Can You Seek Pain and Suffering Compensation After Your Arizona Accident?

The phrase “pain and suffering” with respect to personal injury claims can be confusing to victims. What exactly is pain and suffering? After an accident where there are injuries, pain and suffering is a legal phrase that describes the compensation that can be pursued for both physical and emotional agony that a person suffers after their accident. Pain and suffering are their own category of compensation, separate from the compensation you’d get to cover more tangible damages such as medical bills or lost wages.

What Are Considered Physical And Mental Suffering In An Arizona Personal Injury Claim?

When another party’s careless actions or behaviors cause an accident where you sustain injuries, there is the initial pain that the injuries inflicted. A broken bone, head trauma, lacerations, any type of injury will have initial pain. Some injuries require more treatment and longer healing time such as the need for physical therapy or surgery before recovery is possible. The pain that you have to endure goes far beyond the initial impact of the accident and affects your quality of life for a longer amount of time. Any number of accidents can cause ongoing pain including:

• Traffic accidents
• Workplace injuries
• Dog bites
• Slip and fall accidents

A dog bite, for instance, can also cause a victim to develop an infection or lose the sensation of feeling due to nerve damage from deep bites. This type of injury could also be additionally compensated with pain and suffering damages.

Accidents, no matter how they happen are a shock to our system and can cause various levels of mental distress. It isn’t as easy to prove mental pain and suffering because it is more abstract and not as easily quantified. When your emotions and mental health suffers as a result of an accident you can pursue mental pain and suffering compensation. An example would be after an accident, you have trouble sleeping at night and wake up constantly from terrible dreams of the incident. The fear, anxiety, loss of sleep, that you experience may require you to seek professional help to work through. This situation would be considered mental pain and suffering, and with the documentation of therapy appointments and the feedback of your mental health provider, you would have a better ability to prove you suffered from this damage.

Mental pain and suffering can manifest in many ways including:

• Emotional distress
• Fear 
• Anxiety
• Humiliation 
• Anger
• Stress
• Depression

If left untreated, these negative feelings can advance into more serious mental health conditions. Some of these conditions can include:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Erratic and uncontrollable mood
• Loss of appetite, sleep, inability to be intimate
• Inability to enjoy life
• Inability to keep your job

How Do You Build An Arizona Personal Injury Claim With Pain And Suffering?

To get the full amount of compensation you need for all of your damages and losses, it is best to hire an experienced and skillful Arizona personal injury attorney. The Arizona injury accident attorneys at ELG work solely on injury accident claims and our firm is well known for fighting on behalf of victims and winning their cases. Call the attorneys at ELG today to schedule a free consultation at either of our Phoenix or Mesa serious injury law offices at 623-562-3838.