Several U.S. states impose damage caps, or limits, on some types of damages available to injury victims in Arlington personal injury claims, but do these caps exist in Washington?
Washington’s personal injury laws under 4.22 RCW provide the details of the state’s pure comparative negligence system, which does not include caps on personal injury damages. Instead, Washington’s Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that capping damages is unconstitutional. However, other factors may impact the amount you can recover in your claim, depending on the unique circumstances of your case.
Types of Damages In Washington Personal Injury Claims
Before understanding potential limits on your compensation, it’s important to understand the types of damages available for compensation to injury victims in Washington. When another party’s careless, reckless, or wrongful actions cause you an injury, the physical and financial consequences of the injury become the damages in your personal injury claim in Washington. Damages are divided into the following three categories:
- Economic damages: these typically include reimbursement for medical expenses, anticipated future medical expenses, out-of-pocket costs, lost earnings, future income loss, or diminished future earning capacity
- Non-economic damages: these are the intangible but often devastating physical consequences, including pain, suffering, emotional trauma, and catastrophic injury, such as loss of limb or permanent disfigurement
- Punitive (exemplary) damages: This serves not as compensation for the victim, but as a means of punishment for the wrongdoer; however, punitive damages are rarely awarded in Washington
Unlike many states, Washington courts do not allow injury victims to seek punitive damages, leaving punishment to the criminal court. So, while there are no caps on compensatory damages, the lack of availability of punitive damages for an injury victim limits financial compensation in Washington compared to other states, which allow this category of damages in cases of injury resulting from egregious recklessness or intentional wrongdoing.
Are There Other Limits on Compensatory Damages In Washington Personal Injury Claims?
While there are no caps on compensatory damages in Washington, there are potential pitfalls that may impact the total amount of your recovery. For instance, Washington is a pure comparative negligence state under RCW 4.22, which allows an insurance company to reduce the amount of compensation by the percentage of the injury victim’s fault for the accident or injury. In other words, under the law of contributory fault, an insurance adjuster investigates the cause of the accident to assign percentages of fault to all involved, to equal 100%. If the insurance company determines that the injury victim contributed to the cause or severity of their injury, they subtract their percentage of fault from the amount they pay on the claim. Fortunately, a trusted Washington personal injury attorney can often safeguard their injured client from this tactic by conducting an independent investigation to present compelling evidence of the at-fault party’s full liability.
Because most personal injury claims are filed against the appropriate insurance policy, such as auto insurance after suffering car accident injuries or commercial liability insurance after a slip-and-fall accident in a store, the at-fault party’s policy limits may also restrict a claimant from recovering the full value of the damages. However, an experienced Washington personal injury lawyer pursues all available avenues to recover the maximum compensation for their client.