What Are the Types of Personal Injury Damages?

Ambika Taylor June 14, 2022 Health Comments Off on What Are the Types of Personal Injury Damages? 114 Views

Personal injury is not only limited to the injury that may be caused to your body due to an accident or someone’s negligence. In fact, it extends to causing pain or harm to one’s mind and emotions as well. Therefore, personal injury damages are paid to the claimant of personal injury in order to compensate them for their loss or injury. That’s when you need the assistance of an expert and reliable lawyer.

For example, if you were a resident of a county in New Jersey, you would want to contact the best Hudson county criminal lawyer to help you resolve the case in a breeze. Likewise, a personal injury lawyer can help you strengthen your case by collecting and presenting solid evidence in court to get fairly compensated for your personal injury.

Nevertheless, it’s imperative that you are aware of the 3 different types of personal injury damages, so your expectations are clear. Keep reading this article to learn!

1. Economic or Special Damages

Special damages compensate the monetary loss that you suffered due to the personal injury. That’s why they are called economic damages. It’s easy to calculate the amount of loss you suffered, so they are correctly accounted for and substantiated.

For example, you can easily collect all the medical bills and claim them in court as you had to pay them because of the personal injury that you sustained. Therefore, economic or special damages are quite easy to claim and recover.

The most common kinds of economic or special personal injury damages are:

Hospital bills
Prescription medication costs
Lost wages
Lost earning capacity
Emergency room bills
Costs for assistive devices like crutches
Rehabilitative therapy
Home healthcare
Future medical costs

2. Non-Economic or General Damages

General damages reimburse a victim for all the non-monetary damages due to personal injury. These damages are not easy to quantify and calculate because they aren’t based on the medical bills or a specific injury. Instead, they focus on compensating you for whatever you emotionally or mentally “suffered” due to the personal injury.

Non-economic or general damages include:

Physical pain and suffering
Disfigurement
Mental anguish
Loss of companionship
Loss of enjoyment of life
Embarrassment and humiliation
Emotional stress

In order to fairly and adequately compensate the victim of personal injury for general damages, the jury may consider several factors before coming to a conclusion.

The age of the victim
How severe was the injury?
What was the victim’s health before the accident?
How long the victim may have to suffer the injury?
How long the mental stress/pain has lasted and is going to last?
What is the impact of the personal injury on the victim’s everyday life?

3. Punitive Damages

The final type of personal injury damages is punitive damages. These damages are not mostly claimed by victims because they don’t usually compensate the victim. Instead, they are to punish the defendant for their outrageously negligent behavior and to make sure they don’t continue with the same behavior with others in the future.

However, at times, the victim may also be compensated for the wrongful behavior of the defendant due to their negligence. Most common examples of punitive damages are: