Economic damages: the documented, countable losses
Economic damages are the straightforward, receipt-backed part of a claim. In an Alabama personal injury case, this generally includes medical expenses already incurred, lost wages from time away from work, property damage, and reasonably anticipated future medical care or lost earning capacity tied directly to the injury.
Non-economic damages: the subjective losses
Non-economic damages cover the losses that don't come with a receipt: physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and, where applicable, a spouse's loss of consortium. Alabama's own damages statute defines this same category — pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, and loss of consortium — for health care cases at Ala. Code § 6-5-544(a), and the same categories apply by common law to an ordinary injury claim. These are inherently harder to quantify, which is exactly why the multiplier method exists — to translate a documented economic figure into a reasoned estimate of the non-economic side.
Why getting economic damages complete genuinely matters
Because the multiplier method applies directly to your economic damages total, an incomplete economic tally doesn't just understate that one category — it understates the pain and suffering estimate built on top of it too. Forgetting a round of physical therapy or a week of lost overtime pay shrinks both halves of the final number at once.
Future costs count too
Anticipated future medical treatment tied to the injury — a planned surgery, ongoing physical therapy, or expected lost earning capacity — is generally treated as an economic damage alongside expenses already paid, provided it's reasonably supported by medical documentation.
Property damage usually runs on its own track
Vehicle repair costs and other property damage can technically be part of the overall economic damages picture, but in practice they're frequently resolved separately and faster, through the auto insurance claims process, rather than bundled into the longer timeline of an injury settlement.