How this estimate is built
Your medical expenses and lost wages are your economic damages — the easy-to-document part, and these are never capped in Colorado. We then apply the multiplier method, the same approach insurers and attorneys use industry-wide, to estimate pain and suffering: your economic damages multiplied by a factor of 1.5 to 5, depending on how serious the injury actually was.
Colorado's $1.5 million cap, and the recent fight over it
Under C.R.S. § 13-21-102.5, Colorado caps non-economic damages — pain, suffering, inconvenience, and emotional distress — in an ordinary personal injury case at $1,500,000 for suits filed on or after January 1, 2025, rising with inflation every two years. This is a major increase from the prior $729,790 limit. In exchange, House Bill 24-1472 eliminated a feature of the old law that let a court double the cap upon "clear and convincing evidence" — that option no longer exists. A separate 2024 ballot push to eliminate the cap entirely, and another to cap attorney contingency fees at 25%, were both withdrawn as part of this same legislative compromise.
The exception that still has real teeth
Here's what survived the reform intact: subsection (5) of the same statute states that nothing in the section limits recovery of compensatory damages for permanent physical impairment or disfigurement. Colorado courts treat this as a genuinely separate, uncapped category of damages — distinct from both economic damages and ordinary pain and suffering. It's an actively contested area of Colorado law right now, with appellate courts still working out exactly how it should be instructed to juries.
Your own fault still has a hard cutoff
Colorado follows modified comparative negligence: if your fault is less than the other party's, your recovery is reduced proportionally. Reach 50% fault or more, and you recover nothing. See our Colorado comparative negligence calculator for the full rule.