Emotional distress claims are calculated as non-economic damages for settlement or as part of a verdict in a personal injury trial. These damages are more subjective to calculate than economic damages, but they can be a significant part of your settlement value or jury award.
In Arizona, the amount you can sue for emotional distress depends on the specific circumstances of your case. Here we discuss what severe emotional distress is, how emotional distress claims can become part of a personal injury claim, how emotional distress claims factor into settlement value, and how much time you have to make a claim for emotional distress compensation.
If you would like a personalized answer to how much you can sue for emotional distress in a personal injury claim, please call Stone Rose Law at (480) 631-3025 or use our contact form.
Emotional distress lawsuits and settlement claims are based on the mental suffering you experience from the negligent, reckless, or intentional acts of others. For claim settlement purposes, severe emotional distress damages fall into two types: negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In either of these categories, the emotional distress must be more than minor. Emotional distress claims must be for mental and/or emotional damages that result due to the conduct of the opposing party. In most cases the conduct must rise to the level that is so far outside the reasonable sensibilities of societal conduct that it “shocks the conscious”. So not just offensive behavior, but higher than that.
Examples of severe and extreme mental suffering include:
This form of emotional distress is based on a negligent cause of your harm. Basically, negligence means that the defendant should have known that a risk or circumstance existed that could cause the harm, to the point where the defendant owed you a duty of reasonable care to avoid that circumstance or risk. The failure to do so is a breach of the defendant’s duty of care, which gives rise to the negligence claim.
Negligent infliction of emotional distress claims are often connected with claims involving physical harm:
Intentional behavior is behavior that is purposeful in the emotional harm that it inflicts. Unlike negligence, the emotional distress is not an inadvertent consequence of the defendant’s conduct, but the desired outcome.
Lawsuits that involve harassment, defamation, or invasion of privacy are often associated with intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. Assault, menacing, and reckless endangerment behaviors can also lead to these claims. It is not always necessary for physical injury to be involved with intentional infliction of emotional distress claims.
Even though they are non-economic damages, emotional distress claims still require some degree of proof to successfully recover compensation for them. This evidence can be in the form of:
Unlike economic damages, which are reliant on easy-to-calculate proof like bills, invoices, and/or receipts, assessing fair compensation for non-economic damages depends on more indirect calculation.
In a jury trial, the jury will decide the value of non-economic emotional distress claims. Or, if there is no jury, the trial judge will make this calculation.
In a negotiated settlement, the value of emotional distress claims is based on methods like a multiple of your economic damages or on a per-diem method.
The dollar amount of an emotional distress claim can vary considerably, from a low end of less than $10,000 up to $100,000 or more for particularly serious emotional distress, like you might experience in a wrongful death claim. Unlike in some other states, Arizona has no statutory caps on how much you can receive for damages for pain and suffering.
As mentioned above, calculating emotional distress settlement amounts uses a multiplier or a per diem method.
The multiplier method works by fixing a value to your economic damages like medical expenses, lost income, and out-of-pocket expenses, then applying a multiple of that amount to factor in non-economic damages including emotional distress claims.
The multiple depends on considerations like the defendant’s conduct, and the seriousness of the harm. The multiple range usually runs from 1.5 up to 5 times the amount of the economic damages sum.
The per diem method applies a dollar value to your daily emotional distress claims. It then multiplies this daily sum by the number of days it is anticipated your recovery will take.
Emotional distress claims are usually part of personal injury lawsuits. In Arizona, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two years from the date of your injury or, if your injury symptoms are not immediately apparent at the time of the incident, then the two-year time limit begins when you actually experience them or reasonably should be aware of them.
It is important to file your claim for harm within the statute of limitations period. If you do not, then you could lose the right to seek compensation for significant mental suffering damages. In some cases the statute of limitations can be a short as one-year and just 180 days. Contact an experienced emotional distress attorney at Stone Rose Law today to discuss your matter.
Proving emotional distress damages can be challenging, but it is worth the effort to prove them to the fullest possible extent. Non-economic damages can significantly impact your overall settlement payout or damages award from a personal injury trial.
An Arizona personal injury attorney, like one you will have if you retain Stone Rose Law, can make sure that you receive the maximum emotional distress compensation you deserve if you have been the victim of negligent or intentional harm.
To speak with an experienced personal injury attorney about your possible compensation for emotional distress, call our law firm at (480) 631-3025 or use our online contact form to ask a question or to schedule a free initial consultation with one of our highly experienced personal injury lawyers.
