How Much Do I Receive For Pain And Suffering In A Personal Injury Claim

In this video, attorney Theodore Spaulding answers how pain and suffering can be valued in a personal injury case, and what information is gathered to determine compensation.

How much do I receive for pain and suffering in my personal injury case? Keep watching this video to learn the answer to this all-important question.

Hi, I’m Ted Spaulding. I’m an Atlanta personal injury trial lawyer and I’m the founder here at Spaulding Injury Law.

This is a question that I get time and time again from prospective clients that call me up after they’ve been in Iraq or otherwise injured in an incident, and it’s the hardest question to answer, quite frankly. Why? Because we really don’t know early on in the case what pain and suffering should be valued at for that particular case. And there’s a couple of reasons why.

Number one

Because every case is so different, and it is such a fact-intensive question to answer.

Number two

Because early in the case, no one knows. Not even the insurance adjuster or a defense lawyer, much less us or our client. Because it’s just too early and it takes time to understand and have the pain and suffering develop, quite frankly.

But here are a couple of reasons why and a couple of factors that go into it to, kind of, help you understand why I’m answering this question this way. The first factor is how long do you end up treating for your injuries, right? If you only treat for two or three months, most jurors are going to look at your case and try to determine pain and suffering based on how much treatment you’ve had. It’s not a foolproof method, but that’s oftentimes what jurors do. So they’re going to value it less if you only had two months of treatment and are all better versus another person in the same accident that had six or seven months of treatment. They’re going to get more for pain and suffering. So the length of time of treatment is one factor.

Another is exactly what were the injuries, right? Because, more often than not, jurors are looking at and go, “Well, you know, in really horrific injuries, I get that they have a ton of pain and suffering and I’m going to value that at X. Where if it is a smaller injury and not a lot of treatment was needed, not big injuries, I’m going to value it at Y.” So injuries is another one.

And then finally, there’s the ultimate question of what past pain and suffering you have and how long, so we’re talking months, years, and then, is there any future pain and suffering? So in those cases where you have a permanent injury, so you’re going to have pain and suffering, let’s say, for the rest of your life because of this permanent injury, that’s going to be valued much higher in a pain and suffering valuation than the person who treats and is all better at the end of treatment.

So those are some of the factors that come into play in determining what your pain and suffering is worth or could be worth. But remember this all-important point. It ultimately is up to 12 jurors in Georgia, 12 jurors, who are your peers, to listen to what you’ve been through, what your injuries are, how long you treated, to determine what exactly is your pain and suffering worth in your case.

If you have any questions or concerns or want to run a case by me to see if we can handle it for you, please reach out to me. There’s a couple of ways to do that. One, you can comment to this video and give me your information and i’ll be happy to reach out to you. Another way is go to our website, spauldinginjurylaw.com. We have a form on there that you can fill out and we’ll be in contact with you. You can also call me and talk to me directly. Two phone numbers for you: 770-744-0890 or 470-695-9950. Thanks again for watching this video and we’ll see you next time.