Should you receive Damages for Pain and suffering?
How does compensation for pain and suffering work in Texas?
It’s pretty murky. You should have a good injury lawyer.
It’s pretty murky. You should have a good injury lawyer.
How does compensation for pain and suffering work in Texas? It’s pretty murky. You should have a good injury lawyer.
You get hurt in a car accident. And of course it’s going to cause you plenty of mental distress. You’ve heard about people in other lawsuits who seek money for “pain and suffering.” You know the stereotypes associated with those damages.
So should you, in your unique situation, be entitled to recover damages for pain and suffering as part of your injury settlement? How can anyone put a dollar amount on your personal level of pain and suffering anyway?
As you may already have guessed, this is not a clear or easy-to-resolve issue. We can’t say how your situation will play out. But, we can give you the basics of how “pain and suffering” usually works.
Here are a few factors that can impact damages for pain and suffering:
Some attorneys use one of these two methods to begin negotiations for your compensation. Much of the final amount that you get relies on your personal injury lawyer’s ability to negotiate with the insurance adjuster or to connect with a jury. Some lawyers get better results than others.
Here’s how the two methods work:
With this method, an amount of money is assigned to each day or week of your suffering following your car accident. Let’s say that after about six months you were finally pain free.
That’s about 180 days. The lawyer could argue you that your daily pain for the dates in question should be compensated at $200 per day for a total of $36,000 in pain and suffering.
Keep in mind that insurance adjusters will argue that you should receive very little for pain and suffering – especially if they try to suggest your injuries were “minor.”
With this method, you simply multiply your medical bills and lost wages by a certain number. Many personal injury lawyers use three, but insurance companies have pushed back against this. You can guess why – they’d like to find a way to pay less. Today, they use complex software programs that arrive at different, and lower, calculations.
Gotta love ‘em! What will they come up with next?
The multiplier itself gets bigger in more severe accidents and lower in less severe ones. A minor fender bender might use a 0.5 or 1 or 2. In the case of injuries taking 6 months to recover from, 3 or 4 might be used. Lower numbers may also be used if you’re partially at fault.
So let’s say you ended up with $6,000 in medical bills and $2,000 in lost wages. That adds up to $8,000. Multiply that by 3 to get $24,000.
Some injury attorneys will take this “multiplier” number and average it with the “per diem” number. In this case, averaging $24,000 and $36,000 results in $30,000.
At this point, a demand letter gets crafted and negotiations begin with the insurance company.
By now, you can see that these numbers for “pain and suffering” can be fairly subjective, depending on the judgment of those involved. And that’s why it makes sense to have the most skilled personal injury lawyers you can find on your side.
Personal injury cases are about people…not bills. After all, most reasonable people would agree that someone who breaks an ankle in a wreck caused by no fault of their own and incurs $2,500.00 in medical bills should not be “limited” to $7,500.00 if they were unable to walk without crutches for 2 months.
Effective attorneys humanize cases and get adjusters or jurors to focus on the real impact the injury had on the victim’s life.
In the last 3 years, we’ve made TopVerdict’s annual Texas “Top 50 Personal Injury Settlements” list 43 times.
According to TopVerdict.com, our Dallas attorneys consistently achieve some of the highest recoveries in the state of Texas. As a matter of fact, in the last three years we’ve made their “Texas Top 50 Personal Injury Settlements” list 43 times. For example, in 2021 one of our claims made the Top 10 list, eight made the Top 11-20 list, and ten made the Top 21-50 list. When you factor in our reduced 29% contingency fee, we are confident we will help you recover more. At Mullen & Mullen, we pride ourselves on routinely recovering full policy limits for our clients without the necessity of costly and time-consuming litigation.
