It sounds morbid.
Here you are, injured.
You're coming into court seeking compensation.
For all the harms and losses you experienced.
All because of someone else's carelessness.
All because of their negligence.
All because of their lack of ordinary care, or in a doctor's case, all because he violated the basic standards of medical care.
You experienced really bad injuries.
You needed surgery.
You needed hospitalization.
You needed months of rehabilitation.
You can no longer do the same type of activities you used to do.
You are inhibited and limited in your daily activities now.
You are still in pain.
Pain in the morning.
Pain at night.
Pain after you eat.
Nobody can see your pain, but it's obvious to you.
You need pain medication to get you through the day.
You need pain medication to take the edge off.
You are intolerable without the pain relief.
You are miserable without some type of pain medication.
Yet you don't want to get addicted.
Your orthopedist tells you your pain will continue for years.
Your neurologist tells you that your pain will be with you for the rest of your life.
You know when it's going to rain.
You know when it's going to snow.
You know because your joints hurt much more on those days.
When you bring a lawsuit seeking compensation and your case goes to trial, the jury needs to know how much longer you're going to live.
They need to know.
The judge needs to know.
The jury will understand your pain.
The jury will recognize the pain.
The jury will hear from your treating doctors that you are in pain.
They will hear that this pain will affect you for the rest of your life.
At the end of the case, the jury will have to determine if the people you have sued are legally responsible for your injuries.
If they are, then they have to decide whether your injuries are a result of the carelessness by the people you have sued.
It it is, then they jury will then have to evaluate how much compensation to give to you in the form of a verdict.
That verdict will list how much the jury will compensate you for the suffering and pain you have endured from the time of the wrongdoing until the trial.
It will also list how much compensation the jury will give to you for the future.
Here is where your life expectancy will now come in.
If the statistical life expectancy tables indicate you will live for another 30 years, the jury will take that into account when deciding how much money to give to you for each year of your life into the future you can be expected to live.
If the jury finds the people you have sued were negligent and their carelessness was a cause of your injuries, now the jury must decide whether your injuries are life-long. If they are, they must assign a total amount of compensation for the pain and the suffering you can be expected to endure over the next 30 years of your life.
That number may be very significant.
Let's say they decide you are legally entitled to receive three million dollars for the next 30 years just for your pain and suffering into the future. If you break that down, that equates to $100,000 per year for the next 30 years.
This is exactly why the jury needs to know, statistically speaking, how much longer you can be expected to live.
