Are Damages Quantified In Personal Injury Cases?

Irrespective of whether you were in a slip and fall case or a car accident, the fact is that you were injured. As per Ontario tort laws, you are eligible to get compensation for the damages and injury. However, every single personal injury case is going to feature a lot of different injuries. Strictly speaking, there are two main types of damages which could take place in a personal injury case. Namely, these are special and general ones. It is particularly important to identify the different kinds of damages because they are regarded in various ways by the court and by the law itself.

Special damages

This category of damages is those which are stemming from the injury directly without anything in between. These are the damages which come from medical bills, loss of income as well as property damage or other out of the pocket expenses that you have made in order to get things back to normal as quickly as it’s possible. These types of damages are easy to assess because they are determined on the basis of issued documentations. For instance, your physical injuries might have required 2 weeks of physiotherapy. The facility which has carried it out must issue some sort of receipt for this particular therapy and that’s the actual damage that you’ve incurred – that’s your claim.

General damages

These are those injuries which include pain and suffering. This is usually the term used to describe severe discomfort as well as physical pain alongside emotional distress, increased anxiety and tremendous amounts of underlying stress. All of these should be a direct result of the injury or to something in relation – maybe the treatment itself. But how do you quantify those?

Pain and suffering and other general damages are harder to quantify. There are no bills which can say how much your pain costs. There are no receipts which will put a price on the stress you are undergoing. So, how to proceed? The law is particularly clear in this regard – everything is left to the court. Of course, there are certain standards but in general, the assessment is discretional and it belongs to the court.

Every single case is different. For someone, a broken arm might not cause any additional pain and suffering. However, for a person who’s relying on his arms to provide for his family, this could be a tremendously huge deal. That’s something that the court should take into account when making the assessment. That is one of the reasons that having a good lawyer in your corner helps you get the amount of compensation you are seeking.

It’s important to present the information in a way which is capable of getting you that compensation. That’s where a professional lawyer comes into the picture. With years of experience, he should be capable of convincing the jury and the judge that your general damages are particular grave and that they should be given a very high appraisal. That’s something which is going to get you that high compensation which is very important.