- May 15, 2025
You're not just dealing with broken bones or missed workdays. You're also coping with the deeper impact of what you've lost—comfort, freedom, and peace of mind. These losses fall under what the law calls "pain and suffering." Proving them, though, takes more than a stack of bills or a doctor’s note. You need an attorney to help you build a clear, compelling picture of how your life has changed and why you deserve to be compensated for it.
Read on to learn what "pain and suffering" means legally, how it’s evaluated, and what kind of proof actually moves the needle. You’ll also learn how a personal injury attorney builds these claims and why working with the right legal team matters. If you’re in Michigan, you should reach out to a Detroit personal injury lawyer for specific guidance and advocacy for your case.
Types of Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering cover a broad range of losses. Here are some common examples:- Physical pain: This includes acute pain from injuries like fractures, burns, or whiplash, as well as chronic pain that persists for months or years.
- Emotional distress: Mood changes, irritability, panic attacks, or depression triggered by the injury or trauma.
- Loss of enjoyment: If you can’t go fishing, play with your kids, dance, or cook—things that brought you joy before the accident—that loss is real and compensable.
- Loss of consortium: This refers to damage done to your relationships, especially with a spouse or partner, due to your injuries.
- Sleep disturbances: Whether from nightmares, anxiety, or physical discomfort, poor sleep can be part of your claim.
Each of these types reflects how the injury has affected your overall well-being—not just your wallet.
Understanding Pain and Suffering Damages
In a personal injury case, not all losses come with a receipt. While medical bills and lost wages are easier to measure, the pain you feel in your body or the stress that keeps you up at night doesn’t show up on an invoice. Still, these experiences have real value in a legal claim. Pain and suffering damages aim to cover these non-economic losses—the law allows injured individuals to seek compensation for the emotional and physical fallout of an accident—what’s known as “pain and suffering.”
To understand how this works, it helps to break down damages into two categories: economic and non-economic.
Economic damages include the direct costs of your injury:
- Hospital stays
- Surgeries and follow-up visits
- Physical therapy
- Lost wages from missing work
- Future lost earnings if you can’t return to your job
These are objective and can usually be proven with paperwork—bills, receipts, timecards, and so on.
Non-economic damages, by contrast, deal with how your injury affects your life in ways that don’t show up on a balance sheet. These include:
- Ongoing physical pain from broken bones, nerve damage, or surgical recovery
- Emotional distress like depression, anxiety, or trauma from the accident
- Disruption of personal relationships
- Difficulty enjoying hobbies or activities you used to love
- Embarrassment from scarring or disfigurement
- Frustration and hopelessness due to limited mobility or lost independence
While economic damages reimburse your actual costs, non-economic damages aim to make up for how your life has changed. Can I claim compensation for these losses? Yes—if your injuries stem from someone else’s negligence, you can pursue both types of damages as part of your personal injury claim.
How Courts and Insurance Companies Evaluate These Claims
Insurance adjusters and juries don’t have a universal formula to measure pain and suffering. Instead, they rely on a combination of evidence, logic, and experience to evaluate claims. They may consider:
- The severity and visibility of your injuries
- The length and difficulty of your recovery
- Whether the injury caused permanent damage
- The credibility of your testimony and that of others who know you
- Supporting documents like medical records, journals, and photos
In Michigan, courts may apply pain and suffering damages in auto accident cases when the victim suffers a "serious impairment of body function" under the state's no-fault insurance law. That makes documentation especially important for Michigan residents. Even if your injuries don’t seem catastrophic, you may still qualify for significant compensation if they impact your ability to live as you once did.
Understanding what qualifies as pain and suffering—and how to prove it—is a crucial step in building your case. Insurance companies pay for pain and suffering when the evidence shows that your physical and emotional injuries significantly affect your life, but they rarely offer fair compensation without pressure. The next sections walk through the kinds of evidence and strategies that help you show exactly what you’ve been through and why it matters.
Importance of Proper Documentation
Words alone won’t convince an insurance adjuster or a jury. You need evidence to back up your story. That starts with a paper trail and visual proof that show how much your injuries have disrupted your life. Questions to ask your personal injury attorney at this stage might include how they plan to present that evidence, what kinds of documentation carry the most weight, and whether additional expert opinions will strengthen your claim.
Medical Records
Hospitals and clinics don’t just treat your injuries—they document them. Every appointment, diagnosis, prescription, and physical therapy note builds your case. The more consistent your medical care is, the easier it is to connect your pain to the accident.
Keeping a Detailed Pain Journal
Write down what you're feeling. Every day. A pain journal helps track your symptoms, mood changes, sleep issues, and limitations. You can include things like:
- Difficulty getting out of bed
- Missed events or family gatherings
- Trouble focusing or remembering things
- Feelings of hopelessness or anxiety
This kind of firsthand account paints a picture of your day-to-day reality.
Photos and Videos
Images speak louder than words. Take photos of bruises, scars, casts, surgical sites, and swelling. Keep documenting during your recovery—mobility issues, physical therapy sessions, and any assistive devices you use.
Prescription Medication Records
Painkillers, antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds—each prescription adds another layer to your claim. They show that you're not just uncomfortable; you're actively treating ongoing pain and emotional symptoms.
Expert Testimony
Sometimes you need more than your own story and your doctor’s notes. Outside testimony can help clarify just how serious your injuries are—and how long the effects might last.
