How to Recover “Compensatory Damages” in a California Personal Injury Case

In California personal injury cases, compensatory damages are the money that a wrongdoer pays in order to compensate you for losses. This is distinguished from punitive damages, which are intended to punish the wrongdoer and discourage others from similar behavior.

In California accident or injury cases, types of compensatory damages – also called actual damages – fall into two basic categories:

To help you better understand how to recover compensatory damages in a California personal injury case, our California personal injury lawyers discuss, below:

• 1. Economic damages in a personal injury case
• 2. Non-economic damages in a personal injury case
• 3. Are there damage caps in California?
• Additional resources

1. What are economic damages in a personal injury case?

Your “economic damages” are those to which a dollar amount can readily be attached. Also called special damages, economic damages are intended to cover “out-of-pocket” amounts you actually spent or will be required to spend in the future.

Economic losses often include (but are not limited to):

• Past and future medical expenses (including for mental health medical treatments, prescription drugs, home health care, etc.),
• Property damage,
• Lost wages / loss of earnings, and
• Lost earning capacity.¹

2. What are non-economic damages?

Non-economic damages are those which do not necessarily involve out-of-pocket expenses or a particular sum of money. Also called general damages (as opposed to special damages), non-economic damages include more subjective losses such as:

• Pain and suffering,
• Emotional distress and mental anguish,
• Physical impairment (such as loss of the use of a limb or organ),
• Disfigurement,
• Unjust hardship,
• Loss of consortium,
• Inconvenience, and
• Loss of enjoyment of life.²

3. Are there “damage caps” in California personal injury cases?

In general, California state law places no cap on the amount of compensatory damages in a personal injury case. The jury (or, in a bench trial, the judge) can award any fair and reasonable monetary award in

• a car accident case,
• a slip and fall case, or
• other accident cases.

Medical malpractice cases are an exception, however. In a California medical malpractice case, there is a cap on pain and suffering and other non-economic damages. As of January 1, 2023, the cap is:

• $350,000 in non-fatality cases. Each new year this cap rises by $40,000 until it hits $750,000.
• $500,000 in wrongful death cases. Each new year this cap rises by $50,000 until it hits $1 million.³

The cap applies regardless of

• how serious the injury is or
• the number of defendants there are.

The California Supreme Court has upheld this cap as constitutional.

There may be other legal theories on which you can sue (such as breach of contract, battery, or violation of California’s products liability laws).

Note that there is no cap on the amount of punitive damages (also called exemplary damages) in a personal injury case. Though a punitive damage award may not be grossly excessive or arbitrary. Punitive damages are meant to punish a defendant’s conduct.

For more information on proving compensatory damages in California, we invite you to browse our articles on specific types of damage.

Additional resources

For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:

• The Remedies Issues: Compensatory Damages, Specific Performance, Punitive Damages, Supersedeas Bonds, and Abstention – Review Litigation.
• Lost punitive damages as compensatory loss – Defense Counsel Journal.
• Assessing Economic Damages in Personal Injury and Wrongful Death Litigation: The State of California – Journal of Forensic Economics.
• Interest as Damages in California – UCLA Law Review.
• Measurement of Restitution: Coordinating Restitution with Compensatory Damages and Punitive Damages – Washington & Lee Law Review.

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