Evaluating your personal injury case is challenging. Many people don’t even sit and think about the value of a personal injury claim until they or their loved ones get injured in an accident. It is important to know what your personal injury case is worth, even if it involves non-economic damages, which are intangible losses suffered by the victim.
If you have ever been involved in a personal injury accident and are looking for compensation for your non-economic losses, then you should consult reliable law firms like The Levin Firm.
In this article, you will learn about the effects of non-economic damages in a personal injury and the types of non-economic losses that can be compensated.
A Closer Look at Non-economic Damages and Their Effects
As a result of personal injury, people experience intangible losses, which are known as non-economic losses. These damages directly have a great impact on the injured person’s health and quality of life. Moreover, it does not have any straight monetary value. Here are the non-economic losses:
Pain and Suffering
As we all know, physical pain and suffering from personal injury accidents can have extreme long-term impact. Based on the accident and their pain and suffering, the injured victim should receive fair compensation.
Disfigurement
Personal injuries that result in permanent scarring or disfigurement can have a negative impact and cause emotional distress on the injured individual’s body image and self-esteem.
Loss of Enjoyment of Life
Severe injuries may impact the injured person’s abilities. So, they cannot actively participate in everyday activities. For instance, when an active person may get paralyzed, they lose the ability to engage in their hobbies or sports. It ruins their quality of life completely.
Emotional Distress
Personal injuries can lead to emotional trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. The psychological impact resulting from the personal injury and incident itself can have long-lasting effects on the injured person’s mental and overall health.
Loss of Consortium
Loss of consortium is a type of non-economic damage that refers to the loss of companionship, and emotional support suffered by the partner of the deceased victim.
All the above non-economic damages can affect the injured person in several ways, including psychological, emotional, and long-term physical consequences. Determining non-economic damages on your own is a daunting task. Several factors, such as the extent of pain and suffering, the severity of the injury, the duration of conditions, and the impact on daily activities, are considered while evaluating the compensation amount.
Proving Non-economic damages
There are various ways that personal injury victims can prove their non-economic losses to a judge or jury. They are:
Medical Records: Medical records show the presence of disability, pain, and psychological symptoms in the injured person. It helps you get the compensation you deserve.
Testimony: The injured person’s testimony must be consistent, honest, and detailed.
Witnesses: Witnesses can identify the injured person’s behavior, personality, interests, mood, and relationships before and after the personal injury. It describes how they have suffered or changed due to the accident.
Final Thoughts
Non-economic losses are an essential component of personal injury compensation as they reflect the emotional aspect of personal injury, which goes beyond monetary losses. Generally, non-economic losses are underestimated or overlooked by defendants and insurance companies, which may try to decline or reduce the value of personal injury claims. So, it is important for personal injury victims to be aware of how to claim non-economic losses, how to prove them, and how to get fair compensation.
By consulting a personal injury attorney, victims can get fair compensation for their physical injuries and their impact on their lives.
