There are three basic categories of damages victims may be entitled to in a catastrophic personal injury case: Economic damages – Also known as general damages, this includes direct compensation for the costs already incurred, as well as the future projected costs that result from a catastrophic injury. Economic damages are meant to account for the full range of medical fees, lost wages due to missed or inability to work, and any other related expenses. These are calculated by compiling the costs incurred to date and, often under the guidance of a forensic economist or other experts, extrapolated out to determine the total estimated lifelong costs of the injury. Non-economic damages – Sometimes known as special damages, non-economic damages refer to costs that occur due to diminished quality of life, emotional distress, permanent disfigurement, and other forms of pain and suffering. For an injury claim, special damages will be assigned a monetary value, again, with input from medical, psychotherapeutic, and economic experts. Punitive damages – Not all injury claims will result in punitive damages. Instead, they are only available in those cases where the responsible party was malicious, grossly negligent, or reckless, caused intentional harm or violence, committed fraud (such as covering up a product recall to avoid bad publicity), or behaved in another way in which economic punishment is necessary to prevent them, and others in the future, from doing it again. Punitive damages can be capped as a single-digit multiple of compensatory damages and can be subject to the at-fault party's ability to pay.