Finding another person at fault for causing physical or mental harm to you or a loved one can be a difficult task. Protecting your legal rights and obtaining the justice you deserve for wrongdoings is not an easy fight unless you have the help of an established, polished legal professional.

Have you or someone you know recently suffered from pain and suffering brought on by another individual or organization? If so, we want to help you seek the compensation that you may deserve.

Since pain and suffering in personal injury cases can be harder to calculate, it’s important to know your rights and look for a trustworthy lawyer to build your case as strong as possible.

What Is a Personal Injury Case?

A personal injury case is when one individual files a claim against another person for legally harming the other party. Personal injury cases can be filed against another person or an organization such as a medical practice, business, or restaurant.

Individuals who file a personal injury lawsuit do so with the help of a personal injury attorney. When a person files a legal lawsuit, the other individual or organization will have their own personal injury attorney representing them if and when the case goes to court.

Some personal injury cases can be settled before court hearings through settlements. This is an informal settlement. Informal settlements are reached through negotiations with the person filing and the person or entity they are filing against. The negotiation is settled personally between the two parties and their attorneys where payment is agreed upon before further action of filing a lawsuit and going to court.

If there is no informal settlement, then a formal lawsuit will be filed. The person filing the lawsuit is known as the plaintiff and the other party is known as the defendant. The case will then go to court if the plaintiff seeks to reach a settlement after alleging that the defendant acted in a manner that caused them to undergo pain and suffering.

What Is Pain And Suffering?

Pain and suffering, a legal term, refers to the mental and physical damages an individual (the plaintiff) experiences from the defendant’s careless manner. Since personal injury pain and suffering cases can be filed against a person, business, or organization, the actual ailments a person will experience can vary.

Typical pain and suffering cases are seen within car accidents or at a workplace where an individual sustains a physical injury. That individual will then file a claim against the other driver or the business to acquire a settlement that can help with the medical costs resulting from the injury.

Individuals can also file pain and suffering for medical malpractice at the expense of a medical provider’s error. Medical malpractice cases can become very tricky to navigate without a top-tier lawyer on your side since most medical practices have their own high-quality attorney. If you find yourself filing pain and suffering against a medical facility, it’s best to have medical records to include in your case.

Pain and Suffering Breakdown

Pain and suffering is brown down into categories: economic and non-economic losses or damages. These two categories help the calculation portion of how much the filing individual can or will receive in their settlement.

Economic damages are the losses that can be totaled. For example, if a person was involved in a car wreck, their economic losses would be the total of their car damages and medical expenses. Non-economic damages refer to the sustained impact on the quality of life, loss or death of a loved one, or mental anguish.

Who Can File for Pain and Suffering?

Anyone can file for pain and suffering in a personal injury case, but Florida has a specific statute of limitations to ensure certain rules are followed.

These statute of limitations pertains to the time frame individuals in Florida have to file their pain and suffering case. The time frame to file per the Florida statute of limitations is as follows:

Personal Injury: 2 years
Medical Malpractice: 2 years
State & Government Agencies: 2-3 years

Florida has no limit to the compensation a person can win in a pain and suffering personal injury case, but your attorney can help you estimate how much you may be awarded based on your economic and non-economic damages.

Calculating Pain and Suffering

Figuring out how much a person can walk away with in a pain and suffering personal injury case is not an easy task but is usually left to the jury if it makes it to court. Negotiations can be more difficult to navigate unless you have the help of a legal professional.

Pain and suffering in court calculations take several factors into consideration of the plaintiff before awarding compensation. Here are the factors that are typically considered, but not limited to:

Age
Health before the accident
Impact on quality of life
Total of economic losses

The “multiplier method” is also a system used to calculate how much the plaintiff can be awarded for pain and suffering. The multiplier method takes the total sum of the economic losses multiplied by any number between 1 and 5.

How to File For Pain and Suffering in a Personal Injury Case

Do you believe that you or someone you know should file for pain and suffering in a personal injury case in the city of Pompano Beach, Florida? If so, your first step is to hire the best Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer.

You should seek to hire a reputable Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer that can appropriately prove your pain and suffering to a business or in court. The attorney you hire will be the backbone of your case, which is why it’s important to find one that can take your accident, medical records, economic damages, and quality of life impact to build a strong case.

Questions Your Lawyer May Ask

Your lawyer may ask certain questions during your consultation or throughout your meetings to include information in your case that is accurate and illustrates how you may deserve compensation. Those questions may include:

How did the accident occur?
What impact did the accident have?
What are your medical expenses or total losses?
What lasting state are you in since the accident?

Seek the Help of a Professional Lawyer

Frankl Kominsky Injury Lawyers is a team of lawyers in the Pompano Beach, Florida area with over 40 years of experience fighting legal battles. It is our professional recommendation to hire a Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer who can expertly review your claim and guide you appropriately in your case (by appointment).

Hiring a legal professional with a proven track record can make or break your case. In our experience, we’ve been awarded the knowledge and expectation of legal tactics used by the other side in similar cases before. As a result, we know what to expect and how to best fight against it.

To get started building your case, you can call our firm at (561) 800-8000 at all hours of the day or fill out our online form. We will then contact you about scheduling your free consultation where you will speak with one of our team members about the information we need to build your case and the assistance we can provide.

Don’t put off your pain and suffering settlement any longer. Contact us today to get started.