Many lawyers get into the personal injury niche. They often do so because there’s plentiful work. They have individuals coming for consultations because a product harmed them, they slipped and fell in a store, or because a dog bit them and they want to sue the irresponsible owner.
The lawyers who handle these cases typically try to recover money for their clients. They will attempt to get them economic damages, such as money to cover their medical bills and lost wages if they have to miss work while they’re recovering.
However, you also have what the law calls non-economic damages. Non-economic damages often complicate personal injury cases. That’s because it’s harder to quantify them.
For instance, how much money should someone get if they can’t play ball with their kids anymore because a product caused a permanent injury? Often, the lawyer and jury must look at precedent, assuming the lawsuit ever reaches the trial phase. Many times, such cases end with the defendant settling before the two sides ever make it into a courtroom.
It’s worth talking about the kinds of non-economic damages that often factor into these cases. You should know about them if you ever have to sue someone or if an individual tries to sue you.
We’ll cover four of the most common kinds of non-economic damages in the following article.
Disfigurement or Scarring
You might have a situation where someone sues an individual or company because they contend that this person or entity disfigured or scarred them. For instance, maybe you have a company that made a product that exploded. The explosion damaged a consumer’s face or disfigured them.
That’s a situation where it’s clear the responsible company should pay damages to rectify the situation. Maybe the injured person can go on with their life, but they may have scars on their face or body that they can’t easily hide.
Maybe the scars will go away in time, but perhaps they’re permanent. It’s easy to see how a jury would side with the injured party, especially if the company can’t establish that they tested the product enough.
Like all non-economic damage types, it’s hard to know how much money the person with the scarring or disfigurement should get. If the scarring will most likely stay with them and remain visible for their rest of their life, it’s logical that they should get more than if they will probably heal in the passage of time.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering constitute perhaps the most common non-economic damage types when someone files a personal injury lawsuit. It’s kind of a catchall term that can include any pain or anguish a person experienced that a company or individual caused.
You might hear about someone wanting money for pain and suffering if another person drove drunk and hit their vehicle with their car. Such a driver will probably have criminal charges pending as well as civil ones.
Let’s say the drunk driver hit the other motorist and caused whiplash. Maybe they hit them at a high rate of speed and broke a couple of their bones.
Recovering from such injuries hurts. It makes sense to think that the person who caused the injuries should pay the person they harmed, particularly if they must have surgery or go through months of physical therapy before they recover fully. If the doctors feel like they will never completely recover, then such a victim should collect even more money.
Mental Anguish
Mental anguish can also cover a lot of possible situations or conditions. Think about the dog bite scenario we mentioned earlier. If you have a pit bull that someone owns that gets loose and runs around the neighborhood, and it bites someone who’s going out to get their mail, then it might injure them, but it may also terrify them.
Such a traumatic accident might cause PTSD. The victim may have a strong fear of dogs from that point forward. They may live in a constant state of terror.
That definitely falls into the mental anguish category. Expect the person who owns the pit bull to have to pay some non-economic damages to rectify the situation, along with money to cover lost wages and medical bills following the event.
Loss of Consortium
Loss of consortium means that a person can no longer do things that they once could. Usually, if someone wants non-economic damages and they point to loss of consortium, they will get up in front of a judge and jury and read a victim impact statement.
That statement will probably include all the things this person could once do that they no longer can. Maybe they can’t have a physical relationship with their spouse or partner anymore. Perhaps they can no longer play a game of pickup football with their friends in the park.
Maybe they can’t ride a bike or go for walks or runs anymore. Perhaps they can’t drive or pick their kids up and carry them around.
These stories might tug at a jury’s heartstrings, but they’re not intentionally manipulative. They’re simple declarations that a person can no longer do things they once could. Once again, it’s logical that a person should get financial compensation if they can clearly establish that a person or business entity harmed them.
You should remember one additional thing about these cases. The person who suffered economic or non-economic damages can sue the person or entity who they think harmed them. However, a relative might also do it.
If the person died instead of sustaining injuries, then a spouse, parent, or sibling might file a wrongful death suit. They’ll most likely feel that they should get financial compensation because the responsible party robbed them of the person who meant so much in their lives.
That’s still a perfectly valid situation for a person or entity to pay economic or non-economic damages. The survivor probably feels they must seek justice on the deceased person’s behalf.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.