Types of Personal Injury Damages | Michael Kelly Injury Lawyers

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People often can be unsure where to seek help after an injury occurs due to someone else’s negligence or intentional misconduct. The first hospital visit matters, but a challenging journey is still ahead. Recovery can last for weeks, months, or possibly even years.

Yet, personal injury victims have the right to compensation for the consequences of the accident. The law allows them to receive payments for different kinds of expenses they had to endure due to the incident, called personal injury damages.

In this article, our team will discuss various types of damages so you can understand the compensation available in your personal injury case.

The Definition of Personal Injury Damages

Personal injury damages are financial compensation you receive after someone else causes you harm. The person who is at fault for your trauma is required by personal injury law to take responsibility for fixing the situation, even if they didn’t mean to hurt you or just weren’t paying attention.

Although financial compensation cannot change the past, it can make your recovery easier. That’s why it exists — to cover what you’ve spent, reimburse the non-monetary losses, and return you to the state you had before getting injured.

There are two main types of personal injury damages: compensatory and punitive. Compensatory damages are the most common and cover actual losses. They include special or economic damages (like medical bills and missed paychecks) and general or non-economic ones (like pain and suffering).

Punitive damages serve a different purpose than compensatory ones. Courts grant these in personal injury lawsuits that arise from highly negligent or intentionally harmful behavior.

In the following sections, we’ll break down these types of damages in greater detail.

What Are the Special Damages in Personal Injury Cases?

Every trauma comes with its own costs, and usually, they are quite significant. Special personal injury damages cover the exact financial costs that start to accumulate from the moment you’re injured. These are economic damages that can be counted down to the last cent.

And this is what makes them special — you can precisely calculate these damages. They cover immediate costs, ongoing expenses, and even financial impacts you can expect in the future.

A successful personal injury settlement requires strong evidence of your losses. That’s why it’s critical to keep detailed records. We recommend you save every receipt, medical bill, and pay stub. These records will paint a clear picture of your financial losses and strengthen your personal injury case.

Examples of Special Damages

Here’s a list of expenses you might be able to claim as special damages:

Medical expenses: These cover the initial trip to the hospital and receiving emergency treatment. However, they can also include hospital stays, operations, physical therapy, and routine doctor visits. Medications and even things like crutches or bandages also count.
Lost income: An injured party often has a decreased earning capacity or loses it completely. These damages can include missed overtime, bonuses the victim would’ve earned otherwise, and more. Some people have to use up their vacation days or sick leave during recovery. Even worse, some injuries mean individuals can’t return to their old jobs. Every actual and potential financial loss must be calculated and included in a personal injury claim.
Personal property damage: The accident could harm more than just your physical health. Say a plaintiff gets injured in a car crash. Expenses related to fixing or replacing a vehicle must be a part of this personal injury case.
Additional daily costs: Injuries can change your day-to-day life, and that usually means new expenses. If you require installing ramps or grab bars, these costs are included in your personal injury claim, too.

How Are Special Damages Calculated?

While you can point to current bills and receipts, you should also consider the final amount of damages. Overall, here’s what should be calculated in your personal injury case:

Today’s expenses: Every bill, receipt, and cost you’ve faced so far needs to be added up. You should gather paperwork from each doctor, pharmacy, repair shop, and any other places where you’ve spent money because of the accident.
Future costs: This task is more complex. It’s necessary for your doctors to explain what care you’ll need in the future. Personal injury attorneys work with medical experts to determine future expenses and ensure they’re covered.
Income changes: If your injuries affect your ability to work, you should assess your entire career path, calculate potential monetary losses, and include them in a personal injury claim.
Price fluctuations: Medical expenses tend to increase each year. Similarly, salaries often rise. Thus, the compensation in your personal injury case should cover your future out-of-pocket expenses according to possible price fluctuations.

Each cost requires proof. For example, medical records should show why you need certain treatments, and when you prove your lost wages, you should have pay stubs.

What Are the General Damages in Personal Injury Cases?

General personal injury damages are about the unquantifiable aspects of your trauma. These are non-economic damages that don’t come with price tags and receipts but still reflect the impact of the injuries on your life.

For example, a personal injury victim may have chronic back pain, insomnia, or emotional trauma. These consequences matter, even if it’s impossible to quantify them directly.

That’s why general damages exist. While special damages compensate for medical bills and lost wages that result from physical injuries, the general ones address the impact on your overall well-being and quality of life.

Examples of General Damages

Here are a few examples of general damages in a personal injury claim:

Pain and suffering damages: Injuries can create ongoing pain. Although economic damages cover the medical costs that result from an injury, pain and suffering damages include things like the physical and emotional pain, discomfort, and inconvenience the victim has had to go through. A personal injury lawsuit should also account for these aspects.
Disfigurement and physical impairment: Similarly, an injury can leave lasting physical damage. Scars can be constant reminders of the accident and affect appearance and self-confidence,
Loss of enjoyment of life: Trauma can lead to ongoing discomfort in life. Even getting dressed can become challenging. Social life can also be altered when a personal injury plaintiff can’t meet friends for dinner, join family weekend activities, and play sports together.
Emotional distress: Injured parties tend to worry about becoming a burden to their families and even have depression when they can’t do their usual activities. They can seek compensation for these issues, too.
Loss of consortium or companionship: Personal injuries can hurt the plaintiff’s relationship with their spouse. An injured person may not be able to share activities or give their partner the same kind of support. When one partner has to become a caregiver, this can put pressure on their relationships and the way they interact with each other.

