When looking to determine the costs of a spinal cord injury, we must look at both economic and non-economic damages. Non-economic damages or those that are awarded for the purpose of compensating an injury victim for their physical pain and suffering as well as mental and emotional pain and anguish, disfigurement, physical impairment, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium with a spouse, and more.
These damages are typically more difficult to calculate than economic damages because they do not come with specific receipts or bills for their costs. However, that does not make them any less serious for a spinal cord injury victim.
When working to determine how much non-economic damages to seek for a spinal cord injury case, an attorney will typically start by calculating all economic damages the victim incurs. They will then take this number and multiply the amount by a set number (typically 1.5 to 4) to arrive at the amount of non-economic compensation they will ask for.
For example, if a spinal cord injury victim’s total economic damages add up to $500,000, an attorney may use a multiplier of three to arrive at $1.5 million in non-economic compensation. In total, the attorney will ask for $2 million and total compensation for their victim when combining economic and non-economic compensation amounts.