Calculating Pain and Suffering Damages in Frisco TX

If you are working to file a personal injury claim, you probably have multiple questions regarding the legal process, as well as the potential outcome of your case. One of the most common questions claimants have about personal injury suits relates to how much compensation they will receive. Since each situation is different, there is no single answer to this question. Cases and their outcomes are reliant on many factors, all of which your lawyer should discuss with you. However, there are a few primary factors that are useful to assess pain and suffering damages.

What Qualifies as ‘Pain and Suffering” Damages?

In the legal sense, the term “pain and suffering” refers to a variety of injuries that the plaintiff may suffer due to an accident. This suffering includes not just physical pain, but also mental or emotional injuries including grief, fear, insomnia and more. In short, these types of damages represent financial compensation for what the plaintiff has to “go through” as a result of their accident that they would not have had to deal with had the incident not occurred. In minor cases, damages may be compensation for the inconvenience; in significant cases, they serve as compensation for suffering and agony. For example, your hospital bills may be covered, but that doesn’t compensate for the pain of missing out on certain life activities such as playing with your children or grandchildren.

Physical Pain and suffering is non-economic damage because it is difficult to calculate. It is considered subjective and speculative in nature. It is usually tied to the extent of the bodily injury. Insurance companies often take a variety of factors into account when trying to calculate what they will offer for pain and suffering, including things like:

• The severity of the injuries
• The pain and discomfort associated with those injuries
• How the injuries have impacted the plaintiff’s life
• The degree of medical treatment those injuries warrant
• How long the injuries take to heal
• If the plaintiff will need future care like therapy or surgery

How is Compensation Calculated?

Although many factors affect the outcome of a personal injury settlement and each case is unique, most insurance companies and attorneys rely on what ordinarily prudent jury would allow based on the above factors. This does not stop folks from speculating with the following methods:

• The Multiplier Method relies on the multiplication of economic damages (medical bills) with a specific multiplier. This multiplier falls anywhere between 1.5 and 5, depending on how severe your attorney and the insurance company perceive your injuries to be. Once your economic damages are multiplied by this number, the resulting number is then added back to your original economic damages. If your medical bills are $4,000 and they are multiplied by two, your pain and suffering value becomes $8,000. This number is then added back to the original amount of your economic damages to come up with an estimated value of $12,000.
• The ‘Per Diem’ Method  refers to the Latin term for “by the day.” This method uses a daily figure to calculate pain and suffering. For this method, a specific dollar amount is paid every day until the plaintiff reaches their maximum medical improvement. Often, the daily sum is around $100. For example, the ‘per diem’ pay of someone in a car accident would span from the day of the crash until they finished all of their physical therapy. If this took 169 days and the daily figure was $100, the plaintiff’s settlement would be $16,900.

No matter your situation, the legal team at Reynolds & Reynolds Law Firm in Frisco Texas would love to answer any questions you may have about your case and to guide you through the complexities of the legal process. For more information, visit us at https://rrlfirm.com/ or give us a call (214) 891-6606

Reynolds & Reynolds Law Firm | Pain and Suffering Frisco TX | (214) 891-6606