Calculating the value of your injury for legal purposes can be difficult to do, but with the proper advice and guidance, you can determine a fair request for your claim. One of the most important factors to impact the value of your claim is the pain and suffering of the injured party. Both physical and mental distress and harm incurred from the injury should factor into the pain and suffering, and can greatly increase your due compensation.
What is Pain and Suffering?
Pain and suffering represents the physical and emotional distress the victim has undergone, and will continue to endure because of his or her injury. This can include actual pain and discomfort, whether it be temporary or long-term, depression, anxiety, insomnia, memory loss or any other emotional disorders. It could also involve more serious disorders like PTSD, or resulting emotional strains. For example, if the injury caused depression which then affected your marriage, your relationship with your children, or your ability to have children. All of these issues, and more, are considered pain and suffering.
How to Calculate the Value
There are three main factors that will contribute to the value of a pain and suffering case. The value may increase or decrease depending on the type of pain and discomfort the victim suffered or will continue to suffer, the severity and duration of the injuries, and the persuasive abilities of the victim and his or her lawyer.
It would also be helpful to research previous jury verdicts to see the value of cases similar to yours. Or, you could use the multiple method. The multiple method takes the total amount of damages (medical bills, property damage, and other funds owed because of the injury), and multiplying it somewhere between 1.5 and 4 times to find a rough estimate of pain and suffering. However, this method will not accurately apply to all cases.
Evaluating the value of pain and suffering in a claim does not have one fail-safe method, the best way to ensure you are fairly compensated for your injury is to seek legal advice from a practiced attorney. At Bahe Cook Cantley & Nefzger PLC, our attorneys focus solely on personal injury, serious injury, and wrongful death cases, so you can be confident in our ability to successfully handle your case.
We are devoted to our clients and provide personal, one on one attention to better help with each claim and ensure we give our full attention to every case we handle. Our legal team is not afraid to take risks and we never back away from complex cases. Trust your personal injury case to us and let our lawyers fight for your fair compensation.
Contact Bahe Cook Cantley & Nefzger PLC today about your personal injury case.