“Pain and suffering” are legal terms used in personal injury cases. It refers to the emotional and physical trauma that you have suffered because of injuries caused by another person or an organization’s careless or reckless behavior. This is called negligence, in legal terms. “Pain and suffering” include many things that are not as visible as bruises and broken bones, subjective measures such as:
- Loss of enjoyment of life after suffering a permanent injury
- Loss of being able to be an active parent to your children if you have suffered permanent injury
- Humiliation and embarrassment from scarring and disfigurement
- Any accident-related emotional and mental distress
- Fear and anxiety related to driving after the accident
- Post-accident depression
Just being limited in your ability to throw a baseball or work out at the gym or socialize with friends may be potentially included in pain and suffering. If you jump every time you hear a loud noise and your accident triggered this fear of loud noises, this can be “calculated” as pain and suffering. Truly, “pain and suffering” is subjective. And it can be difficult to place a dollar value on emotional troubles that you now experience due to the accident. However, this is part of an attorney’s job. The attorney can seek to prove how your life has suffered because of a personal injury. It is helpful for you as the victim to record what has happened post-crash and how your life has changed. Journals like these can be useful in a personal injury claim.
Meantime, insurers have developed standards to help determine the financial compensation they are willing to pay for various types of pain and suffering. It can sometimes be the case that the insurer will simply take medical costs and multiple them by a certain amount and define that as pain and suffering.
At the law offices of attorney Gregg A. Wisotsky, Esq., Partner, Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins, PC, we can answer your questions, explain your rights and represent you in a personal injury claim. Contact our office online or call us at 973-241-7468 for a free consultation. Additionally, we charge no attorney fees unless we win your case on your behalf. In addition to personal injury law, we also practice criminal defense.