How Are General Damages Calculated?

General damages are trickier to calculate but experienced personal injury attorneys know how to value these losses and fight for fair reimbursement. Here are the main factors that influence the compensation in your personal injury claim:

Injury severity: If you’ve suffered serious injuries, the monetary compensation you can get is higher. Courts consider the level of pain and whether an injury is permanent and affects the whole length of a victim’s life.
Time to recover: If injuries require a long recovery, it typically means more reimbursement, especially if the skills of an injured individual are changed permanently.
Life impact: Courts also take into account the extent to which the trauma impacts everyday activities. The more an injury limits normal life, the more financial compensation a plaintiff can receive in their personal injury case.
Age and life stage: Here, courts pay attention to how long a victim will be living with the injury’s effects and how it impacts their current life stage.

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What Are the Punitive Damages?

Most personal injury damages help injured people recover their losses. However, punitive ones aim to punish at-fault parties for particularly gross negligence and stop others from doing the same thing. Courts grant them when someone’s actions were extremely careless or intentionally caused trauma.

This way, a personal injury claim sends a clear message: this negligent behavior is so unacceptable that just paying for damages isn’t enough. Such damages have significant consequences for wrongdoers, and this makes them and others think twice before acting so irresponsibly in the future.

Yet, not every state lets you get punitive damages in personal injury cases. In Massachusetts, they are awarded in specific situations like medical malpractice or wrongful death accidents.

Examples of Punitive Damages

In states that do allow punitive personal injury damages, courts might decide they’re necessary in the following scenarios:

Intentional acts: This is when someone chooses actions they know will hurt others. The cases involve physical fights or setting up situations meant to cause trauma.
Extremely reckless conduct: So careless it goes beyond ordinary defendant’s negligence. For instance, a driver may race through a crowded school zone, or a crane operator may work while being heavily intoxicated. Actions like these show such extreme disregard for human life that they deserve special treatment in a personal injury claim.
Corporate wrongdoing: When businesses care more about making money than keeping people safe, they can face big consequences if their actions threaten lives. For example, a company may knowingly falsify safety test results and sell dangerous products.
Medical malpractice: This personal injury case includes actions by healthcare providers that far exceed ordinary mistakes. They may change medical records to hide errors or consciously use non-sterile equipment, which puts patients at extreme risk.
Repeated violations: Some wrongdoers repeatedly break safety rules even after getting warnings.

How Are Punitive Damages Calculated?

A personal injury case that involves punitive damages requires stronger proof. You usually have to show that the defendant was aware their actions were risky or wrong. Consider working with our personal injury lawyer in Boston so they can help you gather and present this proof.

In general, the following aspects are taken into consideration in a personal injury claim:

The extent and nature of injuries: The worse the defendant’s actions and the more serious the damage, the bigger the potential punitive damages payout in a personal injury claim.
Defendant’s financial resources: Courts assess the defendant’s net worth and financial capacity. The punitive damages must be high enough to make an impact but also fair based on the defendant’s resources. What might be punitive for an individual might not even matter for a corporation.
History of similar defendant’s behavior: If there’s evidence that the defendant has done similar things, the court may increase punitive damages.

What Are the Purposes of Personal Injury Damages?

While we’ve already discussed the purpose of each damage type, let’s look at the bigger picture of why the legal system awards these personal injury damages:

Compensating economic losses

The main goal is to get injured people back to where they were financially before the accident. This guarantees that the accident doesn’t lead to a cascade of financial problems that affect the plaintiff and their family down the road.
Recognizing non-economic impact

Physical pain, emotional trauma, and decreased quality of life are the damages that deserve compensation in a personal injury case, too, even though they don’t have a monetary value.
Supporting recovery

Money helps the injured party receive the medical treatment and support they need. With this financial cushion, they can heal faster since they don’t have to stress over rehabilitation costs.
Preventing future harm

The financial implications act as a strong warning sign to defendants. When people or companies have to pay up for their actions, they’re more likely to be more careful next time. This is especially true for businesses and medical care providers. Personal injury claims motivate them to improve safety measures, update equipment, and properly train staff to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In the end, everything comes down to justice. Money can’t heal wounds, but it helps ensure that defendants take responsibility for their actions. This shows that if you hurt someone, you should fix the situation.

Contact Our Lawyers to Discuss Your Personal Injury Claim!

Whether you’re dealing with a car accident, workplace trauma, medical negligence, or other cases that lead to negative consequences, our law firm is here to help. Each injury type requires different expertise, and our personal injury lawyer team can successfully handle each of them.

Michael Kelly Injury Lawyers will fight to get you every dollar you deserve. While the insurance company aims to pay as little as possible, we’ll combine aggressive legal representation with knowledgeable support to help you get a fair settlement.

Let’s discuss your personal injury case and explore your options. Contact us today for a free consultation. You don’t owe us anything unless we win.