Waldorf, Maryland Car Accident Lawyers: How Is Pain and Suffering Estimated?
If you have been injured in a Waldorf auto accident, you are entitled to make an insurance claim against the insurance policy held by the careless person responsible for the accident. That is often the driver of the other vehicle, but it could be others like the repair shop that negligently repaired some mechanical part or others. You are entitled, under Maryland law, to seek full compensation for your injuries and damages including payment of medical bills, lost wages, costs of repairing your vehicle. You are also entitled to seek recovery of your pain and suffering.
However, the idea of pain and suffering as damages can be confusing since, unlike a medical invoice, pain and suffering is not something that can be precisely defined or measured. The experienced and top-rated Maryland auto accident lawyers at the Law Office of Robert Castro offer the following discussion on how pain and suffering is estimated. If you have been injured, call us at (301) 870-1200 for a no-risk consultation.
As a category of damages, pain and suffering includes both physical and mental/emotional suffering. Anyone who has been injured in a Maryland car accident knows that the injuries cause physical pain. A broken bone, for example, is extremely painful and will continue to be painful as the bone heals. That pain may be sharp at first and then reduce to throbbing pain and various levels of discomfort. There may also be sharp pains when efforts are made to move. Further, as the healing progresses, often, the medical advice is to obtain physical therapy and rehabilitation to restore the limb to full strength and functionality. The process of therapy and rehabilitation is often painful as muscles and tendons are stressed in order to accomplish full healing. There may also be emotional and mental suffering involved in this process like fear, anxiety and worry.
A broken bone is just one example. Certainly, other types of injuries may be even more painful if surgeries and other invasive medical procedures are involved.
Since there is no method of putting a precise dollar amount on such pain and suffering, of necessity, pain and suffering requires an estimate. Part of estimating the amount that compensates a victim for pain and suffering is the person’s testimony about what it really involved.
The other part of estimating pain and suffering is to use the medical bills/invoices as a “proxy” for the amount of pain and suffering. This is reasonable since each medical procedure is something that is often painful. Further, a severe medical procedure is often more painful than a more minor medical procedure. Finally, since — in general — the more severe and involved a medical procedure, the higher the charges from the hospital, anesthesiologist, surgeon, nursing care, etc. Thus, in a very general manner, a victim with $100,000 in medical bills has experienced more pain and suffering than a victim with $20,000 in medical bills. This is a logic that is understood by juries, judges, personal injury lawyers and insurance company representatives.
In using the medical invoices as a “proxy” for pain and suffering, it is almost always a multiple of three or four or five times the total of the invoices. So, if the medical bills were $50,000, often pain and suffering will be estimated at $150,000 to $200,000. Let’s assume the higher number. In that case, the victim would recover $50,000 for the medical bills (which is paid to the medical providers) and then would recover $200,000 for pain and suffering. The victim will also recover for other categories of damages such as lost wages and repairs to their vehicle.
Contact Waldorf, MD, Personal Injury Attorney Robert Castro Today
This article has been provided by the Law Office of Robert Castro. For more information or questions contact our office to speak to an experienced Maryland personal injury lawyer at (301) 870-1200. We are Waldorf, MD Personal Injury lawyers. Our address is: 2670 Crain Highway, Waldorf, MD 20601.
