If another person’s negligence caused you to suffer injuries in a car accident, can you get compensation for pain and suffering?
Most accident victims do deserve fair compensation for their ordeal. However, calculating the cash value of this damage poses a challenge.
The subjective nature of these losses provides the insurance company with an easy excuse for reducing your settlement amount. To get the settlement you deserve, you must overcome those objections.
If you sustained injuries in a car accident, a Georgia car accident lawyer can assist with calculating your damages and building a persuasive case for you.
Can You Get Compensation for Pain and Suffering in Your Settlement?
If the injuries you sustained in a car accident were painful, or if you suffered in any way as a result of the accident, you may be able to recover damages for pain and suffering.
Determining whether you deserve to be compensated for pain and suffering is relatively simple. The challenge is determining how much you deserve to be compensated.
To recover a fair settlement for your damages, your car accident attorney must determine the actual cash value of your pain and suffering.
How Do Car Accident Lawyers Calculate Pain and Suffering?
Direct costs—such as doctor bills, lost wages, and car repair costs—are straightforward and simple to calculate. In legal terms, these types of losses are known as pecuniary damages.
For more subjective damages—such as emotional distress and pain and suffering—calculating the value presents a bigger challenge. These losses are called non-pecuniary damages.
Essentially, pain and suffering is the loss of wellness, comfort, opportunity, and happiness that victims experience after an injury accident. But how do you put a price on these concepts?
Two ways that car accident attorneys might calculate pain and suffering are by using a multiplier or by a per-diem rate calculation.
Using a Multiplier to Calculate Pain and Suffering
One common approach is to multiply the victim’s pecuniary damages by a factor ranging from 1.5 to 5. To determine the appropriate multiplier, attorneys consider multiple factors such as:
- The victim’s age,
- The severity of the victim’s injuries,
- The victim’s prognosis for recovery,
- Effects on the victim’s quality of life, and
- Effects on the victim’s future earning capacity.
Other factors may affect your case and, thus, influence the multiplier for calculating your settlement value.
Using Per-Diem Rate to Calculate Pain and Suffering
Another way to calculate these damages is to use a per-diem or per-day rate. This calculation requires your lawyer to determine how many days you will experience pain or suffering because of your injuries.
Calculating the number of days is more straightforward than determining what the daily rate should be, however. Attorneys arrive at this calculation by considering many of the same factors used in the multiplier approach.
In some cases, attorneys use both methods or a hybrid of the two. Today, however, easy access to big data is allowing legal experts to build complex algorithms designed to analyze existing data and extrapolate the results for a specific victim.
The most accurate way to determine what your settlement value might be is talking to an experienced personal injury attorney.
Talk to a Georgia Car Accident Attorney Today at No Cost
The Pritchard Injury Firm fights to get Georgia accident victims the compensation they deserve for their injuries. We don’t believe that insurance companies should have the right to shortchange victims or refuse to compensate them for all their losses.
To learn more about how we can help you get justice and fair compensation for your damages, contact us now to schedule a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.