By: Henri M. Saunders
When we work with clients in personal injury lawsuits, we often get the most questions about pain and suffering damages. These type of damages can greatly impact how much our clients recover, yet it also tends to be confusing and unpredictable.
To help demystify pain and suffering damages, we decided to do a quick overview of what they are and the most common strategies for calculating them. Hopefully, this will answer some of your questions but please don’t hesitate to contact us for more specific questions or additional clarity.
What Is Pain and Suffering?
One of the reasons that pain and suffering damages are hard to predict is because they are, by definition, intangible and hard to quantify. Pain and suffering is a type of damage that attempts to compensate injured parties for the intangible losses they incur from an injury.
After calculating economic damages from medical bills, past or future lost income, and other specific expenses, pain and suffering damages serve to compensate for additional physical, mental, and emotional injuries that you suffer. Here are some examples of this type of loss:
- Pain;
- Physical impairment;
- Emotional distress including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress;
- Inability to participate in everyday activities;
- Decreased quality of life;
- Grief;
- Cognitive disorders – for example, brain fog.
Methods for Calculating Pain and Suffering
While pain and suffering is abstract, experienced lawyers know how to present documentation and evidence to support the award of these damages. Things like expert testimony, medical records, daily journals, and testimony from family members and caregivers can all help establish that you are entitled to be compensated for your pain and suffering.
The next part of the process is figuring out how much that compensation should be. This is where an experienced attorney can be the most helpful. Experienced attorneys try cases and keep up with other jury verdicts. No case is the exact same, but knowing what other juries in those same Parishes have done in the past are good indicators and the best starting place. Let us be that experience for you!
Contact Saunders & Chabert to Learn More
Pain and suffering can be hard to quantify, but our team has experience documenting, arguing, and negotiating effectively to establish our clients are entitled to pain and suffering compensation. If you have questions about the damages you’re entitled to or how to get compensated for your injuries, contact us today.
You can complete the online form for a free consultation or just give us a call at (225) 771-8100. We’re a small firm with lots of big-time experience. That means we know how to handle large personal injury lawsuits, but we’re always available to our clients. We look forward to talking with you.