If you were injured in an accident due to someone else’s negligent conduct, you may be entitled to financial compensation. This is especially true if your quality of life is diminished by your injuries. In Nevada, personal injury victims can seek damages in court for monetary damages and non-monetary damages, including pain and suffering.
Pain and suffering includes both physical and mental pain and can be either temporary or long-term. When pain and suffering diminish a person’s quality of life, a personal injury attorney in Las Vegas can help make the victim whole through financial compensation.
What Are Pain and Suffering Damages?
Pain and suffering damages are available in personal injury lawsuits based on physical pain, disfigurement, and mental anguish that a person goes through after an accident. When considering the types of mental effects that can go along with physical injuries, diminished quality of life is a type of emotional effect that can factor into financial compensation.
Damages in a personal injury case are generally classified between economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages refer to medical bills, lost wages, repair costs, and other expenses that can be itemized. Non-economic damages include pain and suffering, loss of companionship, and other “intangible” costs from an accident.
Some factors that fall within pain and suffering include:
- Pain and suffering, generally
- Mental anguish
- Inconvenience or hardship caused by the injuries
- Disability and loss of function
- Disfigurement, whether temporary or permanent
- Financial fears and uncertainty
- Diminished quality of life – especially the inability to do things a person once enjoyed.
In general, if an accident victim’s quality of life has been decreased as a result of another person’s negligence, they can potentially receive monetary damages for pain and suffering.
How Is Pain and Suffering Calculated?
Under Nevada law, there is no fixed standard to determine the amount of pain and suffering damages in a Nevada personal injury claim. Juries are instructed to use their own judgment and common sense to determine pain and suffering damages in a personal injury case.
Since there is no fixed formula to calculate pain and suffering damages in Nevada, judges and juries will consider the effects an injury has on a victim’s life, such as:
- Impacts on a person’s daily routine
- Impacts on a person’s relationships at home and work
- Impacts on a person’s lifestyle, hobbies, and ability to travel
- Impacts on a person’s ability to raise their kids or bear children
Many of these factors can be said to affect a person’s quality of life overall.
What is Quality of Life in a Personal Injury Claim?
Quality of life encompasses a person’s physical, mental, and emotional health. It also refers to a person’s overall enjoyment of life. A juror in a personal injury case might naturally come to the conclusion that a plaintiff’s quality of life was diminished if they can’t do things they used to do or live life to the fullest.
In the legal sense, diminished quality of life means a reduction in the ability to enjoy life in the same manner a person did before the accident. Measuring diminished quality of life is highly specific to each case and individual involved. A particular injury might affect one person more than the other. There is no set dollar amount connected between an injury and quality of life. Instead, the amount of compensation would depend on the facts of the case, the testimony of the victim, their age and occupation, and other factors.
How to Prove Diminished Quality of Life in a Personal Injury Claim
To obtain damages in a personal injury case for diminished quality of life, a plaintiff must show:
- The defendant owed a duty of reasonable care to the plaintiff; in other words, they were expected to behave with reasonable care and caution under the circumstances.
- That the defendant breached this duty of care and failed to exercise reasonable caution.
- That there was a causal connection between the defendant’s act and the plaintiff’s injuries.
- That the plaintiff’s damages included pain and suffering and led to a diminished quality of life.
Proving the 4th element – damages – for quality of life means showing that the person had a reduced capacity to live life like before.
Some factors that play into this include:
- The person’s age and health at the time of the accident
- The person’s appearance before and after the accident
- The person’s work history and occupation
- The severity and type of injuries involved
- The medical diagnosis and future prognosis
- The activities that the victim can no longer perform as a result.
The more significant these factors are, the more likely the plaintiff can receive higher compensation for diminished quality of life.
However, a plaintiff’s financial reward can be lowered if they played a role in the accident. Nevada is a comparative negligence state, meaning that liability is apportioned to the person most at fault for the accident. This means that even if a plaintiff was 40% at fault for the accident, they could recover 60% of their total damages from the person who was 60% at fault. If the plaintiff was more than 50% at fault, however, they cannot recover. The plaintiff’s overall damages – including quality of life – would be reduced by the percentage they shared blame for the accident.
Contact a Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney Today
If you’ve been injured in an accident, you deserve fair compensation from the at-fault party. This is especially true if your quality of life has been impacted by the accident. A Las Vegas personal injury lawyer can fight for you to secure financial compensation.
Schedule a free initial consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer from De Castroverde Accident & Injury Lawyers at (702) 222-9999.