Medical Professionals
Treating physicians can offer insight into your condition, the treatment plan, and expected recovery timeline. They help connect your pain directly to the accident and rule out other causes.
Mental Health Providers
If you're experiencing anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or PTSD after your accident, therapists and psychologists can provide diagnoses and treatment notes that support your claim.
Life Care Planners and Vocational Analysts
These professionals explain how your injuries affect your ability to work, earn a living, or live independently. They create long-term projections that can significantly increase the value of your claim.
Establishing Causation and Severity
All of this testimony works together to show not only that you're hurt—but how badly, for how long, and because of whom.
Witness Statements
People around you notice the changes, even if you’re too close to see them clearly. Their testimony adds credibility to your case.
Family and Friends
Loved ones can share stories of how your personality, abilities, and routines have changed. Maybe you used to be active and social, but now you stay inside, in pain, and withdrawn.
Co-Workers
They can describe how your injuries affect your work. Maybe you can’t lift heavy objects anymore, or you take longer to complete tasks. Maybe you’ve had to cut back hours or take frequent breaks.
Before-and-After Perspectives
Comparisons matter. Statements from people who knew you before the accident carry weight because they can describe your baseline. They can show how far you’ve fallen from your old normal.
Objective Evidence of Subjective Pain
Pain is personal. You feel it, but no one else can see it. Still, there are ways to show it through outside evidence.
Diagnostic Tests
X-rays, MRIs, CT scans—these tools reveal injuries the naked eye can’t see. They help verify that your pain isn’t just in your head.
Mental Health Evaluations
A licensed therapist or psychologist can provide formal assessments that show how the accident affected your emotional well-being.
Pain Management Records
If you’ve undergone nerve blocks, injections, physical therapy, or chiropractic care, those treatments document the intensity of your suffering and the effort required to manage it.
Functional Capacity Evaluations
These assessments test your ability to perform tasks like lifting, bending, sitting, or walking. If you fail or struggle, it supports your claim that daily life has become harder.
Quantifying Your Suffering
How do you assign a dollar amount to pain? It’s not a science, but several methods help courts and insurance companies estimate the value.
Multiplier Method
This approach multiplies your economic damages by a number (typically 1.5 to 5) depending on how serious your injuries are. A broken arm might warrant a multiplier of 2. A permanent disability might push that to 5.
Per Diem Method
Here, you assign a daily rate to your suffering and multiply it by the number of days you’ve been affected. For instance, $150 a day over 200 days would be $30,000.
Factors That Influence Valuation
- Severity and visibility of the injury
- Length of recovery
- Long-term consequences
- Credibility of your statements
- Strength of supporting evidence
Common Challenges and How Your Attorney Overcomes Them
Even with solid evidence, you may still face pushback. The other side often tries to minimize or deny your pain.“Invisible” Injuries
Soft tissue damage or emotional trauma doesn’t always show up on scans. Attorneys use layered evidence—testimony, journals, mental health evaluations—to make those injuries real to a jury or adjuster.
Pre-Existing Conditions
If you had prior back problems, the defense might argue your pain isn’t from the accident. A good attorney shows the difference between how you felt before and how much worse it became after the incident.
Insurance Company Tactics
Adjusters might claim you’re exaggerating. They might offer a lowball settlement. Your Detroit personal injury lawyer pushes back, using documentation and expert opinions to support the full value of your claim.
Gaps in Treatment
Missing doctor appointments or waiting too long to get care can weaken your case. An attorney explains those gaps (maybe you couldn’t afford treatment or were misdiagnosed early on) and keeps the focus on your suffering.
Seeking Legal Help
You don’t need to do this alone. Why you need a lawyer comes down to more than just paperwork—an experienced attorney builds your case from the ground up, connecting the dots between your injury, your suffering, and the responsible party.
How an Attorney Helps
- Collects and organizes medical records and evidence
- Reaches out to expert witnesses
- Communicates with the insurance company
- Calculates a fair valuation
- Prepares for court if necessary
When to Get Help
The sooner, the better. The more time your Detroit personal injury lawyer has to gather evidence and build your claim, the stronger your case becomes.
What to Ask When Hiring an Attorney
- Have you handled cases like mine in Michigan?
- What’s your strategy for proving pain and suffering?
- How do you approach negotiations with insurance companies?
- What kinds of settlements or verdicts have you secured? It’s also fair to ask, what happens if you refuse a settlement? If the offer doesn’t reflect the full extent of your damages, your attorney may recommend continuing negotiations or taking the case to trial to pursue a better outcome.
Speak with Our Experienced Michigan Personal Injury Lawyers Today
Proving pain and suffering isn’t about putting a price on pain. It’s about making sure the person who caused your injury doesn’t get away with leaving you to deal with the consequences.
The strongest claims come from those who document everything. Keep records. Write things down. Speak with people who’ve seen you change. And don’t settle for less than what your recovery truly requires.
At Goodman Acker PC, we build strong, evidence-based cases that hold negligent parties accountable. Our team has helped countless Michigan clients secure fair compensation, not just for bills and lost wages, but for everything they’ve endured. We take time to understand your story and develop a plan that supports it—one document, one testimony, one fact at a time.
If you're ready to take the next step, reach out for a free case evaluation. Let’s talk about how we can help you prove your pain and suffering—and get the compensation you truly deserve.