In a personal injury lawsuit, you can often claim both economic and non-economic damages. Pain and suffering is a type of subjective non-economic damage, as it cannot be easily quantified by a specific dollar amount like medical bills and lost wages can.
Pain and suffering covers emotional, physical, and mental anguish by a personal injury victim. A Texas personal injury lawyer from the Buzbee Law Firm can help you understand what qualifies as pain and suffering and how to calculate its value once we learn more about your case.
Types of Pain and Suffering Damages You Can Claim
Because pain and suffering is subjective, every case will be unique. Even if you had two identical car accidents, it might affect each injured victim differently. There’s a wide range of conditions that qualify as pain and suffering damages. These include:
- The physical hurt of the injury
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of companionship
- Loss of society
- Mental anxiety, distress, or anguish
- Inconvenience
- Temporary or permanent disability
- Scarring, disfigurement, or amputation
- Reduced quality of life
- Grief
- Shock
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Emotional distress
- Loss of an organ
- Depression and related issues
- Lack of sleep
- Embarrassment, shame, or indignity
- Paralyzing fear and terror
- Reputational damage
- Inability to perform or respond sexually
These are some of the distinctive conditions that qualify as pain and suffering. Your Texas personal injury attorney will be in the best position to highlight which of these conditions led to your pain and suffering and then sue for the appropriate financial settlement. This way, you can get compensated for your mental, emotional, and psychological troubles.
How do the Courts Come Up With an Amount for Pain and Suffering Damages?
Calculating pain and suffering damages and coming up with an appropriate settlement amount is no small feat. Thankfully, there are two ways to do this—subject to the facts of your case, of course:
The Per Diem Approach
In this method, the court awards a specific daily amount to the victim from the date of the accident up to the date when the doctor says that the victim has attained maximum medical recovery. At this stage, the doctors feel like there can’t be any further improvements in the victim’s health.
The Multiplier Approach
In this approach, the total cost of the economic damages is summed up. Then, that amount is multiplied by a number ranging from 1.5 to five to produce the compensation amount for the victim’s pain and suffering. The multiplication is based on how bad the victim’s injuries are.
So, if the victim’s economic damages come to a total of $100,000, the court can award an additional $500,000 in pain and suffering damages. To arrive at the right compensation amount, the following are considered:
- The cost of economic damages
- How bad your injuries are
- How reckless or negligent the defendant was
- How much evidence your lawyer has
After you have been awarded a certain amount, you need to be prepared for a counteroffer from the at-fault party’s insurance provider. A good personal injury attorney will help you weigh the updated offer and work towards getting you the full compensation that you deserve.
Pain and Suffering Damage Caps
Also, you should know that if you’re filing a claim for pain and suffering in Texas, the state doesn’t have any limit on pain and suffering damages, except for medical malpractice cases.
Medical malpractice cases have a $750,000 limit for pain and suffering damages under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.008(b)(1)(B). This cap applies even if the multiplier method recommends a much higher figure.
How Will a Texas Personal Injury Attorney Prove Pain and Suffering?
Unlike economic damages where you can quantify the value of the claim, non-economic damages like pain and suffering require more evidence. Therefore, your attorney will have to seek and provide relevant evidence and documentation to back your claims.
Some of the documentation that they’ll need to prove pain and suffering include:
- Medical records
- Plaintiff’s report (which describes how the accident or injury has affected them and is causing serious pain in their lives)
- Witness testimonies (family members, relatives, friends, or other people who are close to them will also provide information on what they’ve seen regarding the impact of the injury on their loved one’s well-being)
- Video and pictorial evidence
- Recorded journals or notes depicting the victim’s discomfort
- Notes, reports, and evaluations from psychiatrists or mental health practitioners that the victim has been seeing
The victim and/or their loved ones will have to be very liberal with the information that they provide. This will help convince the courts, the jury, the judge, and the insurance provider of the authenticity of the victim’s claims.
Hire a Texas Personal Injury Lawyer for Your Pain and Suffering Damages
The experienced Texas personal injury lawyers at the Buzbee Law Firm can help make sure that you get the maximum amount of money for your pain and suffering.
Our attorneys are skilled at collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, and getting expert witnesses to corroborate your claims. This will improve your chances of getting the settlement that you deserve.
If you’re thinking of filing pain and suffering damages in Texas, feel free to contact us today for a free case evaluation.
