What Can I Recover for Pain and Suffering
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Perhaps the most difficult element of damage to assess in a personal injury case is the damage for which an injured person is entitled to recover as a result of pain and suffering which occurs as a result of injuries sustained by the negligence of another.
North Carolina law provides that: “Damages for personal injury include such amount the jury finds is fair compensation for the actual physical pain and mental suffering which are the immediate and necessary consequences of the injury.”
The only place it will ever be argued that pain and suffering is of little consequence is in the courtroom. This argument will always be made by a lawyer for the defendant and the defendant’s insurance company. Defense lawyers make the argument that pain and suffering is of little consequence in an effort to keep the damage verdict low.
Common sense and a reflection upon our daily living, however, compels the conclusion that pain and suffering is indeed the most significant aspect of personal injury.
The pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year advertising pain medication of all sorts. We, as the American public, spend billions for pain relievers in order to attempt to eliminate or reduce pain.
The difficulty in assessing and placing a value on personal injury stems primarily from two factors: one is that only the injured person knows for sure if they are experiencing pain and therefore such pain can not be corroborated by other witnesses. Defense lawyers always argue, even if subtly, that the injured Plaintiff is either lying about the personal injury they experience or are greatly exaggerating. The second difficulty in excising pain and suffering is that there is no “market” for pain and suffering and one cannot look up the value of pain and suffering in a catalog.
Pain is a cruel monster, choosing as its victims the helpless and the sick who are the least able to bare it. It loves to prey on children. It attends every human birth, and it torments the last minutes of the dying, who have little enough time to make their peace with God and to say goodbye to their loved ones.
An hour of pain is a sample of hell.
The finger of pain leaves its own traces on the human face, with a look in a man’s eyes and the very way he carries himself. Long contended pain enervates and saps the life and strength from a man and his organs.
Men have begged for death so that they may be relieved of pain, but no normal person begs for pains.
The court instructs juries that there is no yardstick to measure pain, but man has measured pain in the laboratories of human experience in many ways. Every instance in which mankind has had occasion to put pain on one side of the scales and money on the other; he has not hesitated to decide that pain tips the scale. Some of the greatest heroes in medicine are those doctors who invented anesthesia. They are healers of science because they taught us to push back pain at least temporarily.
If the injured person and the careless parties liability insurance carrier cannot agree on a fair amount for pain and suffering, that important issue will be decided by a jury of twelve people chosen at random from the general population of the county.