Weighing Physical and Emotional Distress...

The actual injury and physical pain shouldn't be the only things included in your claim - the emotional distress you might have suffered is also an issue.



The problem though, is that this falls into the same trap as pain and suffering. It isn’t something that's tangible. So proof that it exists, and finding a dollar value for it, isn’t always easy. Emotional distress is a serious problem for a lot of people, and they should be compensated for it the same way they're compensated for everything else.

Emotional distress can show itself in various ways. The stress and physical discomfort felt after an injury can really affect a person's life. It might disrupt their social life, or make it difficult to interact with family members.

If a mother is injured to the degree that she's unable to care for her child, for any period of time, it could be very traumatic. Similarly, after a car accident, it might be too fear inspiring for the victim to get back in a car - doing so might be too stressful and nerve racking. This means they won’t be able to drive to work or social functions. If they do drive it might cause emotional distress to do so.

Of course, proving that someone has these symptoms isn’t easy. In some cases, like the mother, it's pretty much accepted that there'll be some infliction of emotional distress. However, when it's a relatively minor accident it'll be harder to prove the symptoms.

If the accident is more severe, it'll be easier to convince others that they'd be traumatized in that situation. This is where accident pictures can help. The idea is to show the adjuster that emotional distress could easily exist, and that a jury would be sympathetic.

Sometimes emotional distress is severe enough that you need to seek help with someone other than your doctor. Most commonly this person would be a psychologist. The expense of this kind of therapy can be claimed in your damages.

Also, the very act of going to therapy shows that the emotional distress was severe. The adjuster will have a right to seek out those medical records, just like any others. Feel free to limit their access to only information directly related to the accident. You don’t have to give them access to your entire mental health history.

Once you've demonstrated that you suffered emotional distress, you've got to turn it into a dollar value. You'll do this in the same way you added up your pain and suffering damages (by multipying your general damages by a factor of 1-5). In fact, in most cases, this will be added into the same equation. So where you'd have used a multiplier of two, severe emotional distress may bring your multiplier to three or four.

Still have questions about claiming emotional distress? Click Here.


Find out if you're entitled to a

Custom Search

The accuracy of information on this site is not guaranteed. In some cases information on this site is the opinion of the writer. Nothing on this site should be considered formal legal advice. Click below to read our full User Agreement, Disclaimer and Copyright Information.