If you’ve suffered one or more injuries from a car accident, calculating the amount of money as compensation for your pain and suffering is a major part of putting together your personal injury claim.
However, this process is more complicated than it sounds. How do you calculate the full scope of physical, mental, and emotional pain and suffering caused by a car accident?
Our car accident attorneys have over 40 years of experience in calculating and factoring in pain and suffering in order to build full, fair, and reasonable claims.
Today, we will provide an overview of how to calculate pain and suffering in a car accident claim, taking into consideration key aspects of your lifestyle that help inform these damages.
What are Pain and Suffering Damages?
Pain and suffering damages are types of compensatory damages that are awarded to plaintiffs who have been injured in accidents.
These damages are intended to compensate the injured person for the physical pain and mental anguish they have suffered as a result of their injuries and trauma.
Pain and suffering damages also take into account how your injury and trauma impact activities in your daily life, such as your sleep, relaxation, hobbies, and your ability to do the activities you enjoy.
Because these are non-economic damages, pain and suffering damages can be more difficult to calculate an exact value of your pain vs. economic damages like lost wages and medical bills which have a precise dollar amount.
What is Considered Pain and Suffering in a Car Accident?
Pain and suffering from a car accident can include (but is not limited to):
- Pain interrupting your work activities, leading to poor performance reviews or frustrated employers
- Difficulty remembering tasks
- Severe anxiety and stress, such as when getting back behind the wheel of a car or being overwhelmed by doctors appointments
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Inability to do activities you enjoy, such as exercising for health or social interaction with friends
- Pain that keeps you awake at night
All of these things can affect your ability to live your life to the fullest, and to the full extent that you could prior to the accident.
How Can I Prove Pain and Suffering?
While it’s easy to calculate property damages and medical expenses, current and future pain and suffering damages can be challenging to figure out on your own.
Fortunately, our personal injury attorneys can help calculate them for you.
Our attorneys can help you document examples of how your injuries and trauma are impacting your work, daily life, and activities you enjoy.
Medical Records for Emotional Distress and Physical Pain and Suffering
A personal injury lawyer can also review medical records and doctor’s notes that can bolster proof of any pain and suffering you’ve experienced. These are crucial pieces of evidence our attorneys can use to paint a picture of your health, mental health, activities, and quality of life before and after the accident.
Pay Stubs and Timesheets for Lost Wages
Your pay stubs and work timesheets may be good resources to prove some of the financial losses you’ve incurred from any pain and suffering your injury caused. Any communication from your employer regarding your quality of work before and after the accident can be useful in settlement negotiations with insurance companies as well.
How Do You Calculate Pain and Suffering Damages?
While a pain and suffering calculator can estimate the value of your claim, it may not take into account more specific, special damages.
A calculator cannot pin down the severity of the pain and suffering you have endured following the accident and your injuries or how your injury affects the ability of things you like to do.
Using a simple web tool to calculate a pain and suffering settlement amount also means the historical data of cases like yours, if any, would be limited, and you might not be getting fair compensation.
Our attorneys can discreetly review previous, similar car accident injury claims and other personal injury cases we’ve worked on in the past –– as a reference for calculating pain and suffering for your claim.
This historical data from other car accident cases can serve as a valuable resource and benchmark for estimating the non-economic losses you have suffered.
Along with these records, the skilled personal injury lawyers at GB Law may also use the following methods of calculating pain and suffering:
Multiplier Method
We can calculate pain and suffering damages by multiplying your economic damages (i.e., medical expenses, lost wages, etc.) by a factor depending on the level of pain you’ve suffered. If your pain is more severe, then we’ll use a higher multiplier.
Per Diem Method
The per diem method sets a daily rate of compensation based on the days of pain and suffering that you have endured (and may continue to endure) following an accident.
Note that these are simplified explanations of how we can calculate damages for pain and suffering. It’s important to work with attorneys practicing personal injury law. GB Law’s team has more than 40 years of experience seeking compensation for pain and suffering.
You are entitled to a fair amount of compensation for your pain, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that you receive as much compensation as possible.
What Should I Ask for in a Settlement for Pain and Suffering?
Your negotiated settlement amount should factor in pain and suffering (non-economic losses) as well as economic damages like lost wages, medical treatment, and rehabilitative care.
Our experienced attorneys can help you calculate the economic and non-economic damages you have suffered from your accident.
We can then review the insurance company’s initial settlement offer to let you know if it is fair or not. If it isn’t, we will put together a formal counteroffer and help you renegotiate your settlement, continuing to fight for what you deserve.
How Much Can You Claim for Pain and Suffering Compensation in Ohio?
Since 2005, Ohio has been subject to tort reform, which put a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering claims.That sum can be as high as $350,000 depending on the amount your economic losses for items like your medical bills and lost income.
However, this limit does not apply to catastrophic physical injuries or some permanent injuries that prevent a client from being able to care for themselves.
Why Do I Need a Personal Injury Attorney?
Our experienced personal injury attorneys know how to locate and obtain the evidence needed to prove both the economic and non-economic damages of your case.
Preserving the evidence needed early and comprehensively will enable us to fight for the full and fair settlement you deserve.
Contact our attorneys at GB Law today for a free case review.