Pain and Suffering in Personal Injury Lawsuits

When you sue and win after an accident, you are usually guaranteed enough money to pay for your medical bills, but what about the unseen and long-term effects known as pain and suffering? Pain and suffering can affect you long after the accident and even for the rest of your life. If you want to know more about pain and suffering, keep reading.

In some accidents, you know the complete extent of your injuries immediately. For example, if you trip over a stump and twist your ankle, unless you don't seek medical treatment, your ankle will most likely heal without long-term effects. However, if instead of spraining the ankle, you shattered several bones, you may not know the long-term effects.

Your ankle will heal, but the ankle is a complicated joint with lots of bones. Even after using screws and metal to secure the ankle and let it heal, you may have long-term pain, limited mobility, increased risk of arthritis, etc. If this is the case, you deserve more than just the medical costs of healing the broken ankle.

Physical pain is usually easy to prove because it's visible with the naked eye or with certain tests (MRI, CT scan, etc.), but mental suffering is usually invisible. Mental suffering is some type of change in your mood, thinking, or behavior because of the accident. For many people, mental suffering may include anxiety or PTSD from the incident, but others may develop depression, anger problems, etc.

Mental suffering can also be directly related to the physical injuries you sustained. As in the above example, if your ankle does lose some mobility or you develop a limp, your mood may be affected, causing major depressive episodes. The injury or a scar from an injury may also make you change your behavior, such as not going out in public or doing the same activities you once enjoyed.

You'll need to work directly with your doctor to help prove the extent of your pain and suffering. Medical charts, X-rays, and MRIs are excellent proof to show physical injuries. With psychological symptoms, the courts have to rely on your doctor's notes regarding your mental symptoms.

Tell your doctor everything you feel and experience after the injury. Even if you don't think changing habits is a big deal, if the accident caused you to change your habits and life, you deserve a fair settlement. Don't forget to tell the doctor why you may feel a certain way. For example, feeling depressed because of a scar, or feeling anxious because you're afraid the accident will happen again.

Even with all your proof, proving pain and suffering is still difficult because set rules for calculating the cost of pain and suffering are present. Some courts apply a multiplier to the total amount of the medical bills to determine a fail settlement that includes pain and suffering, but in many cases, your own behavior and actions can affect your settlement.

If you act over the top about your injuries and doing all the complaining yourself, people are less likely to take you serious. If you are unlikeable or your doctor's notes don't support your claims, the jury will not like you as much, and may give you a lower settlement. Last, the jury will also take into account if you have a criminal record.

You, your doctor, and your attorney will work together, however, to prove the extent of your injuries, so you can get a fair settlement. For more information about pain and suffering, contact us at Richard D. Hoffman Law Offices today.