Understanding Pain and Suffering

By on August 21st, 2017

Understanding Pain and Suffering

Anyone who has been in a car accident or other incident and has been injured knows pain and suffering are involved. Whether it’s the pain of recovering from surgery or getting treatment for a broken bone, pain and suffering can vary widely depending on your physical condition, your injuries, and even your physical pain threshold.

What is Pain and Suffering?

In a legal claim, such as a car accident, pain and suffering refer to the distress suffered as a result of injuries caused by a liable party. You may be able to seek compensation for pain and suffering resulting from a car accident, medical malpractice claim or many other personal injuries.

There are many types of pain and suffering, including:

  • Temporary and permanent aches, pains and discomfort
  • Emotional trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks, depression and other types of trauma
  • Memory loss
  • Cognitive impact
  • Inability to continue a physical relationship with your spouse, known as loss of consortium
  • Inability to take care of your family or pursue your relationships — for example, an inability to perform a beloved hobby or inability to play with your children
  • Any psychological or emotional impact that affects quality of life, either permanently or temporarily

Attorneys will often distinguish further between current and current and future pain and suffering. This is important because current pain and suffering has a termination date, meaning it will stop at some point, making it easier to measure. Current and future pain and suffering can end at some point or may prove permanent, which makes it harder to quantify.

Calculating pain and suffering for compensation after an accident is challenging, but it is a necessary step for attorneys, courts and insurance companies. To compensate you or offer you a settlement for your injuries, courts and other parties need to be able to put a price tag on every aspect of your claim.

Calculating special damages is straightforward. These are the damages such as hospital stays and car repair costs, which already have a set price tag. General damages, such as pain and suffering, do not have an agreed-upon value, which means different parties need to make educated calculations using all available information.

How to Calculate Pain and Suffering

In general, pain and suffering are calculated by multiplying special damages, such as your medical bills, by a number between one and five. In cases where your injuries are very serious, they may even be multiplied by a higher number.

Other special damages can include:

  • Loss of income during recovery
  • Loss of future income
  • Rehabilitation and recovery cost and time
  • Loss of quality of life – impact of injury
  • Type of injury
  • Age and pre-existing conditions

It is still quite subjective as to what number is used as a multiplier. The impact of your injuries, its expected duration, and its severity are all considered. If you have a fractured bone after a car accident, for example, your medical expenses may be multiplied by three, five or another number to arrive at a calculation for pain and suffering.

An insurance company will likely put a dollar amount on your life first. However, keep in mind that you will want to work with your own attorney. Insurance companies come up with a price amount that saves them money for their shareholders. An attorney representing you will work to make sure you are compensated fairly.

Many attorneys will also evaluate pain and suffering by looking at how similar injuries have been evaluated in past cases. This can be useful because it helps establish a precedent with valuations.

Additional Factors

In addition, when calculating pain and suffering it is important to carefully consider the specifics of the case. For example, if an injured person is very young or old, their pain and suffering may be greater due to their physical vulnerabilities. If they have a medical condition or if the injury may be permanent, their quality of life may have been impacted in catastrophic ways. These factors also need to be considered in any calculation.

The type of injury is also important. Someone who has a broken bone may suffer severe pain as the bone heals. However, someone who has suffered a permanent brain injury may not be able to speak, spend time with their family, remember their past or take part in daily life. The impact of the injury needs to be considered.

What Should Your Next Step Be?

If you have been hurt in an accident or at the fault of another, an attorney can review your claim for proper compensation.

Your attorney can carefully document all the ways your pain and suffering has impacted your life and work with medical or psychological experts to determine how specific trauma has impacted your life and may continue to affect your life in the future.

While an insurance company may try to minimize your pain and suffering, your attorney will work for you to ensure your injuries are taken seriously when compensation is calculated.

Weisberg Cummings, P.C. is located in Harrisburg, PA and represents accident victims across the state. For a free case consultation contact us online or give us a call.