We hear the term “pain and suffering”almost on a daily basis, but that doesn’t mean everyone understands what it actually means. If you are considering filing a lawsuit in a personal injury case, you might wonder what pain and suffering damages include and how they are calculated. For close to 30 years, Tampa personal injury attorney Dan Zohar has helped clients get fair compensation for the damages in personal injury claims. Here, he answers common questions about what pain and suffering really means.
What is pain and suffering?
There are two types of pain and suffering: physical and mental. The physical type of pain and suffering is the relatively short-term physical pain caused by an injury. It can also refer to the long-term pain resulting from physical therapy or ongoing rehabilitation. For example, if you experience back pain after being in a car accident caused by a negligent driver, or you sustain a broken or fractured bone in a slip and fall accident, you might be eligible for compensation.
Mental pain or suffering, on the other hand, results from physical injuries. Whether a personal injury claim or not, it can include stress, anxiety, decreased enjoyment of life, anger, fear, and depression–which may be situational, or even long-term. In other words, mental pain and suffering includes any negative emotion caused by having to endure the physical pain and trauma of the accident. More serious examples are loss of appetite, sexual dysfunction, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
How are pain and suffering calculated?
Just like every plaintiff and personal injury claim are unique in their own ways, so are the effects the accidents have on people. Calculating medical expenses and damages to your property is fairly simple but assigning values to the damages is where it gets complicated. Personal injury law in Florida does not assign values to different types of pain and suffering damages. So, judges will usually instruct juries to use their good sense when it comes to personal injury claims.
How is a pain and suffering calculator used?
So, how do juries go about determining fair compensation based on a person’s economic damages? Sometimes, they use multiplication with a pain and damages calculator. Simply put, pain and damages are some multiple of the plaintiff’s total medical expenses and lost wages.
The pain and damages multiplier can range anywhere between 1.5 and 4, but it is only a rough concept that is not applicable to all personal injury claims. There are other factors that affect the outcome of your case, so do not rely on the multiplier alone. An experienced personal injury attorney like Dan Zohar understands these complicated formulas.
Determining fair compensation for the damages in personal injury cases can be a real challenge to people not in the legal profession. You will want to consult a reputable and trustworthy personal injury attorney like Dan Zohar. After all, the only goal of insurance companies is to get you to settle for the least amount of money possible, and they are usually represented by entire legal teams.
Contact Dan Zohar, an experienced personal injury attorney in Tampa, Florida, to schedule a free consultation. He works to ensure you get fair compensation that covers both your economic and non-economic damages.