Economic damages: the documented, countable losses
Economic damages are the straightforward, receipt-backed part of a claim. In a Georgia 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: pain and suffering, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life. 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.
Neither compensatory category is capped
Georgia's legislature tried to cap non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases at $350,000 in 2005. The Georgia Supreme Court struck that cap down in Nestlehutt (2010) and reaffirmed the ruling in Clark v. Leigh (2026). Today, neither economic nor non-economic compensatory damages are capped in any Georgia personal injury case.
A genuinely different third category: punitive damages
It's worth keeping punitive damages distinct from this split entirely. Punitive damages don't compensate the plaintiff's loss at all — they punish the defendant's conduct, and Georgia caps them at $250,000 in most cases under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1, with real exceptions for product liability (uncapped, but 75% goes to the state), impaired driving, and conduct showing specific intent to harm. That's a meaningfully different rulebook than the one that governs your economic and non-economic damages.
Fault treats the compensatory categories the same way
Georgia's 50% fault bar doesn't distinguish between economic and non-economic damages. If your fault bars the claim, it bars recovery of both categories together — there's no partial exception letting one category through while the other is barred.