When assessing a personal injury case, it’s essential to take both economic and non-economic damages into account. Economic damages cover financial losses such as medical expenses and wages lost, while non-economic damages include more subjective issues such as pain and suffering.
Personal injury attorneys typically rely on multiplier methods to estimate the value of pain and suffering; however, critics of this method claim it oversimplifies their experience by assigning it one number.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are expenses and losses related to an injury that are easily quantifiable and easily trackable, such as medical bills, property damage claims, lost wages and future lost income. Maintaining meticulous records and getting expert valuations are essential to building an effective case for economic damages.
Medical special damages usually make up the bulk of any financial award you receive for injuries sustained, covering costs such as medications, therapy sessions and any future care or treatments that your physician anticipates may be necessary to assist in your recovery process. Future special damages could also be awarded should it be necessary due to long-term injuries.
Economic damages such as lost wages can be easily estimated, with one method for doing so being to multiply current monthly earnings by a multiplier (typically 1.5 to 5). Noneconomic losses like pain and suffering are harder to calculate; insurance companies and juries frequently employ multiplier methods in order to estimate such intangible losses which vary depending on various factors like severity and nature of injuries sustained by victims.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering damages are notoriously difficult to calculate, with no universal formula insurance companies use. They typically analyze each claimant’s case individually before using receipts, invoices and other documentation to calculate special damages before selecting one of two methods for estimating general damages.
The multiplier method involves multiplying all economic damages caused by an accident by 1.5 to 5 multipliers depending on their severity.
An alternative approach is per diem compensation, which takes into account an injury’s effect on your lifestyle and calculates it on a daily rate. An experienced personal injury attorney can assist in establishing what multiplier or per diem rate would best apply in your particular case; choosing this formula could dramatically alter its size; however, the severity of injuries remains the primary determining factor.
Future Care Costs
Serious accidents often require long-term medical care and treatment, including surgeries, rehabilitation therapy, injections, medications and devices. Victims need compensation to cover these anticipated expenses.
Estimating these costs can be challenging as an injured victim has not reached maximum medical improvement (MMI). Your New Mexico personal injury attorney will review your medical records and work with expert witnesses to understand the effects of your injury on you and how best to represent them in court.
Legal proceedings involve tallying tangible losses as part of a claim for special damages, including future medical costs. An experienced personal injury lawyer will carefully calculate these expenses so that your total award accurately reflects both the true loss and full impact of your accident – this ensures you receive appropriate compensation! It is crucial that no undervaluing occurs as this could leave you lacking compensation and without justice being served to those injured by it.
Medical Expenses
If you have been injured due to someone else’s negligent or intentional actions, filing a personal injury claim could be in your best interests. A successful claim would seek compensation for all of the negative impacts the accident had on your life. Special damages refer to tangible costs like medical bills and lost income; general damages cover non-economic losses like pain and suffering or loss of enjoyment of life.
Your attorney will work tirelessly to collect evidence of your financial losses, such as medical bills, receipts and invoices from stores like CVS Pharmacy or CVS Caremark; hospital records; any relevant paperwork. They then use a damages formula – with medical special damages multiplied by 1.5-5 and lost income taken into consideration – as a starting point when negotiating settlement negotiations.
