An Overview of Noneconomic Damages

The goal of every injured plaintiff in personal injury actions is to obtain damages — a monetary award that is designed to compensate the plaintiff for their injuries. There are two primary forms of compensatory damages: economic damages and noneconomic damages. Economic damages are those that generally are fairly quantifiable, like medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, etc. Noneconomic damages are designed to compensate the plaintiff for losses that are not strictly monetary and, as a result, tend to be more difficult to quantify. Regardless of what type of damages you are seeking, an experienced Tifton personal injury lawyer can help you obtain them.   

Types of Noneconomic Damages

Pain and Suffering 

Injuries from accidents, such as motor vehicle accidents, slips and falls, and accidents caused by defective products, can be extraordinarily painful. And such pain can often become chronic, lasting for years after the injuries themselves have healed. Pain and suffering damages are intended to compensate victims for the physical pain they experience due to the defendants’ negligence. 

Emotional Distress

Accident injuries are not merely physical. In fact, the emotional toll such injuries produce often continues long after the physical injuries have healed. Plaintiffs who suffer particularly severe injuries may even develop mental disorders after their ordeals, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, impaired memory, phobias, depression, and anxiety. Emotional distress damages compensate such victims for their mental anguish. 

Loss of Consortium 

“Consortium” refers to the relationship between spouses. While such relationships may seem irrelevant to a personal injury claim, the law recognizes loss of consortium damages because one spouse’s physical injuries often have negative repercussions on the entire marital relationship. Such damages are designed to compensate the victim’s spouse for the loss of the victim’s companionship, affection, and other benefits of marriage. 

Diminished Quality of Life

Life after an accident can often be very different from life before an accident. In many cases, the physical and mental pain of an injury can prevent the victim from engaging in activities that they used to enjoy or otherwise cause them to lose their joie de vivre. That is why the law allows such victims to recover damages for the diminished quality of their post-accident lives. 

Disfigurement 

Serious and catastrophic injuries often result in scarring, burns,  loss of limbs, and other types of disfigurement. These types of permanent injuries can be profoundly distressing to the victim and their friends and family, and in many cases, results in difficulty finding a job or otherwise enjoying their lives. As such, victims who suffer disfigurement can often obtain substantial non-economic damages. 

Does Georgia Have a Cap on Noneconomic Damages? 

Many states have placed caps on the amount of non-economic damages an injured plaintiff can receive in some personal injury cases. While Georgia places a cap on punitive damages in most types of cases, it does not impose a cap for non-economic damages. 

Obtain the Noneconomic Damages You Are Entitled to With Help From a Tifton Personal Injury Lawyer 

If you have been involved in an accident and endured pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, or any other type of noneconomic damage, you should contact an experienced attorney to advocate for your right to recover. To get started, please contact a Tifton personal injury lawyer at the Hudson Injury Firm by calling 229-396-5848 or using our online form.