Factors That May Influence Your Pain And Suffering Damages

In a personal injury case, you expect some damages to cover your pain and suffering. These damages are not easy to calculate because it is neither easy to calculate the depth of your pain and suffering nor to put a monetary value on them. However, there are some factors that may affect the value of your pain and suffering damages.

Nature and Extent of Your Injuries 

This is one of the most important factors that determine your pain and suffering award. This is because injuries to some parts of the body are considered more painful than others. For example, a head injury may be more painful than soft tissue injuries in your legs. Another factor considered here is whether you have a permanent or temporary disability.

Whether You Are a Good Witness

If you are a good witness, then the jury will consider you more reliable, and are likely to award you more in pain and suffering damages. This is because the jurors will be lead to believe your description of pain. If the jurors consider you a bad witness (for example by lying during trial), however, then your pain and suffering damages may suffer negatively too. This consideration may extend to your witnesses; the jury may give you a low award if the members think that your witnesses lied.

Criminal Record

Many people have a natural tendency to distrust and dislike criminals. Therefore, if you have a criminal record, then you will have a hard time getting the jury to like, trust or sympathize with you. As you probably know, it is not easy to get a substantial award from a jury that neither trusts nor likes you.

Clarity of Your Injuries

Some injuries are clear and easy to see while others aren't so easy to understand by the public. For example, a broken limb is easy to see while nerve injuries, such as a carpal tunnel syndrome, may not be clear to the jurors. Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised to see jurors award less money for pain and suffering if the injury isn't clearly visible from the outside. This is why it's important to have an expert witness explain the nature of your injuries to the jury.

As you can see, there are so many factors that come into play when pain and suffering damages are being considered. You need the assistance of an experienced personal injury attorney to manage all these factors to your benefit. For example, your attorney will teach you how to behave in court so that the jury can like or trust you.