How Is Pain and Suffering Calculated in Lawsuits?

One of the most commonly sought damages in personal injury claims is compensation for pain and suffering. This is considered a non-economic damage, meaning it does not affect your life in a financial sense but still warrants compensation.

Although there is no set monetary value for each individual’s pain and suffering, this loss is often far more damaging than losses that directly affect your finances. To recover fair compensation for it, you’ll have to establish the value of what you’ve been through. Continue reading to learn more about how we will determine what pain and suffering is worth in your case.

Multiplying Your Economic Damages

Economic damages are losses that will affect you financially. They most often include property damage, lost wages, medical expenses, and any damage done to your ability to earn future income.

One way that we are able to calculate your pain and suffering damages is to assign your condition an impairment rating. It’s usually on a scale of one to five, with one being a minor injury and five being a critical one. Then, we take the total combined economic damages and multiply this dollar amount by your impairment score.

For instance, say you suffered from a third-degree burn and we assigned your impairment score a rating of three. We previously calculated your total economic damages at a sum of $150,000. We would then multiply $150,000 by three, and the value of your pain and suffering would be established at $450,000.

Per Diem

Alternatively, we can calculate the value of your pain and suffering by assigning you a specific dollar amount for each day you are suffering from your injuries.

If we assign you a per diem amount of $100 for each day of recovery, and you are able to make a full recovery two years from the date of your accident. We would multiply the two years, or 730 days, by $100. Your pain and suffering would be calculated at $73,000.

Reach Out to an Indianapolis Personal Injury Lawyer

If you are interested in filing a personal injury lawsuit against the person or people who caused the accident you were injured in, you may want to include pain and suffering in the calculation of your total damages. For help with that complicated process, reach out to an Indianapolis personal injury lawyer at Kooi Law today.

Our firm will work hard to ensure that you obtain all of the compensation you’re entitled to. We are pleased to provide free claim assessments to prospective clients. You can schedule yours by completing the contact form we’ve included below or by calling our office at (317) 569-1335.