California law allows you to recover two types of compensatory damages in personal injury lawsuits: “Special damages” and “general damages.”
Special Damages – also called economic damages – include tangible losses such as medical expenses, lost wages, and any other out-of-pocket expenses incurred from the injury.
General damages – also called non-economic damages – comprise intangible losses such as pain and suffering.
The following table compares and contrasts special damages vs. general damages.
| Special Damages | General Damages | |
| Definition | Quantifiable monetary losses directly resulting from the injury | Damages that are more subjective and not easily quantifiable |
| Also Known As | Economic damages | Non-economic damages |
| Nature | Objective, can be precisely calculated | Subjective, based on the jury’s judgment |
| Proof Required | Specific documentation (such as bills, receipts, pay stubs) | Testimony and evidence of impact on quality of life |
| Examples | Medical expenses, lost wages, property damage, future medical costs | Pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life |
| Calculation Method | Direct summation of actual costs and projected future expenses | Often uses multipliers or per diem methods as starting points |
1. Is there a specific dollar amount with special and general damages?
With special damages, yes. Not with general damages.
Special Damages
Special damages refer to monetary losses that you may suffer that have a specific value associated with them.1
Examples include:
- medical bills and medical expenses (including ambulance rides, ER visits, rehabilitation, physical therapy, medications, etc.),
- lost wages or loss of earnings,
- future lost earning capacity,
- property damage (such as car repairs, replacing damaged property, or reimbursements of irreplaceable property), and
- out-of-pocket expenses (such as household assistance, towing costs, and rental costs).
General Damages
In contrast, general damages are a type of monetary compensation that are not associated with a specific monetary value.2
Examples include:
- pain and suffering (present and future),
- loss of companionship,
- loss of consortium (loss of marital relationship benefits),
- mental anguish,
- loss of quality of life,
- physical pain,
- emotional distress (such as PTSD),
- disfigurement (including scarring),
- impairment (such as a loss of a limb), and
- disability (such as being bound to a wheelchair).
The above damages are more intangible than special damages. As a result, they often come without a specific dollar amount assigned to them.
Compensatory Damages = Special + General damages
Note that both special and general damages are added together to make up an injury victim’s compensatory damages. If you were injured because of another person’s actions, you can receive these usually via a:
- personal injury case or lawsuit (filed in a California court), or
- personal injury claim (filed with an insurance company).
2. Are special damages easy to calculate?
Yes. Since special damages have a set dollar value assigned to them, they are often fairly easy to determine by past paper or digital invoices and receipts.
Medical Damages
For example, you were injured in a car accident in California and had to undergo medical treatment as a result. You can estimate the total cost of this treatment by adding up all of your medical bills.
You can even estimate future medical bills based on what your physician recommends as your course of treatment.
Note that you are entitled to full reimbursement of your medical expenses, even if you have very unique injuries due to a rare condition.
Non-Medical Damages
It is also possible to easily determine your lost wages by multiplying your past paycheck amount by the number of pay periods you have been unable to work.
If your car was totaled, you can consult Kelley Blue Book for what the current value is.
For any other kind of property damage, your attorney can research similar accidents to find comparable damage amounts.
3. Are general damages easy to calculate?
No. Since general damages come with no exact dollar amount associated with them, they are difficult to calculate.
Consider, for example, you suffer severe physical pain in a slip and fall accident in California. You are entitled to compensation for the pain, but there is no good way to calculate it.
Proving General Damages
Personal injury attorneys usually work with expert witnesses to help a judge or jury understand the true value of general damages. You might also call upon pain management experts or psychologists to attest to your level of pain.
Precisely because general damages are subjective, your attorney will present you as sympathetic and likeable as possible in the hopes that the judge will be inclined to grant you a large general damages award.
4. What are punitive damages?
Punitive damages are a third type of damage that some injury victims may receive in California. Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their:
- oppression,
- fraud, or
- malice.3
5. Does California impose caps on damages?
In California, there are generally no caps on the compensatory damages that you can receive in a personal injury case. Though in medical malpractice cases, there is a cap on pain and suffering and other non-economic damages.5 As of January 1, 2024, the cap is:
- $390,000 in non-fatality cases (every new year, the cap goes up by $40,000 until it is $750,000);
- $550,000 in wrongful death cases (every new year, the cap goes up to $50,000 until it reaches $1,000,000).4
Unlike some other states, California does not place a cap (or upper limit) on the amount of punitive damages that can be awarded in a personal injury case.
Additional Reading
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.
Legal References
- CACI 3909. See, for example: Williams v. The Pep Boys Manny Moe & Jack of California (2018) 27 Cal.App.5th 225; Gutierrez v. Cassiar Mining Corp. (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 148; Martinez v. State Dept. of Health Care Services (2017) 19 Cal.App.5th 370.
- CACI 3905. See, for example: Pearl v. City of Los Angeles (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 475; Bigler-Engler v. Breg, Inc. (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 276; Wilson v. Southern California Edison Co. (2015) 234 Cal.App.4th 123.
- California Civil Code 3294.
- California Civil Code 3333.2. Assembly Bill 35 (2022).
