Any person in Colorado who suffers injuries due to the negligence of another party may pursue recovery of damages. Such recovery is obtained by filing a personal injury lawsuit in a civil court. Claimable damages could include much more than medical expenses and lost income, as incidents such as motorcycle accidents and auto crashes can also cause significant emotional damage.
Non-economic damages include pain and suffering, with pain being the physiological injuries and suffering the psychological injuries. Also under this category of claimable damages are disfigurement, physical impairment, mental anguish, possible shortened lifespan, loss of life enjoyment and companionship, along with emotional distress. Determining which of these apply when a person pursues damage recovery is a complicated process.
Similar damages can have different effects on different accident victims. For example, if a computer technician with a passenger who is a runway model is involved in a motorcycle accident, the injuries may ruin the model’s career while the computer technician will be able to go right back to work after his wounds are healed. Calculating emotional damage and loss of future income for the model will be more complicated, and the value of the claim will likely be significantly higher than that of the computer technician.
For this reason, most victims of motorcycle accidents or other traumatic incidents seek the support and guidance of an experienced personal injury attorney to advocate for them in a civil lawsuit. A Colorado lawyer will likely use the multiplier method by which the value of the economic damages is multiplied by an arbitrary multiplier to determine the value to claim for pain and suffering. The attorney can explain the factors the court will consider when deciding on a monetary award to pay an accident victim.