How Much Can I Get for Pain and Suffering?

Steven A. Bagen | December 7, 2024 | Personal Injury

Victims of accidents that are not their fault often recover financially for losses from the accident, including pain and suffering damages. The amount you can get for pain and suffering involves various factors, including state law caps on non-economic damages and the method used to calculate pain and suffering.

If you suffered injuries in a pedestrian accident, consult a pedestrian accident lawyer to discuss your legal recourse to securing a substantial settlement. They can answer your questions while advising you on your possible case outcomes.

 

Physical Pain and Suffering Damages

Physical pain and suffering can range from aches and discomforts while you recover to chronic or long-term suffering resulting from injuries. Permanent injuries may result in lifelong pain and suffering. Physical symptoms of pain and suffering often result from injuries, including:

• Burns
• Vertigo
• Paralysis
• Internal organ damage
• Fractured and broken bones
• Back and spinal cord injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs)
• Neck injuries (whiplash, facet joint injury)
• Soft tissue damage (sprains, strains, inflammation)
• Nerve damage (tingling, burning, pins and needles)

The severity of your injuries directly affects how much you can get for pain and suffering from an accident. Naturally, the more severe your injuries are, the higher your settlement will be.

Accident victims experiencing physical pain after an accident should contact a personal injury lawyer immediately. You’ll want to determine a legal strategy to compensate you for what may be a lifetime of unwelcome pain.

Psychological Pain and Suffering Damages

Psychological pain and suffering relate to how the accident and your injuries affect your psyche and mental well-being. Psychological pain and suffering encompass your emotional damages as well and include:

• Mental anguish
• Fear and anger
• Emotional distress
• Generalized anxiety
• Personality changes
• Diminished quality of life
• Post-accident depression
• Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
• Strained personal relationships
• Loss of society and companionship
• Post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD)
• Sudden and severe mood swings and irritability
• Inability to participate in activities you once enjoyed
• Embarrassment or humiliation (scarring and disfigurement)
• Sleep disturbances (nightmares, insomnia, hypersomnia—excessive sleeping)

Psychological trauma can develop over time and, in many instances, may require mental health services to overcome. Several accident types create new phobias for some accident victims.

For example, people involved in motor vehicle accidents sometimes develop an irrational and intense fear of driving or even being in a moving vehicle—this fear is known as vehophobia. These phobia developments also qualify as pain and suffering damages to seek in your settlement if relevant to your case and with a medical diagnosis.

Wrongful Death Pain and Suffering Damages

Families who experience the tragic loss of a loved one due to wrongful death are eligible to recover compensation. These wrongful death damages can involve the pain and suffering of your loved one before their untimely passing and include:

• Disability
• Impaired cognition 
• Anxiety and depression
• Diminished quality of life 
• Physical pain 
• Emotional pain and suffering 

Another viable wrongful death damage your attorney may recover is the pain and suffering for surviving family members. These members generally favor spouses and children but extend to parents and other family members depending on the nature of the wrongful death claim.

Factors Influencing How Much I Can Get for Pain and Suffering

The size of your settlement depends on many factors, and it is impossible to give exact numbers or precise quotes on compensated amounts. Factors that influence how much you can get for pain and suffering are as follows:

• Injury type
• Accident type
• Severity of injuries
• Length of recovery
• Impact on employment
• Medical treatment required
• State law and damage caps
• Impact on personal relationships
• Type of method used to calculate damages

Without considering these factors in an individual’s case, it is impossible to guarantee an accident victim a specific settlement amount. Be wary of any law firm guaranteeing significant and clearly defined financial figures. Pain and suffering damages are complex and difficult to assess without thoroughly investigating your case.

Different Methods of Calculating Pain and Suffering Damages

Insurance companies and law firms use various methods to determine pain and suffering damages. However, two frequently used methods of calculating how much you can get for pain and suffering damages are the multiplier method and the per diem method.

Multiplier Method

While the method largely depends on the law firm and case type, the multiplier method is most commonly used to calculate pain and suffering. It involves totaling the sum of your economic damages (monetary losses) and multiplying them by a variable.

These variables generally range from 1.5 to five, with higher variables designated to more severe injury cases. For example, if your economic damages were $150,000 and a variable of two was applied, your pain and suffering damages should pay out $300,000. 

Per Diem Method

The per diem method for calculating pain and suffering stems from the Latin meaning of per diem—daily rate. It assigns a dollar amount and multiplies it by the number of your recovery days. For example, if your per diem was assigned $200 daily, and your recovery time was 120 days, your pain and suffering claim should pay $24,000.

Is There a Limit on How Much I Can Get for Pain and Suffering?

While states don’t cap economic damages because they are verifiable with a paper trail, many impose caps on non-economic damages or pain and suffering. Damage caps vary depending on jurisdiction, accident, and claim type—most notably, wrongful death. Ask your local attorney to clarify any limitations on how much you can get for pain and suffering damages.

How Do I Prove Pain and Suffering?

Proving pain and suffering damages involves establishing the four elements of negligence associated with personal injury cases: an owed duty of care, breach of that duty, causation of injuries, and damages suffered. The responsibility for this falls on the injury victim or their attorney.

Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer

Hiring an attorney is your best chance at recovering a fair settlement for your pain and suffering damages. They understand state tort law, have experience winning cases like yours, are confident negotiators, and are skilled litigators. Attempting to manage a claim or a lawsuit without legal representation is challenging and often results in undervalued or denied claims.

