Economic damages: the documented, countable losses
Economic damages are the straightforward, receipt-backed part of a claim. In a Kentucky 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, emotional distress, 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.
Why this split doesn't decide a cap in Kentucky
In many states, this exact split determines what's limited — a cap applies to the non-economic side while economic damages pass through freely. Kentucky has no such mechanism to apply: Section 54 of the Kentucky Constitution prohibits capping either category, or any combination of them, in any type of personal injury case, including medical malpractice. The distinction simply doesn't carry the weight here that it does elsewhere.
The split still matters for the math itself
Even without a cap in play, the economic vs. non-economic distinction remains practically important: the multiplier method is applied specifically to your economic damages total, so a complete and well-documented economic tally still drives the size of the overall estimate. Underreporting your medical expenses or lost wages understates your non-economic estimate too, since the multiplier scales off that base figure.
Fault treats both categories the same way
Kentucky's pure comparative negligence rule doesn't distinguish between economic and non-economic damages — your fault percentage reduces both proportionally, with no threshold at which either category, or the claim as a whole, is barred.