If you are injured in a car accident on a Pennsylvania highway, you will suffer physical, financial, and emotional harm. When the accident is not your fault, you are entitled to seek damages through a personal injury lawsuit. The attorneys at the Reiff Law Firm have the experience and resources to calculate your losses. However, you might be wondering how pain and suffering is quantified. Our Philadelphia car accident attorney explains this process in detail below.
What is Pain and Suffering After a Pennsylvania Car Accident
Before discussing how to calculate a compensation figure for pain and suffering, it is essential to understand exactly what pain and suffering damages encompass. Damages in a personal injury lawsuit are typically broken down into two types: economic damages and non-economic damages. Economic damages are easy to understand. They are your actual financial losses, including medical expenses, lost income, and property damage.
On the other hand, non-economic damages are more challenging to explain and quantify. Usually referred to as “pain and suffering,” non-economic damages include the physical and emotional harm you endure because of your injury.
Emotional Damages Suffered in a Pennsylvania Car Accident
When you suffer an injury, you not only experience physical pain, you also experience emotional distress. Emotional suffering could include conditions such as anxiety, stress, nightmares, loss of enjoyment of life, and mental anguish. Individuals will experience different types and levels of emotional damages based on the severity of their injury and the nature of their personality. Our Pennsylvania car accident lawyers will work to formulate a compensation amount that reflects the acute level of emotional damage a crash victim is enduring.
Calculating Emotional and Physical Damages in a Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawsuit
Because of the nature of the harm associated with pain and suffering, determining an average settlement amount for non-economic damages is unpredictable. It is not the same as gathering a selection of receipts or calculating fixed expenses forward. Every individual experiences pain and suffering in a unique way.
Therefore, calculating pain and suffering is much more challenging. It is not uncommon for two individuals to suffer the same injury yet experience drastically different levels of physical and emotional pain. Our Pennsylvania personal injury attorney will look at each injury through its own particular lens and consider a number of different factors.
When evaluating your injury and an appropriate compensation amount, our law office will look at the type of injury you sustained. This includes the severity of the injury and its impact on your life. For instance, did the injury leave you disfigured or scarred? How has the injury affected your ability to live your life, such as your ability to work or your enjoyment of normal activities? We will consider your age and your health before the accident occurred, as well as the time it takes you to recover from the injury.
In addition to the physical harm, we will establish if you have suffered any mental trauma due to the injury. If you are experiencing anxiety, grief, or humiliation because of the injury, you deserve to be appropriately compensated.
How to Increase Your Compensation Amount for Pain and Suffering
As stated above, quantifying pain and suffering is difficult, especially since every person will experience it uniquely. Non-economic damages, by their very nature, are subjective. Our Pennsylvania car accident attorneys need to demonstrate to a judge or jury the level of harm you have endured due to your injury. While we can turn to case law and expert testimony, much of the compelling evidence comes from the injured victim.
You should keep track of your experiences after the accident. This record could include things such as nights when you are unable to sleep and listing those activities that you enjoyed but are now prohibited from participating in because of your injury. A detailed log of your emotional and physical suffering makes your injury personal.
The record should include a daily log of the physical pain you are experiencing. Additionally, list the severity, length, and types of symptoms you are suffering because of your injury. Be sure to indicate the type of medications you are required to take, the reasons why, and any side effects. You should also keep a detailed account of the emotional distress you are going through, including any depression, anxiety, or feelings of helplessness and loss.
Pain and Suffering Damages in a Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawsuit
You can recover for pain and suffering damages in nearly any type of personal injury case filed in Pennsylvania. All our Pennsylvania car accident attorney has to do is establish that you experienced emotional or physical harm due to your injury. For instance, if you suffered a back injury in a rear-end collision, we could prove that you are unable to play with your grandchildren, ride your bike, or take those long evening walks with your wife. You deserve compensation for these types of damages as much as you do for your medical expenses.
Call Our Pennsylvania Car Accident Attorney for a Free Consultation
If you are injured in a car accident, you deserve to be compensated for your financial losses and the emotional harm you suffered. Our experienced Philadelphia personal injury lawyers are committed to recovering damages for the emotional and physical harm people suffer through no fault of their own. Our lawyers have the knowledge and resources to calculate the pain and suffering you endured. To schedule a free consultation to review your legal options, call the Reiff Law Firm at (215) 709-6940.