After a car crash, a slip-and-fall or even an incident involving a defective product, you or someone you love could have serious injuries. You may have grounds to bring a personal injury lawsuit against the person or business responsible for your injury. When an injury leads to medical expenses or lost wages, you could ask the other party to compensate you for those losses.
Typically, you need to suffer serious medical issues or substantial property damage for your costs to exceed whatever insurance is available. However, some people find that the person or business who hurt them doesn’t have the right insurance, making a lawsuit the only way to recover their losses.
When pursuing a civil claim, you could request compensation for your pain and suffering in addition to your medical losses and property damage expenses. You can also pursue compensation for pain and suffering under Tennessee state law.
What can you ask for in a pain and suffering claim?
You can make a claim for several kinds of noneconomic damages. That category includes your physical and emotional pain, as well as any suffering you experience. It also includes disfigurement, mental anguish and the loss of enjoyment of daily life. You will typically need to have consequences from the incident that affect your health, happiness or daily life to pursue noneconomic damages.
You can seek up to $750,000 in compensation for noneconomic damages. If you suffered a catastrophic personal injury or loss, that maximum amount goes up to $1,000,000.
How do you put a price on your pain?
There is no straightforward way to set a financial value for your physical and emotional suffering. Insurance companies sometimes use a multiplier.
They look at the actual costs someone incurred and then rate the injury itself and the effect it has on their life, assigning a number between 1.5 and 5. The product of the multiplier and the financial losses someone suffered could be what the company offers to pay. Other people use a per diem accounting method. They set a specific value for the impact of their condition on their daily experience and then multiply that by the likely duration of the condition.
Trying to put a price on your pain and suffering and pushing for maximum compensation after an injury in Tennessee can be difficult, but knowing your rights makes the process a little easier.