How Severity Affects the Pain & Suffering Cap Tier

By the FigureMyTax Editorial Team · How we calculate

In most capped states, severity affects where your award lands within a single ceiling. In Alaska, severity can change the ceiling itself — moving you from a $250,000 cap to one that could be well above $400,000.

Two tiers, one trigger

Under AS 09.17.010, the default cap on noneconomic damages is $250,000. That cap rises to the greater of $400,000 or your life expectancy in years × $8,000 if the case involves:

• Severe permanent physical impairment — a lasting, substantial loss of physical function
• Severe disfigurement — a significant, lasting change in appearance
• Wrongful death — automatically qualifies for the higher tier, no separate severity showing required

Why age matters more than you'd expect

Because the alternative formula multiplies life expectancy in years by $8,000, a younger plaintiff with a longer remaining life expectancy can reach a far higher cap than $400,000. A plaintiff with 60 years of life expectancy remaining, for example, reaches $480,000 under that formula — above the flat $400,000 figure. This means two plaintiffs with identical injuries but different ages could see meaningfully different caps on their noneconomic damages.

A real example from the Alaska Supreme Court

In Kisling v. Grosz, 565 P.3d 226 (Alaska 2025), the jury's $1.2 million noneconomic damages finding, after being reduced for the plaintiff's own 75% fault, left the defendant owing $300,000 — below even the standard $400,000 severe-injury tier, so the cap never came into play at all for that particular defendant's share. The case illustrates that the cap is a ceiling, not a target: many awards land well under it even in severe cases.

This is general information, not legal advice. Whether an injury qualifies as "severe" is a fact-specific determination. Confirm how this applies to your case with a licensed Alaska attorney.