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In a personal injury case, general damages are the compensation you receive for the intangible losses following an injury, like pain and suffering and emotional distress.
By contrast, special damages are the compensation for more ascertainable losses, like medical expenses and lost wages.
While general damages are sometimes called “non-economic damages,” special damages are called “economic damages.”
There are two main differences between these types of damages. These are:
- special damages usually have a measurable dollar amount attached to them while general damages do not, and
- special damages are typically easier to calculate than general damages
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 state court), or
- personal injury claim (filed with an insurance company).3
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.
Proving special damages
Medical damages
For example, you were injured in a car accident 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 often difficult to calculate.
Consider, for example, you suffer severe physical pain in a slip and fall accident. 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. Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages are meant to punish the person or entity responsible (the “defendant”) for causing the injury.
Most states say that you can recover them in injury cases, but typically only when you were hurt because of a person’s:
- gross negligence,
- willful conduct, or
- fraudulent acts
Florida law
Florida law says that injury victims can receive punitive damages, but only when they were hurt because of another person’s:
- “intentional misconduct,” or
- “gross negligence.”4
5. Do states impose caps on damages?
Some do while others do not. A “damage cap” is a legal term that means you as the plaintiff can only receive a certain amount of damages in an injury case. In other words, the damages are “capped” at a certain dollar amount.
Some states only cap special damages, while some only cap general damages. Further, some states place caps on both, while a few do not cap either.
California law
In California, there are generally no caps on the compensatory damages that you can receive in a personal injury case. A judge or jury can award you with any fair and reasonable sum.
Though the state says that medical malpractice cases are an exception: There is a cap on pain and suffering and other non-economic damages.5
Legal References
- See, for example, State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. (Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District, 2022) 336 So. 3d 392 (“”Special damages must, therefore, be particularly specified in a complaint in order to apprise the opposing party of the nature of the special damages claimed. If special damages are not specifically pled, then evidence of them is inadmissible.””).
- See, for example, Kanahele v. Han (Haw. 2011) 263 P.3d 726 (“A zero award of general damages may be allowed to stand, despite an award of special damages, when “the evidence indicate[d] a dispute over the amount of claimed special damages[ ]” such that “the zero-general-damages verdict [i]s evidence of the jury’s intent to include in the special damages award an amount for pain and suffering[,]” or “there is no probative evidence that the plaintiff incurred pain and suffering as a consequence of the defendant’s act [,]” or “where the only evidence of pain and suffering is the plaintiff’s subjective testimony, which the jury could reasonably have concluded was exaggerated or lacking in credibility.””).
- See, for example, Firm That Paid Estefan Sues To Recoup Its $8.95 Million, Deseret News (Nov 18, 1991); John Kell, Walmart Settles Accident Lawsuit with Actor Tracy Morgan, Time ().
- See, for example, Florida Statutes 768.72 (2021).
- California Civil Code 3333.2(b). Assembly Bill 35 (2022).