What are noneconomic damages?
(top) A: Noneconomic damages are those losses which cannot be quantified in a dollar amount. The most prominent examples are pain and suffering, mental anguish, inconvenience, physical impairment or disability, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. The importance of categorizing damages as economic or noneconomic lies in the fact that noneconomic damages are sometimes capped under state law. For example, in Kansas, noneconomic damages are capped in all personal injury cases at a maximum of $250,000, no matter how many defendants contributed to cause the injuries, and no matter how serious the injury. We often see cases where people’s lives are devastated by catastrophic injuries, but if they are children or elderly, economic losses are limited and the capped amount of noneconomic damages is unfairly inadequate. Missouri does not have a cap on noneconomic damages except in medical negligence cases.
A. Noneconomic damages are those losses which cannot be quantified in a dollar amount. The most prominent examples are pain and suffering, mental anguish, inconvenience, physical impairment or disability, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life. The importance of categorizing damages as economic or noneconomic lies in the fact that noneconomic damages are sometimes limited under some state laws. We often see cases where people’s lives are devastated by catastrophic injuries, but if they are children or elderly, economic losses are limited and the capped amount of noneconomic damages is unfairly inadequate.
