What Is Considered Emotional Distress in a Personal Injury Claim?
Personal injury claims cover more than just physical injuries and property damage. Emotional distress is another type of damage that may be taken into consideration when calculating damages for a personal injury claim. Many emotional distress claims are brought in conjunction with other physical injuries but can be claimed independently as well.
When you experience emotional distress after an accident, you may want to seek out compensation for any medical expenses or other damages that result. In this article, we'll help explain how emotional distress claims work and how you can seek damages for your emotional distress claim.
What is Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress Under Massachusetts Law?
Under Massachusetts law, a Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress (NIED) claim is a civil claim in response to one party acting recklessly or negligently that results in significant mental or emotional injury to another party. The term "emotional injury" refers to hurt feelings, but Massachusetts state law specifies how an action qualifies as an NIED and entitles a victim to compensation. The law sets specific limitations on emotional injury claims to prevent a defendant from facing an unlimited number of NIED claims. When one party’s negligence causes harm to another individual, the injured party has a right to seek compensation for his or her damages. However, others who witnessed the incident may also suffer emotional trauma, and some may be able to collect workers' compensation for their NIED claims. These types of claims can be complicated and may even rise to the level of what is called a loss of consortium claim. However, that is another conversation and perhaps a soon-to-be blog.
Proving Emotional Distress
In any civil claim, emotional distress is one of the hardest damages to prove. In order to get damages for emotional distress, you must show that the matter in question resulted in emotional distress, but how exactly do you prove what is in your head and body? Emotional distress can be demonstrated by producing evidence such as:
Mental health treatment records, counseling records, and prescriptions for psychiatric medication may all substantiate a mental health condition. In Massachusetts, a victim of emotional distress must prove any physical harm resulting from the emotional distress. However, the state is quite liberal in the symptoms which qualify as physical harm. Nervousness, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, or traumatic flashbacks are all symptoms that might constitute physical harm.
When possible, document information from family members, friends, coworkers, or others who can give an account of the person's emotional distress following the incident.
Expert witnesses can offer interpretations of a claimant's emotional distress and related symptoms. For example, if a person makes a claim for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating PTSD can help the court better understand the person's symptoms and confirm that anyone in the same situation would face risk of developing further PTSD symptoms. The expert will also be able to demonstrate what the client's prognosis is and what kind of recovery they can expect.
Get Professional Help With Your Emotional Distress Claim
The attorneys at Faneuf Law Group, LLC have extensive experience with various types of personal injury claims, including complex NIED claims. If you recently witnessed a loved one suffer a traumatic injury, or a negligent party’s actions caused emotional distress that resulted in significant physical symptoms, we can help you attempt to recover monetary damages.
Don’t forget, we offer contingent fees in all personal injury cases, meaning we take no fee from you until we get favorable results in your case. To learn more about a personal injury case, be sure to contact our Woburn personal injury Attorneys right now, give us a call at (617) 939-9894. You can also use our live chat option in the bottom right of your screen or you can use our online contact form here.