Understanding Non-Economic Damages is essential when pursuing a personal injury lawsuit. Filing a claim against a person or business responsible for your injury is a significant commitment that requires time, energy, and mental preparation.
Since the legal process can take months, it’s important to be aware of how non-economic damages—such as pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life—may impact your case and compensation.
You can always collect economic damages if a person or company harmed you, but collecting non-economic damages from a personal injury lawsuit should also enter into the equation. You may not know this term yet if you don’t understand much about the personal injury legal niche. We will take some time to talk about the concept right now.
What Do Non-Economic Damages Mean in a Legal Context?
If you sue someone, then that means you are trying to get money from them because you allege that they harmed you. Once you have told a lawyer what happened, if they feel you have a case, then you can move forward with hiring them. After you’ve done so, then you can go through the many steps required to hopefully get the compensation that you feel you’re due.
You can potentially collect both economic damages and non-economic ones. Economic damages might include medical bills if you had surgery or physical therapy after the accident or incident that hurt you.
They may also include money for lost wages if you had to miss some work while recovering. If someone hit your car, then you might collect economic damages from them to pay for the repairs or to replace the vehicle.
Non-economic damages come your way if you allege that you suffered less tangible losses following an accident or incident that you allege a person or company caused. In other words, if you sue a person or entity and want to get money for something like the pain and suffering you experienced, that would fall into this category.
Pain and suffering can get potentially get you a lot of money. This term, in the legal niche, often comes into play if you allege that a person or entity harmed you and you had to take some time to recover. Let’s look at a few more specific instances of non-economic damages that you might pursue during your legal case.
What Non-Economic Damages Might You Collect?
Physical pain, if you can prove someone else caused it, can translate to money if you get a settlement offer from the defendant or you get a jury’s verdict in your favor. These cases seldom go to a jury’s decision, but it does happen occasionally.
For example, if a drunk driver hit your car and broke some of your bones, you probably endured substantial physical pain at the crash site and during your recovery process. If a company made a product that harmed you, then you can demand money from the manufacturer for the pain their product caused you as well.
You might allege that a company or individual caused you emotional distress. That certainly falls into the non-economic damages category. You may not enjoy your life as much after the incident or accident. You can demand money for that as well.
If the accident or incident disfigured you, then you can definitely ask for money because of that. If you suffered loss of consortium, meaning you can’t have the same kind of relationship with your loved ones that you could before the accident, then that’s also a potential non-economic damage.
How to Ensure You Can Collect Non-Economic Damages
To make sure that you have the best shot at collecting non-economic damages, as well as economic ones, you should first make sure that you hire an excellent personal injury lawyer. You should have no trouble finding attorneys in this niche, but they don’t all have the same level of skill.
You want one who’s experienced in this area of the law. They should have no trouble getting up in front of a judge and jury and arguing eloquently on your behalf if the circumstances call for it.
You may also need to get on the stand and tell the jury about how the accident or incident impacted your life. This kind of victim impact statement can often strengthen your case.
If you can appear sympathetic, then the jury should react in your favor. If you explain that this accident, incident, or whatever other situation the defendant caused wrecked your life, then you can feel confident you will get some money out of the deal.
You should never file a frivolous lawsuit, but if it’s true that this person or company did something that very clearly negatively impacted your life, then it’s only right that they give you financial compensation.
How Much Can You Get for Non-Economic Damages?
It’s very difficult to tell how much money you can expect to get for non-economic damages in a personal injury lawsuit. That’s because calculating how much you should get for something like pain and suffering or loss of consortium quickly becomes tougher than having the defendant pay you back for lost wages or medical bills.
If you can’t have a physical relationship with your spouse anymore because of a product that harmed you, then how much money should you receive to make that right? You could argue that no amount will ever rectify the situation, at least not completely.
However, the court system must settle on some amount. You can usually look at precedent when determining the dollar amount that you might get.
Your lawyer probably knows about similar cases and the number similar plaintiffs got. For instance, if you lost a limb, and you can blame a person or company’s negligence, then someone who got five million dollars from a similar case should impact the settlement or the amount a jury rewards you.
Non-economic damages, if you receive them, might make you feel somewhat better about the situation. They will probably never set things right, but at least you can feel you got some measure of justice.
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