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"what Is Pain And Suffering Worth? - Figuring Punitive Damages"
It will help if you can associate your pain and suffering with a dollar amount. What do you think your pain and suffering should be worth? The insurance adjuster will have their own view of how much your injuries are worth. You're going to have to convince them that your amount is fair. Sometimes your pain and suffering can only be partially put to a dollar amount. You can sometimes get the full amount of the damages that you requested for hard costs. For example, the pain and suffering you have can be detrimental to your job if you return to work only partially recovered from your injury. You can request that the suffering is costing you income and that it is added to the punitive damages. Consider the traveling that a real estate agent has to do every day. They will not be able to get a lot done if they are still in pain from an injury. They will only get the work done by working harder than normal. In this situation you can argue that part of your pain should be reimbursed by an amount comparable to your salary. This won't win everything but it will help with negotiations. You will want more compensation than just lost salary. But it's still a useful tool to show the adjuster how the suffering is affecting you in areas outside of medical bills. Pain and suffering and the way your life was affected by it increase the punitive damages. More damages will arise the longer the injury is left untreated, and damages increase with the number of areas in your life that are impacted. Damages will also increase if there is scaring or permanent injury. Making up for the wrong doing in your life that resulted from the accident is what punitive damages are for. You will get more money the better you prove this point. How much can you get for a scar? It depends on the effect of the scar. A young woman can have a lifetime of emotional suffering as a result of a scar on her face. An elderly man with an unseen scar on his back can't make the damages seem as bad. A scale of one to five can be used to rank pain and suffering after examining these factors. Use reality. The adjuster will assume you are trying to take advantage if you multiply a lower category of pain and suffering by five. If the adjuster thinks you're artificially inflating the number there's a good chance the judge will also think it. The case has to be extreme but you can go above the five point scale. There cannot be any doubt and the defendant's fault has to be clear. There has to be lasting effects and severe injury. Gross negligence almost always has to be the cause of the accident. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com About Author: |
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