How is Pain and Suffering Calculated in Florida?

Florida accident victims can seek compensation for pain and suffering when someone else is responsible for their injuries. Calculating a dollar amount for pain and suffering damages depends on factors like the severity of your injuries, their adverse effects on your life, the emotional trauma you suffered, and any resulting disabilities. A skilled personal injury attorney can assess your losses and place a value on your case to account for them all.

When another party’s negligence causes an incident that harms you, Florida law allows you to file a personal injury against them. In a successful case, you can recover compensation for your financial and non-financial losses, including money for your physical pain and emotional suffering.

Insurance companies may try to avoid compensating you for pain and suffering by offering a settlement that only provides money for your medical bills, long-term disability care, and lost wages. An experienced Florida personal injury lawyer can fight to secure the money you deserve for the physical and mental pain you endured.

What are the Different Methods for Calculating Pain and Suffering Compensation?

Over the years, insurance companies have used various techniques to calculate compensation for an accident victim’s pain and suffering.
One is called the multiplier method. Using the multiplier method, an insurance adjuster or attorney will add up the victim’s financial losses, including medical expenses, costs of long-term care, and lost income and/or earning capacity, and then multiply that total by a factor between one and five. The multiplier used depends on the severity of an accident victim’s injuries and whether those injuries resulted in permanent disabilities.

Another approach for a pain and suffering claim is the per diem method. Under this method, an accident victim receives a set amount of money each day until they are no longer in pain or reach maximum medical improvement — the point where doctors determine additional treatment will no longer make meaningful improvements to their condition. This daily amount is often based on the injured party’s daily wage. The per diem method has limited value for claimants who experience permanent disabilities from their injuries and never fully recover.

Many websites publish pain and suffering calculators that consider various factors to estimate the amount of pain and suffering compensation a victim could receive in their personal injury case. However, these tools can provide unreliable sums without a detailed examination of the unique facts of each claim.

In addition, trial courts do not give juries a specific method for calculating pain and suffering compensation in personal injury lawsuits. Instead, jury instructions in personal injury cases advise jurors to award pain and suffering compensation in a “fair and just” amount based on the available evidence. The instructions also instruct jurors that they can award pain and suffering compensation for physical impairments, disabilities, disfigurement, mental anguish, inconvenience, and loss of capacity for enjoyment of life.

What Factors Affect the Amount of Compensation for Pain and Suffering?

Attorneys, insurance companies, and juries may consider various factors when determining what constitutes fair compensation for an accident victim’s pain and suffering. Examples include:

• The type and severity of injuries you’ve suffered
• The types of medical treatment and rehabilitation you need
• The duration of your recovery
• Whether you develop permanent disabilities
• The effect of your injuries on your well-being and physical and/or mental health
• The extent to which your injuries limit your ability to participate in activities you previously enjoyed or to perform daily tasks
• How much your injuries limit your ability to interact with your loved ones, especially your spouse
• Whether you experience any humiliation or embarrassment from scarring or disfigurement
• Whether you’ve become temporarily or permanently disabled from working
• Your age at the time of your injury and your current age

How Do You Support Calculations for Pain and Suffering?

Pain and suffering damages account for intangible losses. As such, they are subjective and unique to the individual. Placing a dollar value on these non-economic losses is more challenging than for straightforward financial losses in a personal injury case. With economic losses, you can rely on financial documentation such as medical bills, invoices, receipts, and pay stubs or income statements. Proving non-economic losses for pain and suffering requires different kinds of evidence, such as:

• Medical records of your injury treatment and rehabilitation
• Prescription and pain management history
• Treatment notes from your medical providers
• Psychological evaluations and diagnoses of depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Medical and vocational expert reports and testimony
• Statements from your family members, friends, and yourself about the effect your injuries have had on your life and well-being, including whether you’ve had to stop working or participating in activities you enjoyed before you got hurt

Are There Caps on Pain and Suffering Damage Awards in Florida?

Previously, Florida law imposed caps on non-economic damage awards in medical malpractice and wrongful death claims. In recent years, the Florida Supreme Court has struck down many of these caps as unconstitutionally reducing awards for plaintiffs. Following the Supreme Court’s rulings, Florida legislators have proposed bills placing new caps on pain and suffering damage awards in medical malpractice claims.

However, Florida’s Tort Claims Act limits the compensation a personal injury claimant can recover in a claim against the state or local government. The law limits a government’s liability to one person in a personal injury claim to $200,000 and total liability for all claims arising from a single incident to $300,000.

Contact a Florida Personal Injury Lawyer

If you suffered a serious injury that caused you significant physical and emotional pain, you may have the right to recover compensation for your pain and suffering. Contact Zervos & Calta, PLLC, today for a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney. There’s no obligation and no fee unless we recover money for you.

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About the Author

Lauren Calta
Attorney Lauren Calta is a partner in the Tampa Bay law firm Zervos & Calta, PLLC. For 25 years, Lauren Calta has focused her legal practice on representing people who have been harmed in personal injury, car accidents or lost loved ones due to the negligence of others. A distinguished personal injury trial attorney, she has secured millions of dollars for her clients and is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar and Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum in recognition of having obtained a settlement or verdict in excess of $2 million. She also is an official member of Lawyers of Distinction, Tampa Bay Trial Lawyers, Clearwater Bar Association and Florida Justice Association.