Non-economic damages in a Georgia personal injury case compensate for harm that has no direct dollar value, such as physical pain and emotional suffering. They differ from damages tied to measurable financial losses.
They reach harms no invoice records. Beyond physical pain, this category takes in mental anguish, the loss of life’s enjoyments, and disfigurement, none of which arrives with a price tag. A person who can no longer garden or lift a grandchild has suffered a loss this category recognizes.
No formula produces the figure. Georgia law hands the factfinder no multiplier or schedule, leaving the amount to rest on the character and severity of what the person endures. Two people with similar diagnoses may receive very different amounts where the injury reshaped their lives differently.
They rest on proof of impact. What fills the gap left by the missing formula is testimony and record of how the injury changed the person’s days and capacities. The vividness and credibility of that proof do the work a calculation would.
Non-economic damages in Georgia turn on harms no invoice records, the absence of any governing formula, and dependence on proof of impact. Because the amount rests on judgment rather than arithmetic, how vividly the injury is shown to have altered daily life often carries more weight than the diagnosis itself.