Damages in Illinois Personal Injury Lawsuits

Personal injury claims and lawsuits arise when people are injured by careless or intentional acts of others, or injured by products that are defective in some way. When an Illinois judge or jury determines that someone is legally responsible for injuring someone else, they are liable for the injury, and may be made to pay the injured person damages.

Damages are monetary compensation that is awarded by a court in a civil action to an individual who has been injured through the wrongful conduct of another party. Damages attempt to measure in financial terms the extent of harm a plaintiff has suffered because of a defendant's actions. Simply put, without damages there is not a case. Lawyers only get paid if they win and they will not take on a case where actual damages don’t exist.

Compensatory damages attempt to put an injured person back in the position he or she was in before being injured. There are two broad categories of compensatory damages: economic and non-economic. Economic damages, such as lost wages and medical bills, have specific monetary values, whereas non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering and loss of consortium, do not.

Damages for pain and suffering fall into the non-economic category. There are many factors that must be taken into account to determine how much money someone will get for their pain and suffering. Pain and suffering damages are subjective, meaning that one jury may believe your damages are worth a certain amount while another jury may completely disagree and believe they are worth much less.

In addition to present and future pain and suffering, mental pain and suffering can also be considered in assessing compensatory damages. Included in mental pain and suffering are fright, nervousness, grief, emotional trauma, anxiety, humiliation, and indignity. Just as medical treatment can show a broken bone or a brain injury, it also takes medical treatment to prove a mental injury. You usually can’t just say that you have experienced anguish, you have to demonstrate what is wrong with you through a counselor or psychologist.

In Illinois, a spouse may bring a claim for a loss of consortium arising out of injury to their spouse. Loss of consortium is a non-economic damage that provides recovery for the loss of sexual relations, material services, companionship and happiness as a result of the personal injury. Again, loss of consortium is subjective and needs to be proven by witness testimony.

The measure of compensatory damages must be real and tangible, although it can be difficult to fix the amount with certainty, especially in cases involving claims of pain and suffering. In assessing the amount of compensatory damages to be awarded, the judge or jury must exercise good judgment and common sense, based on general experience and knowledge. The jury or judge has wide discretion to award damages in whatever amount is deemed appropriate, so long as the amount is supported by the evidence in the case.

In some cases, punitive damages are also awarded in these lawsuits. Punitive damages are intended to punish wrongdoers and prevent them from harming others.

When your personal injury lawyer files your lawsuit, he or she will estimate the amount of damages you are claiming. When the estimated damages are less than $50,000, the case will end up in municipal court. When the estimated damages exceed $50,000, the case will be held in the Law Division of the Circuit Court. Many people want to know at the get go what their accident case is worth. In reality you can’t tell what a case is worth until you are healed.

Ultimately, though, your case is "worth" whatever a judge or jury awards at trial, or whatever your opponent will agree to pay in settlement. Therefore it is important, and we think necessary, that you hire an experienced Illinois personal injury lawyer to help you recover the most damages possible. If you have any questions about personal injury law or would like a referral to an Illinois personal injury lawyer, please contact us.