We have access to state-of-the-art diagnostic technology through well-established relationships with medical doctors, surgeons, physical therapists, chiropractors, neurologists, counselors, and other healthcare providers in the entire DFW Metroplex. You receive the quality medical attention you need from local providers near where you live or work. These providers specialize in treating people hurt in accidents of all kinds and they know how to properly document injuries to meet the legal burden of proof in your personal injury case. These providers are also willing to delay billing collections until after your case is resolved so you can focus on recovering without additional stress. Physicians that don’t routinely treat accident victims as part of their practice usually turn away patients over fear of being involved in the legal process or fear of health insurance companies refusing to pay accident-related healthcare bills. Please call us at 214-747-5240 for a free consultation and some advice.
Even if you don’t have health insurance or can’t afford your deductible, Mullen & Mullen will secure you the quality healthcare and state-of-the art diagnostics you deserve with no upfront out of pocket costs.
Shane, Joseph and Regis have almost 100 years of combined experience practicing personal injury law. That doesn’t even include the combined experience of the attorneys that serve as of-counsel to Mullen & Mullen at no additional cost to our clients. Our firm continues to evolve, but we never forget our Core Values. We do the right thing, handle cases the way we would want our own case handled, and we truly listen to clients. We have over 40 years of local knowledge, and that matters!
Some lawyers forget that they represent the client, but we never have. Our legal team will make YOU the priority. You are the boss, and we will respond quickly to your requests for case updates and assistance. We guarantee that when you need to speak to your counsel, you will speak directly to your counsel, not to a paralegal or secretary, because that’s the way it should be.
Most firms hire an investigator to help develop evidence on your case and charge you back for that service. Our firm, however, has 2 full-time accident investigators on staff and we offer their services to you for free. This is another way we will maximize your compensation.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Video footage is worth a lot more. Our in-house videographer allows us to capture the true impact the accident has on your life beyond mere words on a piece of paper.
When necessary, Mullen & Mullen Law Firm uses cutting edge technology like 3D imaging videos to fully demonstrate the extent of our clients’ injuries to the insurance companies. This also helps maximize the value of your claim.
Mullen & Mullen’s attorneys live and work right here in Dallas, and always have. We believe in paying our success forward by helping people in the North Texas community, and are dedicated to supporting these local charities.
Our success rate speaks for itself. We consistently earn awards from TopVerdict.com for achieving the highest settlement amounts in Texas. In fact, no other law office made their 2021 Texas "Top 50" personal injury settlements list as many times as we did. We placed on it nineteen times in a single year.
You'll always be kept in the loop regarding the status of your case. Calls are answered promptly, and you can even text your dedicated legal team directly 24/7.
We'll make you feel like part of the family, not just another case. Our compassionate lawyers will take the time to listen to your story, comprehensively understand your unique circumstances, and we will tailor our legal strategies accordingly. Your best interests are at the forefront of everything we do.
Mullen & Mullen has been a mainstay in the North Texas community since 1983. Our attorneys are always willing to meet with injury victims face-to-face. You won’t be dealing with some call center hundreds of miles away or on the other side of the country (or world).
We won’t back down or be intimidated in any form or fashion. We will not allow insurance carriers to delay, deny, or minimize your claim. We never hesitate to recommend litigation if it is necessary to achieve a just outcome.
When you work with a big law firm, you'll most likely be assigned a case worker and may never even talk to your attorney. Our attorneys make themselves available and invest in your case personally.
Of course we only get paid when you do. And when we do, we discount our legal fees to 29% instead of the industry standard 33.3% for claims that settle without litigation.
It's not just the hundreds of 5-star reviews that we've earned, but the things that our clients say. Read our reviews and you'll quickly see that we put passion into our work.
The Mullen & Mullen family is here to address your concerns and make the path to recovery smooth. There are no fees to get started and you pay $0 if we don’t settle your case.
Copyright © 2024 Mullen & Mullen Law Firm. All Rights Reserved.
LICENSED BY THE STATES OF TEXAS & MISSOURI FOR THE GENERAL PRACTICE OF LAW. The information on this website is not intended to be legal advice. That can only come from a qualified personal injury lawyer who is familiar with all the circumstances and facts of your specific case and the law relevant to it.
