Individuals who are in car accidents often count themselves as lucky if they can walk away with no injuries, or only minor ones. Car wrecks can be deadly, and you can always lose bodily functions or even your life if a vehicle runs a red light or another driver is not paying attention the way they should be.
If another vehicle hits you, and it’s clear to you the other driver caused what happened, you might decide to sue that driver. You’re more likely to do this if their insurance settlement does not cover your medical bills.
There’s another aspect to car wrecks, though, and this is where you might hear the term “pain and suffering.” This is a legal term that lawyers often bring up in a courtroom when trying to quantify what their client is going through after a car wreck.
Let’s talk about four pain and suffering areas for which you might seem recompense. Your lawyer may mention this in court if you’re trying to convince a jury to award you damages after a particularly bad car accident.
Physical Pain from Injuries
If you don’t know what the term pain and suffering means, you should understand that physical pain is one of the first things your lawyer might bring up if they mention it after a car wreck. In car accidents, broken bones are common. You might hurt your back or neck in such a way that it’s hard for you to get around or move at all as you recover.
You would hope that you will eventually regain your full movement and no longer be in pain. That happens for some drivers and passengers after a car accident, but not all of them.
In the meantime, though, you’re likely going to have a hard time getting through your daily life until your wounds heal. You might be in pain while sitting, standing, or doing just about anything else. This is certainly pain and suffering as a jury and the law understand it, so expect your attorney to talk about these things when you appear in the courtroom.
Companionship Loss
As tragic as it sounds, you might survive a car accident, but another family member may not. For instance, perhaps you lived, but the wreck killed one or more of your passengers.
You might have to live from that point forward without your spouse or partner. Maybe the accident killed a parent, child, or some other relative who you loved very much.
The law considers this companionship loss, and that’s another pain and suffering form that your lawyer can talk about in court. They will ask the jury to consider what your existence will be like when you have to live without this person in your life or multiple people if there was more than one fatality.
They might also talk about consortium loss. This term means you suffer injuries, and then your family or friends do not want to spend as much time with you anymore. You feel isolated because of this, and the other driver should compensate you.
Enjoyment Loss
Enjoyment loss is the third pain and suffering variety your lawyer could mention. You might struggle to enjoy yourself and feel happy the way you once did.
Maybe you’re going to recover from your injuries in time, but meanwhile, you can’t exercise, ride your bike, go for a walk down the street, or play catch with your child in the backyard. While you’re waiting to recover, you might feel depression or anxiety. This enjoyment loss is something for which you can rightly expect financial compensation after a car wreck.
Emotional Trauma
The fourth pain and suffering factor worth talking about is emotional trauma. If you survive an accident, you might not feel the same afterward. You would hope that you can get right behind the wheel again like nothing happened, but the reality is that not many people can do that.
You might have PTSD. Many people experience it after a bad car wreck, just as you would feel it if you survived domestic abuse, a combat situation if you’re a soldier, and so forth.
You might have to speak to a therapist for months or even years after the accident. It could be that you will eventually feel confident enough to drive again, but you might never get to that point. Emotional wounds do heal, but the timetable is not the same for everyone, and you might have a tough time in your life until you get back to where you were before the wreck.
You Might Try to Get Money for More than One of These
If your lawyer is trying to convince a jury that you are experiencing pain and suffering, they might mention more than one of these topics. For instance, maybe you have PTSD, but you also have some physical injuries that cause you pain. You should get compensation for both those things.
The tricky part is trying to figure out how much money will make up for physical pain, a loved one’s death, emotional trauma, etc. It’s not as though a table exists, and you can point to a specific dollar amount for a dead spouse or a broken bone.
Your lawyer will probably need to cite precedent as they try to determine how much money would be appropriate from the other driver. They can also likely ask for more if the other driver caused the wreck because they consumed alcohol before driving or they were going thirty miles over the speed limit. These behaviors doubtless made the tragedy worse, so the person should pay more.
Remember that even if you do win your case, you will need to pay your lawyer from your winnings. If you set up a contingency payment plan, you might have to give them as much as forty percent. That seems like a lot, but you’ll probably be willing to pay it to hold that other driver responsible.