If you file a personal injury lawsuit against an individual or entity that you believe harmed you, then presumably, you’re looking to get some money out of the deal. The legal system calls this type of money damages. It’s financial restitution for what someone did that hurt you or made you ill.

You can collect different types of damages in the personal injury niche. For instance, punitive damages can add to the money you collect in personal injury cases. In fact, it can increase the total amount you get by quite a bit sometimes.

However, not everyone knows about the punitive damages concept. In this article, we’ll take some time to explain it. If you’re going to pursue a personal injury lawsuit, or you’re at least thinking about it, then you’ll want to have a good understanding of what this term means. 

What Does the Term “Punitive Damages” Mean?

The term “punitive damages” means additional money that a judge might opt to tack onto a judgment against a defendant if they happen to lose a lawsuit. In other words, a judge might decide to add some money to what a jury awards a plaintiff if the judge feels that’s the proper thing to do.

Obviously, this means that a judge can act with some degree of latitude. Judges have a great deal of power, and in the personal injury legal niche, this exemplifies their abilities.

Examples of Punitive Damages

If s judge decides that a situation warrants giving punitive damages to a plaintiff, then that probably means that the judge feels the defendant did something particularly egregious. For instance, maybe you have a situation where the defendant drank 20 beers and then plowed into a vehicle and seriously injured a child. The driver that hit the other vehicle also did so while in a school zone. 

That’s a horrifying crime. The defendant will face criminal charges in this case as well as civil ones. It’s not hard to see that this kind of person doesn’t respect the laws of society or decency.

The jury will probably award the defendant a good deal of money, but the judge may also decide to add quite a bit more to deter anyone else from doing something similar ever again. The defendant can always appeal this decision, but it’s pretty likely that another judge will uphold the ruling.

Maybe a company makes a product that hurts someone or makes them ill. The victim then sues the company. 

The company, acting as the defendant in this case, loses the lawsuit. The jury awards the defendant quite a bit of money in damages. 

However, it also comes out during the course of the trial that the company knew about the defect that hurt the defendant. They just elected not to do anything about it. 

That’s another situation where it is pretty likely that the judge will tack on some additional money in punitive damages. They will do so as a warning to other companies to never do anything like this again.

Basically, you can look at the awarding of punitive damages as a way that a judge can try to balance the scales of justice on their own. They know that a jury can do a lot in this regard, but a judge can act in such a way that they satisfy their own personal sense of justice as well. 

How Can You Tell How Much You Might Get in Punitive Damages?

If you’re a defendant in a personal injury lawsuit, then you can’t ever really tell how a trial will go. Even if you think that it’s very clear the defendant harmed you, there is still no guarantee that a jury will feel the same way. However, the more evidence you can produce that indicates the defendant hurt you or made you sick, the more likely you will get a judgment in your favor. 

As for punitive damages, you also can’t usually tell when or if a judge might give you any. That’s totally up to them. 

If anyone can see that the defendant acted in a horrible way, though, then it makes it more likely that you will get a sizeable judgment in your favor, and also that you may get some punitive damages as well. It’s still hard to say how much you might get, though.

Your lawyer may mention to you some similar cases that they know about and how much in punitive damages the defendants got in those instances. Much like any other kind of personal injury case, by looking at precedent, you can usually get some idea of what type of money you might collect.

Still, even if you can look at precedent, that does not guarantee any amount of money that you might receive. That’s why you should never count on getting any particular sum of money when you file one of these lawsuits. 

Can You Increase Your Chances of Getting Punitive Damages?

You might also wonder whether you can do anything to increase your chances of getting punitive damages. You may increase your chances if you can try to explain while on the witness stand not only what the defendant did, but also how it impacted your life.

Maybe you’re filing a wrongful death lawsuit because the actions of the defendant killed someone who you loved very much. If so, then you can give a victim impact statement.

You can talk about what your life looked like before the incident and after it. You might speak about how you feel hopeless and bereft without the person who died. 

If you can do that, then it’s definitely probable you can get the judge to give you some additional money on top of what you will get from the jury’s decision. Judges don’t often respond well to you hamming it up on the stand, but if you deliver a sincere and heartfelt statement, you might see extra financial compensation as a result.