Personal injury accidents can leave an injured with life-long injuries. Such accidents can be both mental as well as physical. The damage caused by a personal injury accident goes much deeper than the one done to a body or property. When any party injures you through intentional wrongdoing or negligence, the personal injury laws in California allow you to seek monetary compensation for the damages.
Those who got injured due to any personal injury accident can ask the insurance companies or court to help them by providing compensation for their pain, and suffering, currently and also in the future. For this many personal injury law firms comes as a helping hand by offering their quality services at inexpensive rates. The main role of these law firms is to help the injured get the maximum compensation, that they must, for their loss and injury.
What is “Pain and Suffering?”
Pain and suffering is a concept that addresses the overall loss of happiness, opportunity, and comfort that generally follows an accident. It is a major part of personal injury cases that need proper evidence of negligence to prove that who was responsible for the injury. Pain and suffering cover, not just the physical pain, but also mental and emotional injuries like grief, fear, inconvenience, insomnia, worry, and even the loss of life enjoyment.
Multiplier formula is usually the most used method for calculating the pain and suffering damages. With this method, the lost wages, medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, etc. that are also known as total economic damages are calculated. These damages are used as a base figure. This formula uses all such expenses for calculating the unknown expenses with the use of a multiplier (usually 1.5 to 4). For example, if the injured has $10,000 in the economic damages and the multiplier used is ‘2’, then the compensation would be around $20,000.
The more severe the injuries and the longer they will take the injured to recover properly, the more the multiplier is used. The insurance company usually argues for the lowest multiplier possible, however having a lawyer by your side helps you build a case for justifying the highest possible multiplier.
Per Diem Formula:-
The per diem method is another popular method that is usually used for calculating the pain and suffering damages. As per this method, the compensation is calculated on the basis of the number of days between the injury date and the date on which the injured is released by the physician or from the clinic or hospital. The per diem method is used generally by personal injury lawyers. Under this method, a dollar figure is assigned for pain and suffering for each day until the injured has recovered completely from their accident. For example, if the injured tool 50 days for reaching the maximum medical improvement and the per diem amount of $150 was selected, then the damages would be valued at $7,500.
The method that results in the lowest amount of non-economic damages, is chosen by the insurance companies. At such time hiring a professional personal injury law firm helps to raise that amount to the maximum that the judges would award potentially in the case. An experienced law firm or lawyer knows how to negotiate a settlement for the pain and suffering damages.