:
- Discomfort
- Loss of opportunities/ability
- Difficulty doing things you used to
- Nightmares/trouble sleeping
- Anxiety, depression or any other mental health issue you may develop
It will help to write down everything you feel after the accident. For instance, you can have a scale for the pain, perhaps 1-5, and then document your daily rate.
How is the damage calculated?
Since it’s non-financial damage, it can be challenging to quantify pain and suffering and put a price on it. Nonetheless, the legal field has formulas that help with this. The first one is the multiplier method, in which the value of the multiplier depends on the degree of pain and is then multiplied by economic damages. For example, on a scale of 1 to 5, permanent disability would probably be a 5. If your financial damages were $2,000, you can receive $10,000 in pain and suffering.
Another method is per diem compensation, which means “per day.” You will agree on the daily amount to be paid for the pain suffering, which will be multiplied by the number of days suffered.
You should obtain more information about pain and suffering compensation to get what you deserve. Experienced legal guidance can help.
