What damages are awarded in a Maryland personal injury case?

Economic damages: the losses you can put a receipt to

Economic damages repay the financial cost of an injury. They are proven with bills, pay records and, for future losses, testimony from doctors and economists. They usually include:

• Past medical expenses: emergency care, hospital stays, surgery, therapy, medication and equipment
• Future medical expenses, which in a serious case are set out in a life care plan prepared by a medical professional
• Lost wages for time missed from work
• Lost earning capacity, when the injury limits the work you can do or how long you can do it
• Household services and care you can no longer do yourself and now need to pay for or rely on family to provide
• Property damage, such as the vehicle in a crash

Future losses are where most of the value in a serious case sits, and where most of the disagreement happens. They are argued with evidence, not estimated. Our pages on spinal injury claims and brain injury claims show how that evidence is built.

Non-economic damages: what the injury took from daily life

Non-economic damages compensate for harm that has no invoice. In Maryland they cover physical pain, mental anguish and emotional distress, disfigurement and scarring, inconvenience, and the loss of the activities and routines that made up a person’s life before the injury.

For a married couple, Maryland also recognizes a loss of consortium claim for the injury to the marriage itself. It is brought jointly by both spouses, together with the injured spouse’s own claim, rather than as a separate lawsuit by the uninjured spouse.

How pain and suffering is calculated in Maryland

Maryland law does not set a formula for pain and suffering. At trial, the jury is asked to decide an amount that fairly compensates for what the person has endured and will endure, based on the evidence it heard. In settlement talks, the figure is negotiated against what a jury would be likely to award.

You will see two shortcuts described online. The multiplier method multiplies the medical bills by a number, often said to range from 1.5 to 5. The per diem method assigns a daily dollar figure to each day of pain. Insurers and lawyers use shortcuts like these as rough reference points, but neither is a Maryland legal rule, and neither binds a jury. A small bill can sit alongside a life-changing injury, and the reverse.

What actually moves the figure is proof of how the injury has changed a life:

• Medical records that describe pain, limits and treatment consistently from the first visit onward
• The length of recovery, and whether a doctor expects any permanent impairment
• Visible injuries: photographs over time, and scarring or disfigurement
• Testimony from family, co-workers and friends about what changed
• The injured person’s own record, such as a journal of symptoms and missed events

Gaps in treatment and inconsistent descriptions of pain are the most common ways this proof is undermined, which is why documentation from the start matters. See delayed neck and back pain after a crash for how that plays out in car accident cases.

The Maryland cap on non-economic damages

Maryland caps non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, and adjusts that cap over time. Medical malpractice claims have their own separate cap. In ordinary personal injury cases, the cap is set by Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 11-108 and is adjusted each October 1.

Three points are worth knowing:

• The cap applies only to non-economic damages. Medical costs, lost income and the other economic losses are not capped.
• Wrongful death claims with more than one surviving beneficiary are treated differently from claims with one. See wrongful death claims.
• Claims revived by the Maryland Child Victims Act are subject to their own damages caps.

Juries are not told about the cap. If a verdict exceeds it, the court reduces the non-economic award to the cap. In practice, the cap matters in the most serious cases; in most claims, insurance coverage and proof limit the recovery long before the cap does.

Punitive damages are rare in Maryland

Punitive damages punish conduct rather than compensate a loss. Maryland sets a high bar for punitive damages, requiring actual malice rather than recklessness, and the injured person must prove it by clear and convincing evidence. Maryland courts have held that driving while intoxicated does not by itself meet that standard.

Most injury cases, including most car accident and premises cases, do not involve punitive damages at all. We raise them only where the evidence supports them.

Maryland rules that can reduce or defeat a recovery

Contributory negligence. Maryland is one of the few places in the United States that still follow this rule: if the injured person is found even slightly at fault, they can be barred from recovering anything. See contributory negligence in Maryland.

The filing deadline. Most Maryland injury lawsuits must be filed within three years of the injury. Claims against government bodies can require written notice much sooner.

Liens and repayment. Health insurers, Medicare, Medicaid and workers’ compensation carriers that paid for treatment may have a right to be repaid from the recovery. That does not reduce what the claim is worth, but it affects what reaches you, and it is often negotiable.

Common questions