How Pain and Suffering Compensation is Calculated

There are two primary kinds of damages that are commonly alleged in personal injury lawsuits. Special damages and general damages, each of which are quantified in different ways.

Special Damages include:

• Medical bills
• Loss of vehicle
• Time loss/loss of income

Quantifying special damages is fairly straightforward. If you have a pile of medical bills resulting from a car accident injury, you can file a lawsuit in order to be compensated to pay off those bills. In Washington state, car insurance companies are required by law to offer drivers Personal Injury Protection or PIP. If you choose to buy the minimum PIP policy it will cover up to $10,000 in medical expenses resulting from a car accident. But what are you supposed to do if you receive a bill for a lengthy hospital stay that’s well over $100,000? Get in touch with a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.

General Damages include:

• Pain and Suffering
• Emotional Distress

General damages are harder to quantify than special damages. We go into this in more detail on article we wrote about typical pain and suffering awards. If you lose a car in an accident it is easy to determine the value of that car. Who needs a lawyer for that, right? But if you lose a limb in the same car accident it is not as easy to determine the value of that limb. This is where the courtroom experience of a pain and suffering attorney can come in handy. A lawyer will know exactly how to quantify emotional distress damages, step by step. For now, let’s discuss the first step.

One of the first things a lawyer will recommend is that you begin to document your experiences as soon as possible. Postponing the documentation of any emotional distress, pain, and suffering that you are experiencing can significantly weaken your case and reduce the total compensation you might otherwise have been awarded. Think of it like this: documentation creates evidence. Evidence, in turn, creates a strong case. And only strong cases obtain the maximum amount of compensation. This is why we encourage our clients at Helland Law Group to keep a journal of the pain and suffering they are experiencing.

Let’s just say you were in a car accident that left you with a broken rib. After seeking medical care and contacting your insurance, your next move should be to write down your daily experiences of emotional distress, pain, and suffering, however mundane they may seem.

Forget the phrase, “Less is more”.In pain and suffering cases, more is more.

So if you are having trouble sleeping, write it down. If you are having trouble focusing at work, write it down. Having trouble driving to the grocery store? Write it down. You can’t lean down far enough to put in a load of laundry without experiencing sharp pain? You guessed it, write it down. While any one of these details may seem insignificant when taken on their own, the cumulative effect they will have on your pain and suffering case is very significant. Now that you know the first step in quantifying emotional distress damages, let’s go over some additional steps a lawyer will take.

To obtain the maximum compensation for a client’s pain and suffering, a lawyer will first simply talk to them. And listen. The lawyer will ask all sorts of questions about the pain and suffering their client is experiencing. After this initial consultation with a client, a lawyer will gather further evidence such as:

• Medical bills and records
• Photographs of injuries or scars
• Receipts for over-the-counter medication or assistive devices like crutches, neck braces, etc.

The job of a pain and suffering lawyer is to calculate the maximum compensation that they believe their client deserves and then, work hard to convince the defendants and the jury to award their client as close to that sum as possible. In the end, however, the actual compensation a client is awarded is not entirely up to their attorney.

Let’s just say that a car hit you while you were crossing the street and broke your collarbone. In a pre-trial hearing your attorney will make it clear to the defendants just how much pain and suffering you have endured as a result of the accident. At this point, the defendants could attempt to avoid a trial by offering you a settlement in an amount that they believe to be fair compensation for the pain and suffering you have endured. If in this situation you feel that their offer is fair compensation for your collarbone fracture and any additional emotional distress, then you can simply accept their offer and walk away. But beware, a defendant’s settlement offer likely will never be as large as the maximum compensation you could be awarded should you choose to go to trial. If you do not feel the defendant’s settlement offer is fair you can reject it and your case can go to mediation or to a trial where a jury will ultimately decide how much compensation you deserve for your pain and suffering. Your attorney will do everything in their power to convince the jury that you deserve the maximum compensation.

Traditionally, pain and suffering compensation is calculated by the following two methods:

• Per Diem method
• Multiplier method

The Per Diem method puts a dollar amount on every day that you experience an injury due to an accident. It then multiplies that daily dollar amount by the total number of days that you have experienced pain and suffering, or likely will. Why don’t we dive into some pain and suffering multiplier examples. Let’s say your daily dollar amount is estimated at $150 and you have been experiencing pain and suffering for two and half months or 75 days. That would give you a total compensation of roughly $11,250.

The Multiplier method adds up all incurred costs like medical bills, lost wages, etc. along with inevitable future costs. It then takes that total and multiplies it 1.5 to 5 times that amount depending on the severity of the pain, suffering, and emotional distress. Say your medical bills and loss of income are estimated to wind up costing you $50,000. If the devastation of the accident has upended your entire life then you might multiply that $50,000 by 4. That would give you a total compensation of roughly $200,000.

Say a car accident costs you around $8,000 upfront in medical bills and you sustained a few injured fingers. While this injury could impede your ability to work it might not prevent you from missing work entirely. In this scenario, the pain and suffering multiplier might be at the low end of “1.5”. That puts your compensation at around $12,000. But what if, in the same scenario, you are a piano teacher? You can’t exactly teach piano without the use of your fingers. You would be experiencing greater pain, suffering, and emotional distress than the average worker. So you would set your multiplier around “2 or 3” instead of the average worker’s “1.5”, placing your compensation around $16,000 to $24,000. But what if you, a piano teacher, lost your fingers in the accident? This injury would ruin your career and upend your entire life.

As you can see, quantifying emotional distress for a piano teacher who has lost their fingers in an accident is going to be a lot more complicated than a quick calculation with the Per Diem method. This piano teacher scenario is just one of the countless variables that render free online pain and suffering calculators inaccurate. Because if a piano teacher who lost their fingers in an accident were to walk into our office and ask, “How much can I sue ‘em for?” we are going to give that client a much higher settlement estimate than another client who might have also lost his fingers in an accident, but who happens to work in a call center. While it may not sound too glamorous, compensation for pain and suffering really is calculated on a case-by-case basis according to the specific circumstances of each case.

Now that we have gotten into the weeds of case variables and explored a few examples, you should have a basic knowledge of pain and suffering lawsuits. And that’s a great first step. Your next step is to contact an experienced attorney.