Medical Records

Your medical records include detailed and pertinent information regarding your accident, injuries, rehabilitation, and recovery process, including any disability. Medical records prove a need for compensatory damages. They can verify the severity of injuries and future needs, such as long-term care.

Hiring a personal injury attorney is crucial for many reasons, including as a measure of catching you before releasing your records to liable insurance companies. Don’t do that. You’re under no legal obligation to do so. Also, avoid seeing their recommended doctors. These are both tactics insurers use to find ways to delay or deny liability on your claim.

Insurance companies often look at medical history to use previous medical conditions or injuries to negate new symptoms and liability in your accident. If you’ve already released your medical records or had their doctors evaluate you, consult with a local lawyer immediately. They can best advise you on what to expect and start building a legal strategy to recover compensation for pain and suffering.

Healthcare Bills

Medical, rehabilitation, and disability billing statements substantiate a need to pay for economic damages. However, they also provide a window into the perceived pain and suffering that accident victims succumb to due to their injuries.

As well as how much pain they may endure in the future due to their injuries or disability. Examples of bills that can help establish pain and suffering involve:

• Ambulance transport from the accident scene
• ER Visits and hospitalizations
• Surgeries and post-op care
• Primary and follow-up care
• Physical therapy
• Chiropractic care
• Alternative medicine (massage, acupuncture, herbal medicine)
• Occupational and vocational rehabilitation therapy
• Mental health services    
• Speech and language therapy
• Audiology

Healthcare bills also establish the mental anguish and emotional distress an accident victim may experience following an accident with a mountain of bills. It’s common for accident victims to bear the brunt of paying things out-of-pocket that they can’t afford, resulting in hardship or debt—for example, motorists who don’t carry collision or personal injury protection (PIP) insurance on their policy.

If you relate, speak to your local personal injury lawyer about referrals they may have to medical and rehab providers who work with injury victims like you. Many healthcare professionals will work with attorneys and injured patients—without sending bills to collections and weakening your credit score.

They understand the process of recovering compensation for those medical costs and are passionate about helping injured victims recover. Explore all your possibilities to minimize the overwhelming stress following an accident injury. Your primary focus should be your recovery.

Keep a Post-Accident Injury Journal

One of the most significant methods of documenting your pain and suffering is with a post-accident injury journal. Journals can be written, typed, or video, provided they are consistent, dated, and detailed. Things you should include in your post-accident injury journal include:

• Overview of your accident and injuries suffered
• Pain you experience, including pain levels and worsening of pain with certain activities
• Limitations on daily tasks 
• Limitations on once-enjoyed activities, like hobbies or sports
• Limitations and restrictions at work, including the inability to perform your job after your injuries
• Mental status, including anguish, distress, and other hardships
• Mood swings and irritability
• Psychological trauma, such as developed phobias
• PTSD symptoms
• Anxiety and depression
• Changes in personal relationships
• Sleep changes, including pain and discomfort
• Eating changes

Additional evidence that can help your lawyer prove pain and suffering damages include photographs depicting your injuries immediately following the accident, testimonials from family, friends, and employers, and evidence of psychological treatment.

How Will a Lawyer Help Me Get Compensation for Pain and Suffering?

A significant way a personal injury lawyer will help is by offering their services upfront without any out-of-pocket costs. Most personal injury attorneys operate within contingency fee-based arrangements.

Contingency arrangements mean your lawyer will only get paid when and if you do. It also means that you can obtain legal counsel with no upfront fees to handle your claim for pain and suffering. Additionally, they will investigate your claim, consult experts relating to the circumstances of your case, and negotiate for maximum settlements on your behalf.

Thorough Investigation Into Your Accident Claim

Your lawyer will investigate every facet of liability in your claim to prove negligence before demanding compensation from all liable parties. Their investigation often includes:

• Collecting Evidence—such as police reports and photographic and video footage of your accident scene and injuries. Additional evidence might be relevant to a specific type of accident, such as truck black boxes, maintenance records, and driver logs in a truck accident case. 
• Interviewing Witnesses—locate and interview eyewitnesses from the scene to verify statements and discover any new information the witnesses failed to provide police.
• Valuing Your Claim—comprehensively evaluating your claim to maximize your settlement, including identifying and calculating economic and non-economic damages, including pain and suffering.

Personal injury lawyers consult with a network of experts to pinpoint liability and prove negligence, causation, and severity of injuries and damages. Depending on the circumstances of your accident, these experts might include healthcare professionals, economists, highway safety experts, and accident reconstruction specialists.

Accident Reconstruction

Accident reconstruction experts work with the evidence of your case, using mathematics and physics to determine negligence and liability. They often recreate your accident scene using computer simulations and 3D models. Accident reconstruction is compelling expert testimony and evidence in securing fair compensation in personal injury accidents.

Negotiations With Liable Insurance Companies

An invaluable service personal injury lawyers provide is their negotiating skills when going back and forth with liable insurance companies. It’s typical for insurers to send an insultingly low offer first.

Unrepresented injury victims tend to accept the first offers after jumping through unnecessary hoops for proper documentation, being pressured into settling before recovering from injuries, and rarely negotiating. However, your attorney will demand what you deserve and won’t settle for less than what’s fair.

Schedule a free consultation with a Ocala personal injury attorney to strategize a legal plan to secure a financial settlement for your pain and suffering.