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 Maine's wrongful death caps, if they apply.
Ordinary claims: no damages cap
Outside wrongful death, Maine places no cap on economic or non-economic damages in a personal injury case.
A genuinely unusual way of reducing damages for fault
Under 14 M.R.S. § 156, Maine's comparative negligence statute doesn't simply multiply your damages by your fault percentage. Instead, the jury first finds the total damages you'd be owed, and is then instructed separately to reduce that figure by a specific dollar amount it considers "just and equitable," having regard to your share of responsibility. In practice this often tracks something close to a percentage reduction, but it isn't mechanically required to — and Maine still retains joint and several liability among multiple defendants, unlike many states that have moved to several-only liability.
The 50% bar still applies
Regardless of how the dollar reduction is calculated, a claimant found to be 50% or more at fault is barred from recovering anything at all.
Wrongful death: its own distinctive cap structure
If the injury resulted in death, Maine's Wrongful Death Act (18-C M.R.S. § 2-807) caps damages for loss of comfort, society and companionship at $1,000,000, adjusted every year for inflation. Punitive damages under this same Act are separately capped at $500,000. Pecuniary (economic) damages for the estate are not capped at all.