When It Hurts in Other Ways Too – Understanding Emotional Distress in a Personal Injury Case
July 19, 2024
Overcoming the Aftermath of Major Accidents: Your Rights and Remedies
You’re seriously injured on the job, in a car accident, or during a leisure activity; you get hurt due to a faulty product or medical malpractice.
From badly broken bones or burns to a spinal cord or traumatic brain injury to paralysis, when the unthinkable happens, it can turn your life upside down. Your injury may cause significant physical pain, suffering, and disability.
Then, there are the steep medical bills for ER visits, hospital stays, surgeries, and physical therapy. You may now require adaptive equipment or medication, rehab, or perhaps some form of long-term care. And even if you will eventually recover, you’re losing work time and wages while you recuperate.
All the physical and financial factors can feel very overwhelming.
In addition, it’s not uncommon for a traumatic experience such as a major accident or injury to have a significant psychological impact as well.
When your accident or injury was preventable—caused by someone else’s negligence, recklessness, or ill intent—you deserve compensation for your losses and suffering. A financial settlement or verdict can help you get on with life after disaster strikes.
Understanding Economic and Non-Economic Damages in California
California law allows for two different types of compensation in a personal injury case: economic damages and Non-Economic Damages.
Economic damages are intended to cover tangible losses that are fairly straightforward to calculate, such as medical bills and lost earnings.
Non-economic damages address a category of losses that can be more challenging to quantify but are a real result of serious injury. They include considerations like:
- Pain and suffering
- Diminished quality and enjoyment of life
- Damage to relationships with family members or partners; loss of consortium
- Permanent disability, disfigurement, and/or impairment
- Emotional distress.
Emotional distress falls under the broader category of pain and suffering, but it is distinct from the suffering you endure from bodily injury. Emotional distress refers to the psychological impact of your injury—from the event itself to the many ways it has affected your life.
Can you have emotional distress without injury? Typically, claims of emotional distress in California personal injury cases accompany physical injuries. Victims seek damages for the psychological agony they have endured along with compensation for the physical pain and suffering caused by their injury.
Under certain circumstances, however, it is possible to recover monetary damages for emotional distress when there is no physical injury, for example, in cases of bullying or harassment. Further, state law provides that individuals who have witnessed shocking, traumatic incidents may qualify for emotional distress damages if they’ve suffered serious psychological impacts as a result of witnessing the severe injury or death of another person.
There are many forms of emotional distress. But these feelings and experiences are deeply personal and individual. So how does the jury in your case know if you are experiencing emotional distress in the legal sense?
The Judicial Council of California Civil Jury Instructions (“CACI”) outlines criteria for determining emotional distress:
Emotional distress includes suffering, anguish, fright, horror, nervousness, grief, anxiety, worry, shock, humiliation, and shame. Severe emotional distress exists if an ordinary, reasonable person is unable to cope with it.
This second sentence is an important consideration, as children, for example, may experience emotional distress differently than adults.
The law further recognizes two categories of emotional distress tort:
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED) recognizes a person’s right to seek compensation when someone has intentionally or recklessly caused them to experience severe emotional distress. For example, harassment and threats of physical harm or unwanted physical contact intended to cause fear.
Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress (NIED) gives an individual the right to seek monetary damages when the defendant acted without malice but caused emotional harm through negligence.
Two types of plaintiffs can make an NIED claim:
- Direct victim – Suffered emotional harm from conduct directed at them.
- Bystander victim – Suffered emotional distress due to conduct directed at someone else. In this case, the bystander must have a “special relationship” to the person the conduct directly impacted.
Per the CACI guidelines, to prove emotional distress, you will have to prove that
- That defendant was negligent;
- You (plaintiff) suffered serious emotional distress; and
- That the defendant’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing your serious emotional distress.
Gathering Evidence for Emotional Distress in Personal Injury Cases
Evidence that can help demonstrate your emotional distress includes:
Medical records – Detailed record of your treatment for physical injuries and emotional conditions, pain and suffering; psychological evaluations, etc.
Your journal is a personal record of events, experiences, pain, thoughts, and emotional state; it’s wise to write these down daily.
Photos and videos – Visual evidence of what your life was like before vs after your accident can help a jury understand the true impact of your
Testimony:
- Medical. The professional opinion of your doctor, therapist, and other healthcare providers can help establish the severity of your distress and validate your claim.
- Family, friends, coworkers, and bystanders. Their observations about your life and condition related to the event can strengthen your case.
- Plaintiff’s own. Your account of suffering, described in your own words, can be powerful evidence.
The caring and experienced personal injury attorneys at Aitken * Aitken * Cohn understand that a severe injury affects every aspect of your life. When you’re experiencing emotional distress after a car, motorcycle, tuck injury, or any other accident, we can help you build the strongest possible case for compensation.
Written on Behalf of Aitken Aitken Cohn