When you are injured in a vehicle accident, slip-and-fall, or other accident caused by another person’s carelessness, you may demand damages from the responsible party. Some of these losses, such as medical expenses and missed earnings, are more easily quantifiable than others. Other damages, however, might be more challenging to assess.
“Pain and suffering” is one sort of harm for which victims of personal injuries can seek compensation. And this harm varies from individual to individual and case to case. Learning what it is and how it is decided is the first step in understanding how you or a loved one may have the right to obtain it.
Pain and Suffering Defined
The legal term that refers to physical, mental, and emotional damage being sustained by an accident victim is known as pain and suffering. In assessing compensation, this factor is heavily weighed since, frequently, the damages sustained in an accident extend beyond physical injuries. When injuries are serious enough or the event is traumatic enough, mental and emotional suffering might also result.
Accident-related injuries may not only be excruciatingly painful, but the discomfort may last for days, weeks, or even years after the incident. In certain circumstances, chronic pain might be persistent, which can have a significant impact on emotional and mental health.
Back and neck pain, internal organ damage, traumatic brain injury, shattered bones, nerve damage, headaches, strained muscles, dislocated joints, and paralysis is some of the examples of severe physical discomfort. Any one of these illnesses may endure for years and produce chronic physical discomfort.
Emotional and mental misery and agony may be more difficult to quantify, but their impacts are nonetheless extremely real. Those who sustain severe or long-lasting injuries and agony may have mental anguish as a result. Emotional pain can manifest as psychological trauma, fear, sleeplessness, anxiety, wrath, sadness, frustration, post-traumatic stress disorder, cognitive abnormalities in the brain, and a general decline in life quality.
When someone is accountable for another person’s grief and suffering, they should be held responsible. It should not be the victim’s exclusive responsibility to find a method to pay their increasing medical expenditures for injuries and agony, nor should they be responsible for resolving their mental anguish.
Occasionally, an accident results in the victim’s death, causing their family members to mourn their loss. This loss of consortium is an additional form of misery. After the death of a loved one, a family’s grief and mental agony might be a valid justification for further pain and suffering damages.
Assessing Pain and Suffering
Every case involving personal injury is unique, so the equations for measuring pain and suffering are also distinct. But they always rely on the specifics of each case and the victim involved and there are, however, two common methods for calculating pain and suffering.
- The Multiplier Method doubles the entire amount of real damages, such as medical costs and missed earnings, by a figure ranging from one to five. The determination of the scale is dependent on the degree of the victim’s injuries, so for example, if a car accident victim developed persistent shoulder discomfort, they may be issued a scale number of one or two. However, if an automobile accident permanently immobilizes a person from the waist down, they may be issued a scale number of four or five. The granted compensation would subsequently be used to pay for continuous medical treatment or therapeutic mental care, if required, to alleviate the victims’ pain and suffering.
- The Per Diem Approach is the second method wherein “Per Diem” is from a Latin phrase that translates to “per day,” and it refers to the assignment of a specified financial amount to each day from the date of the injury to the victim’s maximum medical recovery. When a medical specialist judges that a patient’s condition cannot improve any further, they have determined that the patient has reached maximum recovery. The Per Diem Method considers all of the victim’s daily expenses connected to pain and suffering, whether they be for medical care, emotional care, or other impacts of the accident.
These strategies can be a solid strategy for allocating measurable numbers to circumstances that are challenging to convert into base rates or predetermined values. As such, they are the most popular, but insurance companies may opt to quantify pain and suffering using different approaches.
How to Prove Pain and Suffering
To allege pain and suffering in a personal injury lawsuit, the sufferer has the burden of evidence. Certain documentation and proof are required to demonstrate the existence of actual, persistent bodily and mental pain and suffering.
Doctors’ notes and other medical documents are among the most crucial pieces of evidence to collect and submit on your behalf. These can contain individualized remarks from medical experts, records of diagnosis and care from their offices or linked institutions, as well as additional medical goods such as tests, X-rays, prescriptions, and recuperation equipment.
It is also important to have photographic proof of the victim’s injuries and how they impact his or her life, as well as the accident that caused them. Photos may demonstrate the severity and impact of injuries, as well as the healing process (or a lack of healing). Photos of the accident and its aftermath might assist establish why the sufferer may be in a given mental state. In the aftermath of a major car accident in which the victim’s vehicle rolled numerous times, they may have developed a great phobia of traveling in automobiles, which can be regarded as a type of life-altering mental anguish. Photos of the vehicle’s damage might aid in conveying this concern to the insurance company.
If the victim has sought the assistance and counseling of a therapist or other mental health counselor, recordings of these sessions or comments from the counselor can also be persuasive evidence in the case for pain and suffering compensation. These specialists are trained to identify the mental state of their patients, the reason for their condition, and the therapy that, if any, may help them restore mental and emotional stability.
Collecting proof of pain and suffering to offer to insurance companies and legal teams is a daunting task even in the best of circumstances. It might be much more difficult when your pain and suffering require your whole focus and care. Because of this, it is highly recommended to employ the services of an expert personal injury lawyer to assist you to develop your case.
