After a car accident, you may deal with severe injuries and property damage. You may be eligible for compensation for the damages you have suffered like medical expenses, vehicle repair costs, and lost income. But you might also be entitled to pain and suffering compensation. A Natomas car accident lawyer can determine your eligibility and help you secure the maximum damages you deserve. They can examine the facts of the accident, including your injuries and their impact on your life.
If the vehicle collision leads to permanent disability, a pain and suffering settlement can be a big help for your family while they face the challenges that can arise as they take care of you. To ensure a fair settlement, you must calculate the right compensation amount you deserve to get. This is an experienced lawyer comes in to help.
What is Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering are the physical and emotional injuries you suffer in a car crash. They are non-economic damages as they can’t be measured by a certain dollar amount.
After a car accident, you may experience different discomforts, pains, and aches that can last for weeks or years. Permanent injuries can lead to lifelong pain and challenges. Pain and suffering damages include physical symptoms such as broken or fractured bones, headaches, soft tissue damage, vertigo, back and neck stiffness or tightness, nerve damage, paralysis, tinnitus, and internal organ damage. In general, more serious injuries will result in higher pain and suffering settlement or verdict awards.
What is Emotional Pain and Suffering?
Sustaining injuries in a car accident can come with emotional pain. This pain can prevent you from seeking life enjoyment or making the most of your life. Emotional symptoms that can be eligible for pain and suffering settlement include insomnia, depression, anxiety, PTSD, mental anguish, strain on personal relationships, personality changes, irritability, and more.
You need to understand the impact of pain and suffering on your claim’s value together with your lawyer. Once you accept a settlement offer from an insurer, you won’t be able to demand additional compensation for damages that you failed to consider early on.
How Much Compensation Can You Get for Pain and Suffering?
Your compensation amount will vary, depending on some factors like the seriousness of your injuries, your healing process, your age and health, your economic damages, the at-fault party’s liability, and where the crash took place.
If you have suffered injuries or a permanent disability, you may get more compensation in a settlement. Meanwhile, if you sustained a mild soft tissue injury and recovered from it after rehab, your settlement amount may not be as high. While there is no particular value for pain and suffering, your lawyer may review previous cases similar to your case to come up with an estimate. But every case is unique and previous results don’t foresee future events.
Proving Pain and Suffering
Your car accident lawyer can help collect the necessary evidence to prove that you suffered pain and suffering. Although proving injuries such as bruises, broken bones, or scars can be done using photos or test results, it takes the expertise and skills of an experienced lawyer to prove emotional suffering and chronic pain. Some of the evidence an attorney will collect includes the following:
- Medical bills and records. Written formal diagnoses, proof of medical expenses, prescription receipts, medical device receipts, and treatment plans and reports can prove the seriousness of your injuries.
- Accident-related expense receipts. To prove your pain and suffering, you need documentation such as pay stubs that show your lost income, receipts of hiring experts to carry out household chores you cannot perform yourself, and travel-related expenses as you go to and from your treating doctor.
- Witness statements. These statements can speak about your immediate pain and suffering after the accident. They include statements from witnesses to the accident and those of your friends and family who witness that changes in your ability to perform things or behavior.
Leave a Reply