How Are Pain and Suffering Calculated in California Injury Cases?

“Pain and suffering” is a commonly used term for what’s known in the law as “non-economic damages.” Calculating your non-economic damages can be tricky, but they are a key part of your personal injury case. Talk to a Victorville, CA personal injury attorney with lots of experience to make sure that your damages are properly calculated and you get everything that you are owed.

How Pain and Suffering Is Calculated in Victorville, CA Personal Injury Cases

There are two common methods for calculating pain and suffering, though the first method is more common than the second:

• The multiplier method
• The per diem method

The Multiplier Method

With the multiplier method, you first total all your economic damages, such as your medical bills and property damage, and then multiply that number by a number between one and five. The worse the injuries, the higher the multiplier number should be. For minor injuries that healed quickly and without complications, you would only use one or possibly two. For catastrophic injuries resulting in paralysis, brain damage, and other life-altering consequences, you would use five. Everything else comes somewhere in between, and you will want the help of an experienced lawyer to know what you should be asking for.

Calculating Carefully

With the multiplier method, it’s essential that your economic damages be properly totaled. If your economic damages don’t include everything, this will affect how much you get in non-economic damages.

Medical Bills

You should be calculating all your medical expenses, not only from the immediate treatment you received after the incident but also from all follow-up surgeries, physical therapy, and other care. If your injuries are particularly catastrophic, you may also have to figure for future care.

Lost Income

Here you would need to calculate not just the actual hourly wage losses you sustained but also things like compensation for lost vacation time you may have had to take, becoming ineligible for a bonus you were working towards, or even future lost wages if your injuries will keep you from working.

The Per Diem Method

With this method, you assign a dollar value to each day you were affected by your injuries. This is not the most common method, but there are times when it’s particularly appropriate. For example, if your case goes to trial and you are in front of a jury, it can be difficult for the jury to truly grasp the suffering that you endured.

If the jury sees a really high number calculated through the multiplier method, they may have a gut feeling that somehow it is unfair. It may be much easier for them to grasp a smaller number multiplied over many days. For example, your lawyer may suggest $200 a day for 300 days of recovery, so the final number would be $60,000 in non-economic damages.

Talk to a Personal Injury Attorney

An experienced attorney can help you properly calculate all your losses. Visit the Law Offices of Vondra & Hanna today in Victorville, CA for help with your case.

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