Your involvement in a personal injury accident may leave you physically hurt temporarily or permanently. No matter, your physical injuries may contribute to your emotional pain and distress. Overall, you may be mourning the lifestyle you worked so hard to build for yourself, and that you were once so happy to live out. In that case, please read on to discover how you might experience a loss of enjoyment of life and how one of the seasoned Panama City personal injury attorneys at Manuel & Thompson, PA, can help you get compensated if you do.
How might I experience a loss of enjoyment of life after my accident?
Generally speaking, your loss of enjoyment of life may be caused by your inability to appreciate and participate in the things you once loved post-accident. This lost enjoyment may be attributed to your incurred physical limitations, along with the long-lasting emotional and psychological impact that being made the victim of a personal injury accident has on you. Without further ado, you may sadly experience a loss of enjoyment of life in the following ways:
- Lost enjoyment due to physical limitations:
- Lost engagement in hobbies and physical activities.
- Lost autonomy and independence in executing daily tasks.
- Lost sense of purpose after stepping away from your career.
- Lost enjoyment caused by emotional and psychological impacts:
- Lost companionship with romantic partners.
- Lost social interaction due to shame over physical impairment.
- Lost participation in social gatherings due to chronic pain or depression.
How do I calculate the cost of my lost enjoyment?
A loss of enjoyment of life is classified as a non-economic damage in the context of your personal injury claim. That said, non-economic damages are notoriously more difficult to prove, given that they are intangible, subjective, and not affiliated with a specific dollar amount of incurred losses.
Nonetheless, Florida may use the multiplier method to calculate your loss of enjoyment of life. Here, they may multiply the total of your claimed economic damages by a number between one and five. The number they choose may depend on the severity of your bodily injuries and how long they are estimated to affect your life.
For example, say the cost of your economic damages (i.e., medical bills, lost wages, property damages, etc). was $50,000. Then, say your diagnosed physical condition is a permanent disability that is life-altering, life-threatening, or life-ending. The court may decide to use the five multiplier and value your loss of enjoyment of life as $250,000. Therefore, at the very least, you may be recovering $300,000 in financial compensation from the negligent party.
Before this gets too much, please seek the guidance and counsel of one of the competent Panama City personal injury attorneys from Manuel & Thompson, PA. We will work to the best of our ability to minimize or eliminate this mess from your immediate worry.
