How Are Damages Calculated in Illinois Personal Injury Cases?
The point of filing a personal injury claim is to recover financial compensation, also called damages, for your injury-related losses. This naturally raises the question: How do you calculate damages in a personal injury claim?
The answer is that it depends on the specific type of damage. Damages in personal injury claims fall into several different categories, and there are different ways to calculate each. If you have more questions about calculating damages or filing a claim, an Illinois personal injury attorney can help you understand your rights and options.
Economic Damages vs. Non-Economic Damages
Damages in personal injury cases are split into two main types: economic and non-economic. These types of damages compensate you for different types of injury-related losses.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are for losses that have an explicit dollar value attached to them, most commonly:
- Emergency medical bills and continuing medical expenses
- Lost work income and employment compensation
- Reduced lifetime earning capacity
- Loss of household services like cleaning or childcare
- Out-of-pocket injury cases (e.g., alternate transportation)
Since these losses have a definite economic value, calculating economic damages is relatively straightforward. You add up the value of all your expenses to get a final amount. You need to keep exact records of things like medical bills and income statements to prove your economic losses.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are meant to compensate you for the subjective and psychological losses you suffered due to injuries. This could include:
- Pain and suffering from your injuries
- Mental anguish and emotional distress
- Discomfort and inconvenience from disfigurement
- Loss of capacity to enjoy life
These losses don’t have a definite dollar value, so there are two commonly used methods to calculate non-economic damages:
The multiplier method assigns you a “suffering” multiplier between one and five and multiplies it by your total economic damages. The specific multiplier depends on factors like injury severity, the length of recovery, and the extent of your physical impairment. For instance, if total economic damages are $30,000 and the multiplier is 1.5, non-economic damages are $45,000.
The per diem method assigns you a dollar amount representing your daily suffering and multiplies it by the total length of the recovery period. If your daily suffering value is $200 and you were recovering for 180 days, non-economic damages would be $36,000.
Punitive Damages Can Punish the Offender
Economic and non-economic damages are sometimes called compensatorydamages because they are meant to compensate the victim for their losses.
However, there are also punitive damages. Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages are meant to punish the offender and deter behavior rather than compensate the victim. A judge might award punitive damages in cases where the offender’s behavior was particularly egregious or malicious. To recover punitive damage, you must show with clean and convincing evidence that the at-fault party acted with an evil motive or a “reckless and outrageous” indifference to harm (735 ILCS 5/2-1115.05).
The law also limits punitive damages in personal injury cases to no more than three times your economic damages.
Contact an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney Today
Maximizing your compensation in a personal injury claim requires an attorney who can track all your expenses and argue forcefully for your pain and suffering. The attorneys from Johnston Law Offices P.C. have recovered millions of dollars for numerous deserving clients. We look beyond typical injury expenses to account for the fullest range of your losses. Our goal is to secure you a firm financial footing for healing and recovery. Contact our offices today for a free case consultation with a personal injury attorney.