Individuals who have been hurt can certainly sue for emotional damage in their personal injury cases; there is no doubt about it. In fact, according to Minneapolis lawyer John Wood, almost all personal injury cases have some type of emotional component attached. “Whether it is stress or sadness or depression, I don’t think anyone can be hurt for a period of time without starting to worry,” he says.
That worry and confusion usually comes up when someone suffers an injury that will affect him or her for a period of time, as opposed to an injury that can quickly be fixed and forgotten about. But in most personal injury cases, these types of minor scrapes and bruises aren’t what is going on. Most personal injury cases involve much more extensive types of injuries.
If a driver is struck by another driver who ran a red light, and that first driver suffers extensive bodily injuries, then those bodily injuries will almost always be accompanied by emotional suffering. Stress and depression are like emotional twins, and Wood says they almost always go hand in hand.
Unless the injury is very temporary, such as an injury with pain that lasts only a couple of days or a week, Wood doesn’t think anyone could be physically hurt without also experiencing an emotional element. The most common emotional element in these cases is stress over what will happen to the injured party’s job, or his relationships and other aspects of life that he may not be able to return to given his new physical state.
When people begin wondering whether they will ever be able to go back to work, or whether they will be able to do the things they used to do, that can lead to emotional stress and depression that they should be compensated for. “You can definitely start to ask a lot of ‘what if’ questions that would fall into the emotional damage component of the claim,” Wood says.
The problem with suing for emotional damage in a personal injury case, however, is that it can be much more difficult for a lawyer to prove. “It s not a lay down or a slam dunk all the time, because you have a lot of injuries even on the physical side that, unfortunately, are primarily based on someone’s subjective personal complaints of pain,” Wood says. Without the corroboration of X-rays and diagnostic studies that people can get for physical injuries, it can be extremely difficult for a lawyer to prove to a jury that his client is suffering from emotional damage due to the accident.
In order to make these claims, most lawyers will ask a doctor to testify. An expert psychologist with extensive training in dealing with the pain component of injuries, and what pain can do to someone’s personality, will usually be called in to consult on the case and offer his analysis.
Wood says that proving the emotional component in a personal injury case can at times become very contentious, because the defense will often try to accuse, if not imply, that the plaintiff is outright faking. In other cases, the defense may try to insinuate that the injured person is just out to make a buck, although Wood says that is very rare. Although mental injuries and emotional injuries are present in nearly every personal injury case, Wood says they are not talked about as commonly simply because it is so much harder to show or prove an emotional injury than it is to show a physical injury.
Being unable to prove this can actually be more damaging to the victims though, since they can begin to feel like nobody understands or believes what they are feeling. “They [start to feel] like they are in a goldfish bowl and everybody is looking at them,” Wood says. “Everybody wants to sympathize, but nobody really knows how to help.” Humans tend to feel more comfortable with something when they can corroborate it with their senses. This is impossible with emotional issues though, which is why victims with depression can begin to feel isolated.
In this way, the victims in personal injury cases can actually be victimized twice, Wood explains. To avoid this, he recommends hiring a lawyer who can represent you and fight for emotional compensation in your case.
This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.
