“Pain and suffering” after a serious accident includes the physical pain and emotional trauma most victims experience. The amount of time victims suffer from pain and must cope with anxiety and PTSD symptoms should factor into any accident settlement.
Victims can use several methods to try to estimate what their pain and suffering damages may be worth. A skilled personal injury lawyer can also help you determine a more accurate appraisal.
What Are Pain And Suffering Damages?
“Pain and suffering” is a legal concept used to describe the non-economic damages victims suffer after a personal injury accident. Victims should receive full compensation for the economic damages they absorb. This would include all medical bills, lost time at work, and property damage losses. But they should also be able to count on support for the hardships caused by an accident that don’t come with a bill.
The hardships would include the physical pain a victim would go through in an accident and during rehabilitation. The emotional hardships a frightening accident and a difficult recovery cause the victim would also factor in.
When someone’s mistake causes you harm, you can file a claim asking for recovery help from the at-fault party. This would be the case after a distracted driver rams you from behind at a red light along Auto Park Parkway. A store owner would also be liable for pain and suffering and more if the owner left a spill on the floor causing you to fall and fracture a bone.
Victims forced into accidents by someone’s carelessness can be left with a stack of medical bills to worry about. These financial hardships are usually easy to total up. However, the non-financial damages aren’t as easy to assign a value to. Yet, these should always factor into any settlement agreement that victims sign off on. An experienced lawyer can help victims determine what an injury and the pain that comes along with it is worth.
There are several ways that insurance companies, personal injury lawyers, and judges can value pain and suffering damages.
How Do You Use The Multiplier Method for Calculating Accident Pain And Suffering?
The most common way insurance companies try to calculate pain and suffering is the multiplier method.
The economic damages are totaled first. Then that number would be multiplied by a rating of your pain and suffering from one up to five. Here, five would be assigned to the worst injuries and pain and suffering involved.
Then Multiply. If your economic damages were $10,000 and you agreed to accept a pain and suffering multiplier of three, your pain and suffering payout would be estimated at $30,000. That would be on top of the $10,000 you might receive for your medical bills and lost income.
This method may or may not provide enough for you and your family after an accident. It’s important to have an aggressive California personal injury attorney on your side making sure your pain and suffering multiplier takes into account everything you have endured.
How Do I Use The Daily Rate Method for Calculating Pain And Suffering?
Another way victims can estimate potential support money is to calculate an award for pain and suffering with the “daily rate” method.
You and your lawyer can work on assigning a fair dollar amount for pain and suffering for a single day. Then this amount is multiplied by how many days your recovery takes.
The income and benefits you forfeit each day while missing work and the opportunities you miss out on are sometimes used as a starting point.
It’s another method that can be unfair to victims unless they have a skilled attorney handling their case. This method may be very unhelpful when victims are facing years of recovery or a permanent disability. Maison Law Accident and Injury Lawyers attorney would ensure that an insurance company could not ignore any hardship you had faced when extending a settlement offer.
Allow an Experienced Lawyer to Help You Place Value on Your Hardships
In reality, the best method for valuing your case will be to take advantage of a free legal consultation with a Fremont personal injury lawyer. It’s a no-risk opportunity to discuss what happened to you with a real attorney.
Your lawyer can use past experience with other cases similar to yours to help you estimate what your pain and suffering should be worth. To get a more accurate figure, your lawyer would need to fully investigate the accident and investigate those who caused your injury.
Your attorney would also talk to your doctor and other medical experts to find out how long you may have to suffer from pain from an injury like a broken bone or head trauma. Your lawyer would then help you decide what is fair for everything you’ve been through and what you and your family will go through in the future and demand that amount from insurers.
What Is Considered When Adding Up Pain and Suffering Damages?
A night in the emergency room or the loss of a few weeks of paychecks at your job isn’t usually too hard to show proof of. You can submit medical invoices and pay stubs to the insurance adjuster.
It’s harder to demonstrate the very real emotional or physical pain you’ve suffered, but insurance companies are still responsible for these factors.
These are just a few of the physical and mental traumas that should contribute to every accident settlement.
- Physical pain suffered by patient
- Chronic pain expected in the future
- The costs and future costs of pain medications
- Emotional pain suffered in the accident
- Emotional pain suffered during recovery including PTSD symptoms
- Future costs of mental health therapy
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Damages for the loss of intimacy with a partner
Can My Family Receive Pain and Suffering Compensation After a Loved One Dies?
California families have been empowered to seek benefits if a loved one was killed due to the negligence of another individual or business. This can include recovering the cost of a funeral and getting help paying the remaining medical bills.
Grieving families are now also able to seek pain and suffering support after losing a relative in a personal injury accident.
This wrongful death claim would seek additional support for a spouse, children, and other relatives of the victim. They would be eligible for additional funds for the emotional suffering every family member had been put through.
Contact a Fremont Personal Injury Attorney
Contact Maison Law Accident & Injury Lawyers of Fremont to schedule a free, confidential consultation with a real attorney. We want to hear what happened to you. We’re going to answer your questions and make sure you are prepared for the insurance tactics you’ll face so you don’t forfeit valuable support. You’ll know what your injury is worth before an insurance adjuster tries to convince you it’s worth nothing at all.
There’s no obligation when you talk to us, but if you feel he can help you get the most for your pain and suffering, you’ll need no upfront money to hire our services. Our Fremont personal injury lawyers don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. Then our fee comes out of the settlement that insurance companies must pay you.