30 Jun

How Is Pain And Suffering Calculated In An Accident Injury Claim In Florida?

Car Accidents, Personal Injury, Tips

how pain and suffering is calculated in Florida

An accident can be emotionally, physically, and financially devastating. When you are seriously injured in an accident in Florida, it is important that you understand your legal rights so that you can pursue maximum compensation!

Many people do not realize the full value of what their accident case may be worth. Sometimes they will try to file a claim with their insurance company first, but insurance companies often resolve claims by offering a low amount to the injured accident victim because this helps them protect their bottom line.

If you’re injured in an accident, you may have to pay hundreds or thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars for things like hospital stays, doctor visits, surgeries, specialized care, medical devices like casts, wheelchairs, or prostheses, rehabilitation and therapy, medications, and more. Depending on the severity of your injury, you may have to take time off work and miss out on wages you would have earned, or you may have to cancel fun activities and travel plans you had already paid for. Your car may be damaged beyond repair or need serious maintenance.

These are tangible costs, known as economic damages, that can and should be covered in a settlement from your insurance company. Most of the time, though, insurance companies will downplay your injuries any way they can and not offer to cover the full amount of even the economic damages.

However, your case may be worth even more than that. If you were injured in car accident in Florida, you could also legally include non-economic damages in your claim – intangible costs that you incurred due to someone else’s negligence.

What are pain and suffering damages?

These non-economic damages are commonly referred to as “pain and suffering”. Obviously, pain and suffering amounts are hard to define, but when determining how large a settlement will be, courts take into account both physical, emotional, and mental anguish. Your settlement may be affected by the severity and permanency of aches and soreness you are feeling. Will your injury take months to heal? Years? Will it ever? If you have injuries that will prove to be painful in the long-term – if your daily routine or lifestyle has been permanently altered – you are more likely to get a higher amount for pain and suffering. Your settlement may also be affected by how much the accident injuries have affected you mentally and emotionally. Have you had trouble sleeping? Do you have increased anxiety or fear related to driving or just in general? Do you no longer enjoy your favorite activities – or will you ever even be able to participate in them again? Have you become depressed? Do you have burning or scarring that causes you embarrassment?

These intangible costs are still costs, make no doubt about it. An insurance company may be perfectly willing to cover the costs of your medical bills, but if they are not including pain and suffering damages in your claim when you rightfully deserve them, that’s not justice. You’re missing out on things because of your accident; you are going through things that you would not have otherwise had to go through. When an accident wasn’t your fault, or wasn’t completely your fault, you don’t have to endure pain and suffering without compensation!

How do you prove pain and suffering?

Pain and suffering damages aren’t going to be the same for everyone. Courts award pain and suffering damages on a case-by-case basis. They consider a variety of factors, including your age, your general health and any pre-existing conditions, the severity of your injuries, and the consequences of your injuries over the course of your lifetime.

Because pain is such an individual experience – no one can know exactly what you’re feeling – proving pain and suffering in court is complex and requires a highly skilled, experienced personal injury attorney. Your attorney will use medical records, prescription history, psychological evaluations, expert medical opinions, your own testimony, your family or spouse’s testimony, and objective testimony about how the accident has changed your life.

How do courts calculate pain and suffering?

In order to translate the cost of your pain and suffering into a dollar amount, Florida courts will use one of three methods.

The first and most common method is known as the multiplier method. This takes the total cost of your economic (tangible) damages and multiplies them by a single digit number that reflects the severity of your pain and suffering to get a total case award amount. For example, if your economic damages from a traumatic brain injury you got as a result of a bad car accident totals $40,000, and your multiplier is 5 because the accident left you paralyzed, then your award amount would be around $200,000 (in most cases, traumatic brain injuries cost more in economic damages and use higher multipliers – these numbers are just for simplicity’s sake). If you are young and broke your arm, though, and had to miss a vacation, your economic damages would be lower and your multiplier would probably be closer to 2 or 3, so your total settlement would be less.

The second method is known as a “per diem” or per day method. A dollar amount is assigned to each day from the time of the accident until you reach “maximum medical improvement” – the most healed your injuries are going to get. This number may be $100 per day, $200 per day, depending on your earnings, lifestyle, injuries, and other factors. If your injuries cost you six months, or 180 days, of pain and suffering and diminished living, and you earn $150 a day, your attorney may ask for $27,000 purely in pain and suffering damages.

Another method uses computer software (like Colossus) to determine the appropriate settlement amount. Which method your lawyer or insurance company will use will depend on the specifics of your case. Note that if you settle out of court, you are less likely to be awarded damages for pain and suffering. If the defendant in your case is another average driver, Florida law does not limit the amount that a court may award for personal injury or wrongful death. That means if your case is severe enough, you could potentially stand to gain a multi-million dollar settlement, like many others that The Florida Law Group has won.

Call our firm today to find out how much your case is truly worth! It is probably more than your insurance company is leading you to believe. Our experienced Florida personal injury lawyers have over 100 years of combined experience helping injured accident victims fight for justice! We never let you settle for less than what you deserve. Our lead trial attorney, Chris Limberopoulos, is a Board Certified Civil Trial Specialist, a distinction that only 1% of lawyers and law firms in the state can claim. We proudly offer all of our legal services on a contingency fee basis, meaning that you don’t pay us anything unless we win your case! Schedule your free case evaluation today.