Noneconomic Damages

Noneconomic damages are money awarded to compensate for harms that don't come with a receipt or pay stub, the physical pain, emotional suffering, fear, disfigurement, and lost enjoyment of life caused by an injury or illness. In an asbestos case, they recognize that a diagnosis like mesothelioma takes far more from a person than just income and medical bills. Unlike economic damages, there is no invoice to add up; a jury or claims reviewer decides the amount based on the evidence of how the disease has affected the patient and family.

Origin

The legal distinction between "economic" and "noneconomic" damages took shape in 20th-century American tort reform debates, when state legislatures began separating out-of-pocket losses from intangible harms in order to cap the latter. The word "damages" itself comes from the Latin damnum (loss or injury), entering English law through Norman French.

Significance in Asbestos Context

For most asbestos patients, noneconomic damages are the largest part of any verdict or settlement, especially in mesothelioma cases where life expectancy is short and lost future wages may be limited (for example, in retired workers). They are how the legal system places a value on the breathlessness, repeated surgeries, chemotherapy side effects, anxiety about leaving family behind, and loss of the retirement years a patient expected to enjoy. Several states cap noneconomic damages, but many carve out exceptions for cases involving catastrophic injury, wrongful death, or intentional/reckless corporate conduct, which is why the cap rules in your specific state matter enormously. Defendants routinely try to minimize these damages by arguing the patient had a short remaining life expectancy or pre-existing conditions, so your legal team will want detailed evidence of how the disease has changed your daily life.

Example Sentence

Because her husband was already retired when he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, most of the family's recovery came in the form of noneconomic damages for his pain, suffering, and the loss of the active retirement they had planned together.

Related Terms

Economic Damages, Pain and Suffering, Loss of Consortium, Punitive Damages, Compensatory Damages, Wrongful Death

Notes

• Ask whether your state caps noneconomic damages and whether asbestos or wrongful-death cases are exempt from the cap. This can change the value of your case dramatically.
• Keep a symptom and impact journal: pain levels, fatigue, activities you can no longer do, sleep disruption, anxiety, missed family events. Contemporaneous notes are powerful evidence at trial or in settlement negotiations.
• Preserve photos and videos from before and after diagnosis showing hobbies, travel, work, and family activities; jurors respond strongly to seeing what the disease has taken away.
• Family members may have their own related claim (loss of consortium) for the loss of companionship, intimacy, and household contribution. Make sure your attorney evaluates this separately.
• Trust-fund claims and some settlements use fixed payment matrices that do not separately itemize noneconomic damages; ask how pain and suffering is accounted for in any specific recovery channel.