In personal injury law, compensation often involves tangible costs like medical expenses or lost income. But there’s another type of damage called non-economic damages. These are hard to measure and go beyond just pain and suffering.
Understanding non-economic damages is about recognizing their impact on a person’s life in ways that can’t be measured in money yet are equally important.
What are these non-economic damages, and how do they play a part in personal injury lawsuits? Let’s find out.
What Exactly Are Non-Economic Damages?
When you get hurt, you can suffer damages that are not about money. These damages are things you can’t show with a receipt but have a big impact on your life.
For example, losing your job affects your money, while losing your peace of mind affects your well-being. Non-economic damages include things like emotional suffering, physical pain, and the overall lowering of your quality of life.
These damages acknowledge that while you can recover financially, some hurts go much deeper than the surface.
Pain and Suffering
If you’ve been in an accident, the pain and suffering you go through can be a significant part of your legal claim. This includes the immediate discomfort caused by the injury and the ongoing physical unease you may experience for months or even years.
It’s difficult to measure exactly how much pain an individual is feeling because it can vary from person to person. This makes it complex to determine its legal value. However, if you are dealing with chronic pain daily, that should be acknowledged.
Emotional Distress
When someone gets hurt, it can have more than just physical effects. It can also cause emotional suffering. This means feeling things like anxiety, depression, or even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
For example, if you are in a car accident, you might become scared to get into a car again. This kind of emotional suffering can have a big impact on your daily life, even if you can’t see it.
Loss of Enjoyment of Life
Loss of enjoyment of life is an often overlooked but equally important aspect. After an injury, you may no longer be able to do activities that used to bring you joy, like playing sports, hiking, or dancing.
The legal system recognizes this as a genuine loss, even though it’s difficult to determine its exact value.
Loss of Consortium
Injuries don’t only affect the person who got hurt, they can also impact their family and loved ones.
Loss of consortium refers to the harm to relationships, especially marriage, due to an injury. It may lead to a reduced ability to provide emotional or physical support to a spouse, straining the relationship.
If the injured person can no longer do the household activities they used to take on previously, it can strain everyone. In such cases, the non-injured spouse may be able to claim loss of consortium because their life has also been significantly affected.
How Are Non-Economic Damages Calculated?
Well, unlike calculating medical expenses or lost income, there isn’t a specific formula for determining the worth of your pain and suffering. Different courts use different methods.
Some courts will multiply your financial damages (such as medical expenses) by a specific factor based on the severity of your pain and suffering. Others may assign a daily value to your suffering and assess the damages considering the duration of your distress and how long it is expected to continue.
Since each case is unique, there isn’t really an exact answer. This is where a skilled personal injury attorney can be invaluable. They will advocate for your non-economic damages to be thoroughly evaluated and justly compensated.
Why Non-Economic Damages Matter
Why consider non-economic damages when dealing with intangible numbers? Because injuries affect more than just your finances. Non-economic damages are important because they recognize that your life can be changed in ways that money alone can’t fix.
While a sum of money can cover your medical bills, what about the sleepless nights, the constant pain, or the experiences you miss out on due to your injury? These damages may be hard to measure, but they are equally important and deserve compensation.
