How this estimate is built
Your medical expenses and lost wages are your economic damages. We apply the multiplier method, the industry-standard approach, to estimate pain and suffering: your economic damages multiplied by a factor of 1.5 to 5 — then checked against Kansas's wrongful death cap, if it applies.
If the injured person survived: no cap at all, since 2019
In Hilburn v. Enerpipe Ltd. (2019), the Kansas Supreme Court struck down the state's long-standing cap on noneconomic damages as unconstitutional, holding it violated the right to a jury trial. Neither economic nor noneconomic damages are currently capped in an ordinary Kansas personal injury case.
If the injury resulted in death: a separate cap still applies
Hilburn only addressed the statute governing living plaintiffs. A different statute, Kansas Code § 60-1903, caps non-pecuniary damages in a wrongful death action at $250,000 — and the Kansas Supreme Court has separately upheld this cap as constitutional. Economic (pecuniary) damages in a wrongful death case remain uncapped; only the non-pecuniary portion is limited. The jury isn't told about this cap; if its award for non-pecuniary loss exceeds $250,000, the court simply enters judgment for that amount instead.
The fault rule: a stricter bar than most states
Kansas Code § 60-258a sets a 50% bar: your fault must be strictly less than the defendants' combined fault to recover anything. Unlike the "51% bar" used in many states, a Kansas claimant found exactly 50% at fault recovers nothing at all.