Compensation for personal injury claims are calculated in a myriad of ways. Economic damages are easy to calculate. The personal injury lawyers will collect all of the plaintiff’s medical bills, auto shop bills, paystubs, and any other financial records and add up how much money the accident caused them to lose. They can also use these documents to predict the most likely future losses due to the accident as well. Non-economic damages are trickier as they have no set financial value. There are some methods that attorneys use such as the multiplier method and the per diem method. The multiplier method takes the total sum of the economic damages and multiplies them by a number between 1 and 5 depending on the severity of the injuries and their negative impact on the plaintiff’s life. The per diem method takes the income that the plaintiff was making before the accident, calculates the amount earned per day, and multiplies that by every day they have and will miss work due to the injury. Punitive damages are up to the discretion of the judge and are often based on the severity of the wrongdoing.