Claiming Non-Economic Damages in a Personal Injury Case: Why is It So Difficult?

If you get hurt in a truck collision, bike accident, or any other type of accident, you might be compensated for the injuries and losses you sustained. You may think that this only involves compensation for property damage and medical bills, but one can also get compensation for something known as non-economic damages, the intangible losses one has sustained.

Determining how much your personal injury claim is worth is usually more complicated than most people tend to think. Rarely does one find themselves thinking about what a personal injury claim’s value could be until either a family member or they themselves get injured in an accident. Experienced personal injury attorneys know how to calculate the value of your legal claim, including non-economic damages.

Damages in Personal Injury Claims

In personal injury cases, you need to be able to prove you’ve suffered damages. You’ll typically need to prove that the party responsible for the incident was negligent if you want to get a favorable outcome.

You’ll need to understand four elements when proving negligence.

• You were owed a duty of care by the defendant. In most instances, the defendant is meant to act in a reasonable way.
• There was a breach of duty of care by the defendant. You’ll most likely need to show that the incident was due to the defendant’s unreasonable actions.
• Causation. You must show that your injuries were caused by the defendant’s actions.
• You suffered damages. This includes emotional and physical injuries, like pain and suffering.

You’ll need to prove all four elements by using evidence. This means that you must prove that your legal claim against the party at fault is more true than false. Damages are a vital part of any personal injury case, so it’s crucial that you show evidence of how severe your damages may be.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are the psychological or emotional consequences that come with the injuries or damages. These include pain and suffering, mental anguish, disability, scarring and disfigurement, and a reduced quality of life.

These damages are tougher to estimate compared to their economic counterparts because they are not linked to a financial transaction. A skilled and experienced personal injury attorney can help you evaluate how much your non-economic damages are worth.

There are many different things that can influence the value of your case, some of which include, how severe your injuries are, the incident’s circumstances, total medical expenses, insurance policy limits, expected future consequences, the impact the injuries will have on one’s quality of life, etc.

Calculating non-economic damages isn’t as straightforward as calculating economic damages. Your lawyer might depend on one of the two options below to quantify the damages.

• The Daily Rate or Per Diem Method: Your lawyer might recommend you claim a daily value for each day you take to recover from the injuries. You’d then multiply this daily value by how many days you took to recover.
• The Multiplier Method: Your lawyer might suggest estimating the non-economic damages as multiples of the economic damages, like three times the economic damages.

The injured party needs to be able to describe their hurt from their perspective, including how the injuries or damages have impacted their emotional, mental, and physical state, as well as any effects they had on both work and personal life.

The jury and judge in the case need to know how serious the injuries or damages are in order in order to award adequate compensation. So it is important for the injured party to be able to clearly describe how their life was prior to the accident.

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Interesting Related Article: “The Benefits of Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer“