How to Calculate Pain and Suffering Costs for a Friend

How to Calculate Pain and Suffering Costs for a Friend

  • The Fee Is Free Unless You Win®.
  • America's Largest Injury Law Firm™
  • Protecting Families Since 1988
  • 20 Billion+ Won
  • 1,000+ Lawyers Nationwide

Free Case Evaluation

Tell us about your situation so we can get started fighting for you. We tailor each case to meet our clients' needs.
Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.
Our results speak for themselves

The attorneys featured above are licensed in Florida. For a full list of attorneys in your state please visit our attorney page.

How to Calculate Pain and Suffering Costs for a Friend

In the event that you are helping someone else to file a lawsuit and they're hoping to recover pain and suffering, you may have questions about the best way to gather this information. If you are curious about how to calculate pain and suffering costs for a friend, it's a good idea to gather as much documentation as possible. Although there are direct expenses associated with payment and personal injury, workers' compensation, and other civil lawsuits, this is not necessarily entirely separate for the calculation of pain and suffering for a friend. 

For example, the more severe the injuries, the more likely that person has suffered significantly. And the direct expense information and the direct expense details as well as illustrations of how this has affected their life can all go towards telling the greater story.

This means that you may need to hire an experienced and knowledgeable personal injury attorney as soon as possible to help you with the calculation of pain and suffering costs. When pain and suffering damages are allowed, it is important to tell a comprehensive story about how the person's life has been changed. And some of the many ways that their life will be different going forward as a result of the injury they sustained. This helps to illustrate how another person's negligent or reckless actions have contributed to severe injuries and the complete alteration of the victim's life. If you have been suffering from a permanent disability or severe emotional distress, or you are helping someone else to calculate these damages as part of a lawsuit, it can be very difficult to attempt to pin down these numbers to get compensated. This is particularly because they can vary based on the person. Many attorneys and insurance companies use a route known as the multiplier method to determine the total amount of damages, including pain and suffering.

This pain and suffering multiplier is a common way to calculate pain and suffering damages. You can add up actual damages, which are referred to as special damages for things such as lost wages and medical expenses, and then multiply them by a number between 1.5 to 5. This information helps to give you further details about what to expect and assigns a number associated with a degree of seriousness linked to the accident itself. 

If you sustained critical injuries, that multiplier is more likely to be closer to five, although it can and possibly go higher based on your specific situations if your injuries are very serious. If you find yourself dealing with these kinds of circumstances, the insight of an experienced and dedicated personal injury lawyer is essential to help guide you through the process. This is true, even if you are trying to figure out how to calculate pain and suffering costs for a friend because that friend deserves to have appropriate legal representation in going through the process to recover compensation.

You may need to get questions answered and to get organized in this way so that you can proceed with a lawsuit. If your friend is suffering substantially and is unable to think clearly about how to proceed, your guidance and support as a friend can make a big difference in their ability to recover special damages, as well as pain and suffering damages. It is important to recognize that not every state awards pain and suffering. 

In addition, those states that do allow for the recovery of pain and suffering, might also have damage caps applied to them. This makes it critical to identify a legal team who has experienced these kinds of situations before and can tell you more about the direct things you need to consider when trying to help figure out how to calculate pain and suffering damages for a friend. The lawyer can tell you more about the kinds of evidence that you might need to gather and can help provide you with greater clarity on what to expect and some of the pitfalls that you might encounter.

Scroll down for more
FAQ

Get answers to commonly asked questions about our legal services and learn how we may assist you with your case.

Morgan & Morgan

  • How Does a Multiplier Impact Pain and Suffering? 

    If a lower multiplier is used in your case, you won’t be likely to receive as much pain and suffering compensation. Hiring a lawyer who can fight for the maximum multiplier, and therefore recovery is key. 

    There are several different factors in determining the right kind of multiplier to assign to a pain and suffering case. These include the period of recovery, clear illustration of the pain and suffering based on proven documents, the seriousness of the injuries, such as whether or not the person has sustained a permanent disability, and the obviousness of the other person's fault. Remember that even when going through the process of figuring out how to calculate pain and suffering damages for a friend, this is simply an estimate, and there is no promise or guarantee that you will receive that full amount. 

