The multiplier method: scaling off your damages
The multiplier method is the industry's default approach. It takes your economic damages — medical bills and lost wages — and multiplies that total by a factor generally between 1.5 and 5, chosen based on injury severity, recovery time, and whether any permanent impairment is involved.
The per diem method: valuing each day
The per diem (Latin for "per day") method works differently. It assigns a specific dollar value to a single day of pain and suffering and multiplies that rate by the total number of days of documented recovery, tying the value directly to time rather than to the size of your medical bills.
The real question in Colorado: how is the injury classified?
Here's the genuinely Colorado-specific wrinkle: whichever method you use, the cap question doesn't turn on the method at all — it turns on how the resulting damages are classified. Under C.R.S. § 13-21-102.5, ordinary pain and suffering is capped at $1.5 million. But damages specifically attributable to permanent physical impairment or disfigurement are a separate, uncapped category under subsection (5) — regardless of whether you arrived at the number through a multiplier or a per diem calculation.
When the per diem method still earns its keep
The per diem method can carry real persuasive weight in a case with a long, clearly bounded recovery period, where counting days produces an easy-to-follow number for a jury or an adjuster — sometimes more compelling than a multiplier applied to a modest economic damages total, regardless of which cap category ultimately applies.
Neither is required by Colorado law
Both methods remain negotiating tools, not a formula Colorado courts are required to apply. A jury retains discretion to award pain-and-suffering damages within the statutory cap, and separately to award uncapped impairment or disfigurement damages where the evidence supports it.