No matter what type of accident you suffered – be it a car crash, a product liability incident or some other accident caused by the negligence of another – you will likely have many different kinds of damages that you can seek to recover through a lawsuit. You will likely have medical bills to pay, missed days from work, expensive property damage to repair and more. You’ve probably heard about pain and suffering damages, but do you know how much you can expect to get for your physical and emotional pain?
Alabama’s non-economic damages statutes
There are a series of statutes in Alabama law that establish the kinds of damages that personal injury plaintiffs can ask for in a lawsuit. Under the category of non-economic damages, there is a group of damages – called mental anguish damages – that give the plaintiff the right to seek compensation for things such as physical pain, loss of enjoyment of life and emotional distress caused by the accident.
Unlike many other states, there is no set formula that Alabama courts are instructed to use when calculating the amount of money that a personal injury plaintiff can recover. This means that each individual court has discretion to fix the amount of recovery based on the circumstances of each particular case.
The sky is the limit
This is why choosing the right personal injury attorney in Alabama is essential. It will be up to your attorney to make the case for why you deserve a certain amount of damages for your injury. In general, the more suffering you are able to demonstrate that you endured thanks to the accident, the more you can recover.
The exception to this is for medical malpractice cases. Alabama law sets the maximum amount that a medical malpractice plaintiff can recover to $400,00, no matter what the actual damages were.
Suffering a personal injury can put your life – and that of your family – on hold in many ways. Recovering what you deserve for your pain and suffering can give you the resources you need to get your life back on track after your accident.