    You want to work with a legal team that has experience in calculating these numbers correctly. This can greatly increase your chances of success and help you to know whether or not a settlement amount that has been presented to you is fair and in line with the injuries that you have sustained. It can be difficult to go through this on your own, which is probably why you are helping a friend to do it.

    Another aspect of this you need to understand is appropriate evidence of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering damages should be supported by evidence. And in some cases, doctor's notes or medical records may be sufficient. However, if your friend has sustained multiple injuries, you may need to gather other supporting documents like medical treatment bills, photos of the injuries, and police reports. You may also need to include witness testimonies where applicable. In some more serious cases involving pain and suffering, the personal injury attorney may wish to bring in outside professionals known as expert witnesses. These expert witnesses work to share their insight into how the person's life has been affected. 

    Bear in mind that the defense in this particular situation will likely argue back as well to minimize their potential responsibilities. It is important to have a legal team who has extensive experience in going through this process and someone who can help answer your questions as they arise, especially if you are helping a friend.

    Having evidence about how the accident has changed the scope of their life is important. For example, if your friend used to play sports before the accident but is now unable to do so, that information could be used to illustrate the accident’s impact. Work with a qualified lawyer to learn more about gathering this kind of evidence. 

  • What if There’s No Evidence of Pain and Suffering? 

    If you have no evidence of pain and suffering, it will be difficult, if not impossible to get pain and suffering covered. There are criticisms of the multiplier method. So it is important to make sure that you have the right kind of evidence to support your legal claim and have greater clarity over what to anticipate. The more prepared you are to go into a legal case like this, the easier it will be for you to move forward with helping your friend and to gather the necessary evidence to support their claim.

    If they have received a pain and suffering estimate from the insurance company that feels unfair or unnecessarily low, given the injuries they have sustained, you will need to share this information with your friend and potentially even your personal injury lawyer for further clarification and support. It can be difficult to navigate the situation on your own, but retaining an attorney is crucial because of the difficulty that is faced in these complex circumstances. Pain and suffering can be very difficult to calculate, and it can be very frustrating for you or your friend to realize that the other side is attempting to delay or minimize the injuries and damages associated with the accident. Prepare yourself by retaining legal counsel who has the right experience.

    The sooner you can hire a lawyer, the easier it will be to assist your friend with preparing a comprehensive case. Make sure you talk about your next steps about how to proceed with these kinds of legal claims. Pain and suffering damages will never return someone’s life to what it was before an accident, but it can help them move on to a new chapter. 

    When it comes to recovery of compensation after an accident, get a legal team that can support the full needs of the injured victim. Contact Morgan & Morgan for assistance with your next steps today. We know what it takes to file a claim and fight for the victim from beginning to end. 

Scroll down for more Load More

How it works

It's easy to get started.
The Fee Is Free Unless You Win®.

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

  • Step 1

    Submit
    your claim

    With a free case evaluation, submitting your case is easy with Morgan & Morgan.

  • Step 2

    We take
    action

    Our dedicated team gets to work investigating your claim.

  • Step 3

    We fight
    for you

    If we take on the case, our team fights to get you the results you deserve.

Settlement

$40,000,000

Customer Story

“I was in a difficult situation when I was injured by a faulty product. I was hesitant to seek legal help but with the help of Morgan & Morgan, they made the process easy. They took immediate action and got me the compensation I deserved. I couldn't have done it without them. I highly recommend their services.” Estate of Patricia Allen v. RJ Reynolds, et al. | 2014

Client success
stories that inspire and drive change

Explore over 55,000 5-star reviews and 800 client testimonials to discover why people trust Morgan & Morgan.

Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances. Based on Select nationwide reviews

  • Video thumbnail for 5l3q2e67j8
    Wistia video play button
  • Video thumbnail for yfe952tcop
    Wistia video play button
  • Video thumbnail for z1bqwg9hkl
    Wistia video play button
  • Video thumbnail for s5nb3hnvkv
    Wistia video play button
  • Video thumbnail for t4elibxene
    Wistia video play button
  • Video thumbnail for 5nr9efxqj3
    Wistia video play button
  • Video thumbnail for e8s1x6u5jp
    Wistia video play button