After a personal injury, you can calculate many types of losses. Losses include your medical bills, lost wages, future medical complications, and pain and suffering.
While most damages are easy to calculate with exact amounts, pain is more objective. Therefore, it is hard to calculate the compensation for the pain and suffering. In fact, the insurance company tries its best to discount it in compensation claims.
But can it really be discounted? No!
Pain and suffering sometimes go beyond just compensation. For example, people who have experienced a car accident might suffer for their whole life. In addition, they might experience mental trauma that prevents them from stepping in a car again.
Because pain and suffering cannot be calculated like other things, people often neglect them in their compensation claim calculation.
However, why should you? It is an important part of a compensation claim, and you should add it while filling a compensation claim lawsuit for personal injury.
This article will take you through the important things you need to know. This will help you accurately calculate pain and suffering damage.
What Constitutes Pain & Suffering?
Before moving to the calculator, it is important to consider what things can be considered to calculate pain and suffering.
Generally speaking, there are two parts to pain and suffering. The first is the physical pain and the mental anguish. The second is the emotional distress associated with personal injury.
The emotional distress might include:
- Anxiety.
- Sadness.
- Depression.
- Humiliation
- Insomnia.
- Despair
- Chronic pain.
Although the things mentioned above are not qualifiable. You cannot neglect their impact on your life after a personal injury.
After the injury happens and experiences such emotional distress, you deserve to be compensated. But unfortunately, despite everyone knowing its worst, it is really hard to quantify in dollars.
So, now coming to the main question – How to calculate or quantify pain and suffering damages. To know the answer, you first need to know how it works.
How Do Pain And Suffering Damage Work?
In the personal injury case, the law is designed so that it intends to put the person back to the normal life they had been without the injury. Therefore, the victim needs to prove their vase by providing the negligence of the defendant’s party.
If the claim is successful, the court will value the victim’s damage and make the judgment in their favor.
As we have seen, pure economic damages are easily quantifiable. Yes, both sides might argue about the total cost of damages. But, the court does have numbers to work on.
However, with the noneconomic damages, the goal of the court is to offer justice and equivalent monetary support for the claim.
No matter how hard the court tries, they cannot turn back time and remove all your pain and suffering. The only thing they can do is reward you for the emotional damages.
How Does The Court Evaluate Pain And Suffering?
Before the case goes to court, it goes through a settlement process. Where the lawyers, victim, and defendant meet to clear their side and settle for a common decision. When one side is unwilling to settle, the case goes to court.
A Personal Injury Lawyer Vancouver always tries to resolve a personal injury lawsuit outside the courtroom. This is because the process is fast and maintains a good relationship between the people. However, if that doesn’t happen, the case goes for a trial.
At trial, there are no concrete formulas to calculate pain and suffering. Rather the calculation of the pain and suffering damage will depend on the evidence.
Insurance companies are aware of the math, and they know if the case goes to trial, it can change the whole settlement metric. So, they try to resolve the lawsuit in the settlement phase.
Nevertheless, if an insurance company is confident that it will win the case, it will fight the case. Therefore, the key to reaching a favorable decision often rests on your personal injury lawyer’s ability.
Related Resource: How To Find Right Personal Injury Attorney In Waukegan
FAQs
Q1. How Is Settlement Value Calculated?
The settlement value of the personal injury is calculated based on your medical bills, lost wages, and other future physical problems that can surface because of the current injury. While these are quantifiable elements, there is one that is hard to measure, pain and suffering.
There are no outlined formulas that calculate pain and suffering. Hence, courts follow the evidence to reward the victim for the pain and suffering damages they have accrued.
Q2. What Is The Threshold For Pain & Suffering?
Different personal injury claims offer different amounts for pain and suffering. For instance, if your physical impairment exceeds 10%, you are entitled to pain and suffering compensation in case of a motor accident.
As there are no outlined formulas to calculate pain and suffering, the court relied on the severity of the injury, financial losses, and evidence to determine the payout for pain and suffering damages.
Q3. What Are The Methods Used To Calculate Pain And Suffering?
A common way to calculate the value of pain and suffering is by looking at the economic damages. However, a few standard methods are used to determine the value of pain and suffering.
»The Per Diem Method –
It is based on monetizing your pain and suffering. For instance, you can count on 100 dollars per day for all your pain and suffering. If the case took 180 days to close, the pain and suffering value would be $18,000.
»The Multiplier Method –
It is quite simple. If the economic damage is $10,000, you can use the multiplier method and multiply it by two. The pain and suffering damage becomes $20,000. The victim can ask for the recovery of $10,000 on top of the compensation.
Are You Entitled To A Compensation Payout?
To understand whether you are entitled to personal injury compensation, ask yourself these questions:
- How have you been injured?
- Whether it was someone’s fault?
- Have you had any recent treatment?
- Have you had any time off from work to recover?
If any of the answers were yes, you are entitled to get compensation for the personal injuries you have accrued.
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