Blog

What are Emotional Distress Damages and How Do I Prove Them?

Emotional distress damages are hard to prove in personal injury cases. A dog bite attorney could claim that his customers suffer from physical injuries and emotional distress after a dog assault incident. That emotional distress may affect their ability to continue their daily activities and cause anxiety within their family. 

Trying to find evidence to support your arguments about emotional distress is a challenging issue. The damages to your mental world are not obvious to the audience, and thus, judges are not willing to vote for your recovery. However, an experienced lawyer can help you prove you are suffering from emotional distress after a personal injury accident. Here are some of the most effective ways to provide evidence for your psychological burden due to your injuries.

Current  Medical Records of Symptoms and Their Duration

Stress and anxiety are hard to assess from a single glance. There are no medical tests to prove your suffering, and people may think you are faking it just to receive a bigger recovery. On the other hand, modern psychiatry has found several ways to ascertain that you are really suffering from stress and anxiety.

Medical records showing the difference in drug medication doses and the anxiety diagnosis could be useful to your lawyer. Despite the difficulties in proving your current mental state, the comparative analysis of your medical history could give the court all the evidence needed to prove the emotional distress.

Make a Direct Connection to Physical Injuries

Physical injuries caused by an accident (most usually a dog assault and bite incident) could haunt you for years. Even after your physical wounds are completely healed, emotional distress can be present every time you see or hear a dog. Proof of such apprehension enables your lawyer to prove the direct linkage of your physical injuries to the anxiety you are suffering from and ask for recovery.

Although physical injuries can be observable, the same cannot be said for psychological effects after your accident. It's your lawyer's responsibility to state the case in front of the audience and even show your fearful feelings when being around dogs; that could persuade them about the suffering you have been going through. 

Expert Witness

You can summon specialist psychiatrists and psychologists in courts to give their insight into your stress disorder. If you never had issues with stress and anxiety, then doctors can easily prove in front of the audience that your situation has been aggravated by a recent dog bite accident.

Suffering through such a traumatic experience would be noticeable by specialists even from the first minutes of an interview. Your lawyer needs to ask them the right questions and let them explain how trauma from the incident has affected your mental health. 

Point Out the Severity of Distress

Some people cannot live with anxiety and stress. The severity of their situation comes to such a point that it might trigger suicidal thoughts. That incident poses a great threat to your health and could trigger a sense of apprehension every time you think about it.  The side effects are the physical and mental injuries you have to live with for some or all your life. 

Lawyers can use these symptoms to your advantage and fight to prove you suffered serious emotional distress that has affected how you go about your life and that you deserve recovery.

Witness Testimonies

Another possible way to prove your emotional distress would be to present witnesses' testimonies from the incident scene. Many people could have seen your injuries and ensuing shock after such a terrible ordeal. The details on your dog incident could help prove that the dog’s owner was negligent in their actions or omissions. It could also help experts to establish that you suffered psychological distress.

Your lawyer should get in touch with witnesses, take their testimonies and even summon them to the court to state what they saw during the incident. Other people's opinion about your emotional situation influences the jurors and judges to decide in favor of your emotional distress damages and recovery claims.

People who unfortunately experience dog bite incidents may suffer from stress, anxiety, and Post - Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The symptoms might include insomnia, fear of walking alone, and suicidal thoughts.

Psychological issues after a traumatic incident tend to linger even after the physical ones are resolved. Your lawyer can identify the root of the problem and try their best to get you adequate recovery for these damages as well. You deserve proper psychological treatment to help you move past these negative thoughts. The liable party for your incident ought to offer you recovery for all injuries brought about by their negligence.


More to Read: