What Are Non-Economic and Economic Damages?

The goal of your personal injury lawyer should be to maximize the compensation that a jury would award you for your injuries. A jury can award economic damages, and economic damages are things like medical expenses, whether they’re past expenses or expenses that you’re going to incur in the future as a result of your injury. Then there’s also wage loss claims; if you’re unable to work or if you have to take a lower-paying job due to your injury, then you would be eligible for wage loss claims. Those are economic damages because those are damages that we know how to count. We have evidence of what charges are for medical services, or we know what you were making at your job before you were injured.

But where the real injuries lie in many of these cases are in the non-economic damages. In non-economic damages, you’re really looking at human suffering. So you’re looking at pain and suffering—did the injury cause you pain? Is it going to cause you pain for the rest of your life? What emotional suffering is there? What are you struggling with now that you are in a different condition, whether it’s physically, mentally, or occupationally because of your injury?

The other issue for economic damages is in death cases. So, in death cases in Illinois, we’re looking at the loss of a loved one. What does the loss of a mother, a brother, or a child mean? What have you lost, and for how long have you lost that love, support, care, and affection? The other element of damages in a death case is grief, sorrow, and mental anguish. Often, we find that our clients are suffering more grief, sorrow, and mental anguish because they know that the injury and the death of their loved one were wrongfully caused.

Other elements of non-economic damages include physical disability, changes in appearances, and any kind of difference in the person from before the accident to after the accident. Often, to really get a sense of what the true non-economic damages are, a lawyer has to understand and learn about their clients so that they can bring the story to life for the jury.